As of August 2026, rents across most of the Los Angeles and Ventura County rental market are flat to modestly lower compared to a year ago, though the picture varies meaningfully by city. Apartment List’s August 2026 rent report puts the median Los Angeles rent at $2,069 overall, with one-bedroom units averaging $1,851 and two-bedroom units averaging $2,360, down 1.4 percent from a year earlier and unchanged month over month. Zillow’s Observed Rent Index, which measures a broader average across property types, shows Los Angeles rents at $2,650 as of late August 2026, down roughly 5.3 percent, or $148, from the prior year. In Ventura County, Thousand Oaks and Oxnard are seeing similar softening, while the city of Ventura is essentially flat to slightly up. For an owner of a small residential property, the takeaway is straightforward: this is not a market where a landlord can assume last year’s asking rent, or worse, an outdated online estimate, will hold up in this year’s leasing cycle.
What is the average rent in Los Angeles right now?
Los Angeles rent, measured in August 2026, sits between roughly $2,069 and $2,650 depending on the data source and methodology used. Apartment List reports a median of $2,069 across all unit types in the city, built from a large sample of listed units and adjusted for typical unit size. Zillow’s Rental Manager tool, by contrast, reports an average asking rent of $2,650, a figure that runs about 33 percent above the national average of $2,000 and that captures a different mix of property types, including higher-end single-family rentals that are common in the one to four unit segment many independent owners hold. Neither number is wrong. They simply measure different slices of the same market, which is exactly why an owner comparing a single online estimate to their own unit can be misled. Both sources agree on direction, however: Los Angeles rents have softened over the past twelve months rather than continued the steep climbs seen in prior years, with Apartment List recording a 1.4 percent year-over-year decline and Zillow recording a larger 5.3 percent pullback.
How do Ventura County submarkets compare in August 2026?
Ventura County is not moving as one market, and owners who manage property there need to look at the specific city rather than the county average. According to RentCafe’s August 2026 data, the city of Ventura carries an overall average rent of $2,802, essentially flat compared to $2,800 a year earlier, a 0.07 percent increase, with one-bedroom units averaging $2,529 and two-bedroom units averaging $3,028. Thousand Oaks shows a slightly softer trend, with an overall average of $2,955 in August 2026, down 0.21 percent from $2,961 a year ago, and two-bedroom units averaging $3,116. Oxnard is the most notably cooler of the three, with an overall average rent of $2,674 in August 2026, down 1.49 percent from $2,714 the prior year, and RentCafe notes that 34 percent of Oxnard rentals now fall in the $2,501 to $3,000 range, the largest single price band in that market. Put simply, an owner with a comparable unit in Ventura, Thousand Oaks, and Oxnard should expect three different pricing conversations, not one regional assumption.
Why are rents cooling instead of continuing to rise?
Rents across much of coastal Southern California have cooled because more rental inventory has come online at the same time that renter demand has grown more price sensitive, a dynamic reflected consistently across the Apartment List, Zillow, and RentCafe data cited above. When supply and demand move closer to balance after several years of tight conditions, the properties that lease fastest tend to be the ones priced accurately against current data rather than against a landlord’s memory of what a unit rented for in 2023 or 2024. This is the environment where overpricing carries a real cost. A unit listed even 5 to 8 percent above the current market average in a softening submarket like Oxnard or Thousand Oaks can sit vacant for weeks longer than necessary, and the lost rent from that vacancy typically exceeds whatever gain the owner hoped to capture by asking a premium.
What should owners of one to four unit properties do with this data?
Owners should reset their rent expectations to the current submarket, not the county or citywide average, before their next lease turnover. A property in Ventura, where rents are essentially flat, can likely be renewed or re-listed close to the prior rent. A comparable property in Oxnard, where rents have declined nearly 1.5 percent, may need a modest reduction or added value, such as included utilities or a flexible lease start date, to lease within a reasonable timeframe. This is precisely the kind of granular, submarket-level pricing work that Boutique Property Management does for the owners it represents across Los Angeles and Ventura County, drawing on more than two decades of direct experience leasing and managing one to four unit residential properties in these specific neighborhoods. Because the majority of new clients come by referral from attorneys, physicians, CPAs, financial advisors, and business managers who have seen the results firsthand, the firm’s pricing recommendations are built to protect an owner’s net return, not just fill a vacancy quickly.
Get current, submarket-specific guidance before you set your next rent
Setting rent from a national app or a listing from a different neighborhood is one of the more expensive mistakes a self-managing owner can make in a market that is shifting city by city the way Los Angeles and Ventura County are right now. Boutique Property Management, led by Allen Brodetsky, offers concierge-style, award-winning management for owners of one to four unit residential properties throughout Los Angeles and Ventura County, with bilingual English and Spanish service and a 5-star reputation on Google and Yelp built over more than twenty years in this exact market. If you own a rental property in this region and want a pricing recommendation based on current, verified data for your specific submarket, contact Boutique Property Management today to discuss your property and your next lease.