Rents

"Selling L.A. " reality show viewers may wonder if any of the featured homes actually sell. Although perhaps not in time for the closing credits, some houses under consideration for the show do find a buyer outside the roving eye of the camera. One home that agent Rebekah Schwartz was promoting to HGTV for its 15 minutes of fame was the Marina del Rey pad that former Laker Lamar Odom rented a few years back. Listed at $1.995 million in January, it closed early this month at $1.825 million.

"Selling L.A. " reality show viewers may wonder if any of the featured homes actually sell. Although perhaps not in time for the closing credits, some houses under consideration for the show do find a buyer outside the roving eye of the camera. One home that agent Rebekah Schwartz was promoting to HGTV for its 15 minutes of fame was the Marina del Rey pad that former Laker Lamar Odom rented a few years back. Listed at $1.995 million in January, it closed early this month at $1.825 million.

A nation still struggling to clear up one housing debacle has run smack into another - soaring rents. The foreclosure mess has pushed millions of former homeowners with tarnished credit into a competitive apartment market across the U.S. Add fresh demand from young workers, few new units and tight standards for home loans, and the result is rental sticker shock not seen in years. Rents are surging from New York to Los Angeles. The average monthly U.S. rent for apartments hit $1,008 in the first quarter, pushing past the all-time high set in the third quarter of 2008, according to the data firm RealFacts.

The company introduced last year as a financially powerful production partner for KCET-TV has been reduced to a tiny operation that has been late on some of its bills, according to several people familiar with the company. In addition, the company relied on mass-market DVDs, and not just its own archive, for some segments of a nostalgia program it makes for the public television station, according to these people. Four people who have worked for Eyetronics Media & Studios said in interviews that they and others had gone without pay for as long as six weeks during the last year.

The most archetypal American small town in Los Angeles County may be El Segundo, with its neighborly mid-century vibe. Visitors arriving on Main Street pass stately brick-and-stone El Segundo High School, a popular filming location, before encountering a large wooden directory erected by the Kiwanis Club that lists the city's 11 churches. Around the corner at Wendy's Place Cafe, there are framed jigsaw puzzles of Saturday Evening Post covers drawn by Norman Rockwell hanging on the paneled wall above the milkshake machine.

The last surviving original developer of Marina del Rey got a little emotional before turning a shovelful of dirt to mark the beginning of a new apartment complex that will replace the one he built in the early 1960s. Under an awning decked in red, white and blue, Jerry Epstein recalled last month how financiers were skeptical of the man-made marina in its early days, and only a "very substantial" loan from actor Kirk Douglas gave Epstein enough cash to build Del Rey Shores apartments on Via Marina.

Apartment rents are falling across most of Southern California as unemployed tenants double up with friends or family and the affordability of foreclosed homes makes some renters into buyers, a new survey has found. The average rent in Los Angeles County fell almost 4% in 2008 as apartment occupancy rates dropped and new units came online.

The Southland's economic recovery may be halting and tepid, but the cost of apartment living is rising sharply with rents in Los Angeles County predicted to soar 7.9% over the next year, according to a USC report. The annual Casden Multifamily Forecast by the university's Lusk Center for Real Estate showed rents last year rose in 39 of the submarkets the report tracks in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino. That across-the-board increase is a change from 2010 when 26 markets showed flat or increasing rents and a big turnaround from 2009 when only three submarkets saw rents rising.

Asia - most notably Beijing - is experiencing a boom in office rents fueled by rising demand and increasingly limited supply, a real estate brokerage said. Rents for prime office space in Beijing rose 75% last year to $130 per square foot per year, the highest increase of any city in the world in 2011, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Hong Kong remains the most expensive city for office space in terms of total occupancy costs at $244 per square foot, followed by London's West End at $239 a square foot and Tokyo at $197 a square foot.

By Edmund Sanders The burgeoning tent encampment along this city's elegant Rothschild Boulevard may not be the start of a Tahrir Square-style revolution, but Israeli student protests over rising rents have exposed a deep middle-class frustration over the economy and are presenting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his biggest domestic challenge yet. The protests began small in central Tel Aviv two weeks ago, but expanded in recent days...

A nation still struggling to clear up one housing debacle has run smack into another - soaring rents. The foreclosure mess has pushed millions of former homeowners with tarnished credit into a competitive apartment market across the U.S. Add fresh demand from young workers, few new units and tight standards for home loans, and the result is rental sticker shock not seen in years. Rents are surging from New York to Los Angeles. The average monthly U.S. rent for apartments hit $1,008 in the first quarter, pushing past the all-time high set in the third quarter of 2008, according to the data firm RealFacts.

The Dodgers' new owners will pay $14 million per year to rent the parking lots from an entity half-owned by Frank McCourt, according to land-use documents intended to "facilitate the orderly development" of the property surrounding Dodger Stadium. The potential uses for the property include shops and restaurants, homes and offices, and another sports venue, according to documents obtained Friday by The Times. The documents also discuss the possibility of parking structures on the land.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to New York City's famed rent-control ordinance, a post-World War II housing measure that limits the rents of more than a million apartments. The court's refusal Monday to hear the case is a setback for property rights activists, who had hoped a more conservative court would protect landlords and a free market in rentals. For decades, critics have said rent-control laws deny property owners the right to fully profit from their investments.

In a few months, the Los Angeles County Housing Authority will begin allowing rent subsidies to be granted to homeless ex-convicts on parole or probation. The move is controversial, with some critics complaining that it rewards criminals, giving them special treatment and moving them to the front of the line for the limited and much-sought-after subsidies. But that's shortsighted. Homeless ex-convicts, including many who committed only minor, nonviolent crimes, don't go away if they don't get housing aid. Although there are risks associated with the new rule, they're risks worth taking.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will unveil a $16-million bike-share program Sunday that aims to put thousands of bicycles at hundreds of rental kiosks across the city. Initial plans are to add 400 stations and 4,000 bicycles over the next 18 to 24 months in areas around downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood, Playa del Rey, Westwood and Venice Beach. The private investment from Bike Nation will not need any city money, according to the mayor's office and the company. Bike Nation has agreed to a minimum contract of 10 years.

The average Los Angeles County rent is predicted to soar nearly 10% over the next two years, leading a resurgence of the costly Southland apartment lifestyle. Southern California's economic recovery may be halting and tepid, but young workers gaining new employment, a demand for apartment living and scarce construction of units are creating a rental squeeze in the region, according to a report released Wednesday by USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate. The report is the latest evidence that the rental market is on an upswing, an early indicator that housing may be headed into recovery even as home prices tumble to fresh lows.

Joyce Ann Cato is out of work and about to lose her San Bernardino home to foreclosure. The 62-year-old special-education teacher filed for bankruptcy protection last April in a bid to keep her house, which is worth less than what she owes on a mortgage she can't afford anymore. As Cato searches for another job, she and her daughter, Minjoy, have landed in a Pomona house that they rent for $1,795 a month, substantially less than the old mortgage payment but still a hefty chunk of the mother's $2,500 monthly income.

It was another stale quarter for most Southern California office landlords as rents and occupancy remained stalled at low levels, except in neighborhoods favored by technology and digital media companies. The soft market was a boon for tenants willing to sign leases. But few companies are finding the need to expand their quarters with the economy tepid and hiring at a standstill. Business bosses "have gone on a personnel diet," said Jim Kruse of CBRE Group Inc., the real estate brokerage formerly known as CB Richard Ellis.

A new report predicts the market for foreclosed homes that are turned into rentals will be worth more than $100 billion this year. Rents are on the rise as home prices fall . That has policymakers promoting the idea that selling foreclosed homes to investors as rentals could be a positive for the housing market -- helping take down the inventory of distressed properties and putting a floor on prices. Last week, the Federal Reserve released guidelines that could encourage the practice of converting lender-owned foreclosed homes into rental properties.