L.A. County apartment sales climb 44% to $3.3 billion as per-unit price falls

Apartment sales in Los Angeles County reached $3.3 billion in the first three quarters of 2026, up 44 percent year over year, according to a Colliers report. The average sale price fell to $357,085 per unit for properties of 50 units or more, Commercial Observer reported.

Colliers reported occupancy held at 94.1 percent in the third quarter, unchanged from the second and down from 94.4 percent a year earlier. Average effective rent rose $6 to $2,428 a month, which leaves it back where it stood after the third quarter of 2025.

Colliers attributed the annual occupancy decline and flat rent in part to new construction. Developers delivered 4,277 units in the third quarter, about 72 percent more than in the second. Absorption was 3,809 units, up from 2,429 the previous quarter and 2,360 a year earlier, still 468 units short of what was added.

There were 23,426 units under construction at the end of the third quarter, down from 24,877 in the second quarter and 25,421 a year earlier. The apartment construction pipeline is shrinking, but that is a slow lever: units under construction turn into competing vacancies years after they start, and Colliers counts more than 58,800 apartments completed in the county since the second quarter of 2021.

The Westside remained the most expensive at $3,336 in average effective rent and 92.9 percent occupancy, with the largest development pipeline at 5,894 units. Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire averaged $2,355 in rent at 92 percent occupancy and led the region in quarterly deliveries with 1,869 units; another 5,113 are under construction there. Downtown and Central L.A. posted the lowest occupancy at 91.7 percent, up 1.1 percent year over year. South L.A. had the highest occupancy at 96.6 percent with rent averaging $1,996, followed by the South Bay at 95.8 percent and $2,436.

Set the average rent against the average sale price and the arithmetic is an 8.2 percent gross yield before expenses and vacancy. That figure mixes market-wide rent and sales averages across different buildings, so it is a rough benchmark rather than a cap rate; it still describes the trade buyers are making, a lower per-unit basis against income that stopped growing a year ago.