Los Angeles is in a multi-family building boom as developers rushing to flood the market with new apartments following a long recession-induced drought. But all the new units probably aren't going to help make housing (especially renting) any less wildly unaffordable, since developers pretty much only like to build high-end units they can draw high rents from—that might level out the highest prices but won't help the middle- and low-end. Now HotPads brings the geographical context, with its map of the multi-family projects underway (everything from early phases to leasing).

There are a whole bunch of big projects planned for Downtown, where rents are already pretty high, adjacent areas that are coming up, like Chinatown, and a handful for other high-priced areas like Hollywood and West LA. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the basin and Valley are getting a whole lot of nothing. Compare to this map of the areas where residents are paying the highest percentage of their incomes for rent. (The data comes from ALN and is not quite exhaustive; it does seem to exclude a number of affordable projects.) That said, many of these projects do include some percentage of affordable units, which the city offers incentives for.

All in all there are 71 projects on the map with a total of 18,563 units. Nine buildings are now leasing (two of those are fully finished). Compare to tinier, pricier San Francisco, where there are 93 projects with 16,856 units on the way.



· Here's The Future of LA Residential Building Construction [HotPads]

· Mapping Los Angeles's Wildly Unaffordable Rental Scene [Curbed LA]