By Jorge Casuso

April 1, 2026 -- Santa Monica's rental market -- while still one of the priciest in Los Angeles County -- has cooled over the past two years, according to Rent Control Board's annual report.

The report released this week found that rent control tenants who moved into studio and one-bedroom units in 2024 and 2025 are paying higher median rents than the going market rates.

Over the past two years, median initial rents across all unit sizes rose less than two percent -- with median rents for studio units rising by $5 per month and those for one-bedroom units rising by $51.

Meanwhile, the general adjustment set by the Rent Board was 3 percent in 2024 and 2.3 percent in 2025.

"With rents already unaffordable to all but higher income households, data indicate the market for available rental units recently has not sustained the rates of increase seen in previous years," the annual report noted.

Current median rents -- which represent the middle value, with half the rents above the amount and half below -- are currently $2,100 for studios, $2,700 for one-bedrooms, $3,675 for two-bedrooms and $4,895 for three or more bedrooms.

However, the median rent of $2,751 for all rent control units in 2025 was easily more than double the $1,150 median for "long-term" units rented before 1999, when California's "vacancy decontrol" law kicked in.

The law allows the owners of rent-control buildings occupied when voters passed Santa Monica's rent control law in 1979 to raise the rents to market rates when a tenant voluntarily vacates or is evicted for not paying rent.

As of December 31, 2025, a total of 21,103 of the city's 27,589 controlled rental units, or more than three-quarters, had been rented at market rates at least once since January 1, 1999, according to the report.

Turnover for recently occupied market rate units remains high, with 68 percent of the units that were re-rented having been vacated by tenants who moved in between 2020 and 2024.

Meanwhile, a total of 5,521 of controlled units, or 20 percent, remain occupied by renters who moved in before 1999.

As a result, the income required to rent a market rate controlled unit is $110,000, compared to $46,000 for a "long-term" unit, based on the Federal standard 30 percent of income for housing costs, according to the report.

"In simple terms, the impact of market-rate vacancy increases is erosion of the number of units that are affordable to all but higher-income households," the report said.

The report noted that the median household income for Santa Monica is higher than the Los Angeles area's, according the U.S. Census Bureau.

But it added that "many current Santa Monica households would be challenged to find an affordable market-rate unit if they wanted to move.

"As rental prices are similarly high regionally, options for affordable housing are very rare not only locally but in many parts of Los Angeles," the report said.

In 2025, 132 long-term units, or 3.6 percent, were rented at market-rate for the first time, according to the data.

"The annual reduction of units occupied by long-term tenants has slowed over time as a smaller share of units remain occupied" by those tenants, the report stated.

Nearly half of the 27,589 controlled units -- 12,945-- are one-bedroom units and 9,695 are two-bedroom units, together comprising 82 percent of the controlled housing stock.

There were also 2,910 studios and 2,039 three or more-bedroom units.

The Downtown area had the fewest number of rent-controlled units, 1,067, while te Wilshire and Montana area had the most 6,044.

In 2025,a total of 34 units were withdrawn from the rental housing market under the State Ellis Act, which allows landlords of rent control buildings to get out of the housing market.

A total of 20 formerly withdrawn units returned to the market, resulting in a net loss for the year of 14 controlled units.

In addition to eviction notices for properties being withdrawn under the Ellis Act, the Rent Board recorded eviction notices affecting 55 units last year, down from 74 in 2024.

"As usual, the most common reason cited for eviction was for alleged lease violations, accounting for 36 of the notices received, followed by seven for nuisance, six for owner-occupancy, and two for denied entry by the landlord," the report said.

For the full report click HERE