My first apartment building in Los Angeles was a crowded, cockroach-infested dump.
It was an eight-unit building on Berendo Street in Koreatown, painted Pepto-Bismol pink. It had no air conditioning. Bars on the always-open windows. Ratty carpet in the hallway.
In 2011, my husband and I moved in sight unseen. We were newlyweds in our early 20s, fresh out of college in Oklahoma. I had just gotten a job at The Times, and we were too broke to travel to California to check the place out beforehand.
The real estate agent, apparently sensing our naivete over the phone, asked: Are you sure?
How could we not be? We were moving to the City of Angels! And a one-bedroom apartment for $950 was a steal.
A few years ago, all the units were converted to condos. The listing on one real estate website described the 1925 building as “a revived Italianate 8-unit courtyard beauty” and our old unit as having trendy exposed brick walls and designer lights.
Our 693-sq-foot unit last sold in 2021 for $325,000. Another sold in 2024 for half a million bucks.
L.A.’s housing paradox
I was thinking about the Berendo apartment while reading my colleague Jack Flemming’s recent reporting on a regional paradox: The population is shrinking, but there remains a stubborn housing shortage and affordability crisis.
Los Angeles lost nearly 10,000 residents last year. L.A. County lost 62,000.
More than 400,000 people have left the county since 2016. During that stretch, Flemming reported, home prices and rents have nearly doubled, even as the housing stock has gone up.
A man walks in front of an apartment complex on Berendo Street in Koreatown on Wednesday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
In 2011, the year we moved into our Berendo place, the fair market rent — a federal statistic that measures the 40th percentile of rental costs in various markets — for a one-bedroom home in L.A. County was $1,173 a month, just above what we paid.
If you adjust that for inflation, today that would be about $1,736. In 2026, the fair market rent for a one-bedroom in L.A. County is $2,085 a month. The average rent in the city now is 33% higher than the national average, according to Zillow.
So what gives?
Flemming wrote that one oft-overlooked factor is household composition. The number of one- to two-person households is rising and three-plus-person households are falling.
“People are moving out of L.A., but households are becoming smaller, so the number of households that require housing is actually rising,” Stephanie Hawke, associate research director of land use and supply at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, told Flemming.
In this market, she said, lower-income people are being forced out, “and they’re generally replaced by higher-income workers who can pay more for housing. As a result, the market doesn’t adjust, and rents stay high.”
Close living, chaos and beauty
In our apartment building in Koreatown — one of California’s most densely populated neighborhoods — most of the one-bedroom units housed families with multiple kids.
Our unit got hot, and we kept windows open. Tenants of the apartment building next to ours — just a few feet away — kept theirs open, too, and life was a cacophony of close-quarters sound: babies crying, TVs blaring, couples fighting.
(Not to mention the guy who walked between the buildings every morning, shouting that he had hot soup for sale. From the trunk of his car.)
Even a dumpy place has its charms. It was loud and spirited, the way housing with fewer people is not.
“My mom rode with me to California to our new home in Los Angeles,” I wrote in an email to a friend in early September 2011, when I was 23. “Our neighbors are so very sweet … and they all sit out on our porch at night and talk. The weather here is beautiful, and we have palm trees lining the street. I think I’m going to like it here.”
So long, Berendo
My husband and I left the apartment shortly after a roach crawled out of an electric socket. We lived there just under a year.
We helped the building manager show the empty unit a few days after we moved out. When we arrived, the door was locked from the inside. Squatters had broken in and had been partying. The place smelled like weed and pee.
The young couple we showed the unit to laughed it off. They couldn’t believe how spacious the unit was — for that price! They signed a lease that day.
Today’s top stories
An attendee reacts to live election results during a primary election night event with Steve Hilton, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, not pictured, in Huntington Beach on Tuesday. The vote tabulation generally takes days to complete in California elections, because a mail-in ballot is valid as long as it was postmarked on election day and received no later than seven days after the election.
(Caroline Brehman / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
California 2026 primary election
- The Times is tracking results for the 85 races that are still too close to call. Results will continue to update until the end of June.
- As Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman wait for the vote tally to see who advances to the November election, here’s a look at what polling says about potential match-ups against Karen Bass.
- Trump, without proof, claims “cheating” in California’s election, says federal probe underway
Why the L.A. mayor’s race remains so unsettled
A toxic metal stayed in the air for months after L.A. County fires
- After the Eaton and Palisades fires devastated Southern California, a highly toxic metal stayed in the air much longer and probably traveled much farther than expected, according to a new study.
- The new findings add to concerns about the toxic fallout left behind by the most destructive wildfires in Southern California’s recent history.
What else is going on
Commentary and opinions
- Columnist Anita Chabria talks about what the primary chaos says about California Democrats in her latest column.
- As we approach July 4, the capital is, fittingly, a mess, argues columnist Jackie Calmes.
This morning’s must-read
Another must-read
For your downtime
(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; Photos by Michael Blackshire, Juliana Yamada, Gina Ferazzi, Betty Hallock, Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times; Silvia Razgova, Emil Ravelo, Carla Blumenkrantz, Shelby Moore/For The Times; Cedrick Mitchell, Junie Ceramics, Will Adler, Benny Boy Brewing, Daniel Yang, Miguel Miguel Shop)
Going out
Staying in
A question for you: What’s your favorite summer beach getaway?
Shane says, “My favorite summer beach getaway? Really, just one? In a state with an 800-mile-long coastline? No! I’ll give you three.
If I’m up for local, easy, great vibes, and lots of excellent restaurants, I head to my back yard town of Laguna Beach.
It’s hard to beat the drive up the coast, especially through Big Sur. Anyone who’s done it, which is every Californian ever, knows what I’m talking about, especially the McWay Falls stop.
And for an impromptu beach day with my sancha, we head to San Onofre State Beach.”
Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.
And finally … the photo of the day
Beachgoers enjoy nice weather at Torrance Beach.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Allen J. Schaben at Torrance Beach, one of the 15 best beaches in L.A. County.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Hailey Branson-Potts, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, Fast Break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.