2022 CA Rent Increase

Across California, a rent increase has been scheduled to begin as early as August 1st. And, many tenants have already been notified to expect it from their landlords. Why the increase? Inflation is being blamed. In fact, landlords can now raise rent by 10% in the state, thanks to the inflation boogeyman. As a result, this 2022 CA rent increase will allow landlords to boost rent measurably on literally millions of apartments this month.

A few years ago a law, AB-1482, The California Tenant Protection Act (TPA) passed in the state to protect tenants from exorbitant rent hikes. And, that law put a cap on how much landlords can increase rent annually, with the most possible at 10%. Landlords across the state are expected to apply that maximum on August 1st. As a result, the law seems to have lost much of its ‘bite’ equating to tenant protections. But again, inflation. In fact at its start in 2020, TPA actually throttled down rent increases at 5%, plus CPI. These increases varied with the CPI for region to region. As a result, different areas dealt with different caps. For example, in Los Angeles the total allowable increase had been 8.6%. Although now that inflation has ballooned, every region meets the requirement for 10%.

State and local policies that prevented landlords from other rent increases and evictions during the pandemic have only magnified the issue. And during that time, landlords were not exempt from dealing with rising costs for property upkeep, appliances and so on. At the same time, now they must deal with greater levels of such costs.

Even with the inflation boogeyman looming, there are some silver linings in the turn of events. And, one of these has to do with cities that have their own local, rent control laws enacted. These help shield tenants to some extent from the ‘boogeyman.’ At the same time, the 2022 CA rent increase of 10% on August 1st applies only to apartment complexes built before 2007, in areas with no other, local rent controls. Bottom line, TPA and its 10% cap about to descend on the state does not affect apartments where rent control laws are already in place locally.