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Newsom temporarily changes rent rules for some LA mansions in wake of fires
Gov. Gavin Newsom, right, tours the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire continues to burn in Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2025.
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Eric Thayer
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Getty Images
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Good news if you happen to own a mansion in West Los Angeles.
The post-burn ban on major rent hikes across Los Angeles now includes a carve out for houses with four or more bedrooms in ZIP codes with stratospheric rents.
The regulatory tweak, included in a lengthy executive order issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday, comes in response to a chorus of criticism from landlords, up-market realtors and housing policy experts who claimed that the state’s emergency prohibitions on rent “gouging” have been keeping some of the homes most proximate to Pacific Palisades off the market at the very time they are most needed.
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Researchers found that in drier years, larger animals are more likely to head closer and closer to where people live. -
The report concludes that the water supply was too slow, not too low, and even a functioning reservoir likely wouldn’t have stopped the Palisades Fire. -
After all the rain we've had lately, large fires likely won't be a concern until deep into 2026.
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As thousands of wildfire evacuees have scrambled for new places to live, Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have all repeatedly warned landlords against profiting off their desperation. Since Newsom’s first emergency declaration, armies of online sleuths have popped up to sniff out illegal rent hikes on rental listing platforms.
State emergency declarations regularly prevent landlords from hiking the rent by more than 10%.
But for units that haven’t been on the market for at least a year — and therefore lacking a baseline off of which to measure an “excessive” rent increase — the cap sets the rent at no higher than 60% above the area’s “fair market rent.” That figure is based on survey data analyzed by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In the city’s most coveted ZIP codes, 60% over the fair market rate just doesn’t cut it for many landlords and many of the would-be tenants are deep-pocketed enough to gladly pay the market rate, said Russell Grether, a Malibu real estate agent.
In the Malibu ZIP code of 90265, the rent cap on an off-market four-bedroom house works out to $8,912 per month. Grether said he would lease a property like that for $50,000.
“We have many clients who decided to not list their homes because they didn’t want to put themselves at risk and so, in a way, it had sort of the opposite effect of the intended purpose,” he said.
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While Newsom eased up on one aspect of the cap with Tuesday’s order, he tightened down on another. Some landlords have been getting around the state-set rent caps by entering lease agreements that exceeded one year. Now the rules apply to all rental agreements.
The rules are set to expire on March 8.
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But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.
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