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Your rent, five years out

The listing price tells you what you pay this year. What happens after that depends on rules most renters never check: which city you're in and when your building was built. LA's rent stabilization caps most pre-1978 apartments at 3% a year. Most of Orange County has only the state cap, currently 8.7%. Newer buildings and most houses have no cap at all. Slide to your rent and watch the same lease diverge.

Your rent$2,400/mo

Rent-stabilized LA unitmost pre-1978 LA apartments$2,782/mo

Typical OC rentalthe state cap; 33 of OC's 34 cities$3,642/mo

Uncapped unitnewer buildings and most houses$4,230/mo

The 5-year gap

Extra rent the typical OC rental could legally collect over 5 years, compared with the rent-stabilized LA unit.

How this works: Each line compounds your rent at the maximum annual increase allowed under that rule: LA City's Rent Stabilization Ordinance (3% now, banded 1–4% from 2026), California's statewide cap under AB 1482 (5% plus inflation, currently 8.7% for the LA–OC region), and no cap for exempt units, drawn at an illustrative 12%. These are legal ceilings, not predictions; many landlords raise less, and the caps reset each year with inflation. Figures verified July 2026. For the full picture, read our LA vs Orange County comparison.

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