Beyond the standard free rent offerings, Los Angeles luxury apartment landlords are dangling gym memberships, gift cards and ride-hailing credits to secure leases, CoStar reports.
The competition for luxury renters is hardly unique to Southern California. Across the nation, Class A — or top-of-the-line buildings with the highest rents — apartment inventory has surged 41% in the past year
At The Mercer, a 17-unit West Hollywood apartment building that opened in July, the latest enticement is food: $2,500 to spend at Erewhon, the upscale grocer whose expensive smoothies and organic groceries have made it something of a Los Angeles status symbol.
The offer is a colorful take on a tactic known as concessions that’s only grown more popular as landlords across the nation face sharper competition for apartment renters.
The promotion isn’t necessarily worth more than the free-rent packages offered elsewhere. That’s beside the point, according to Erik Edeen, principal and senior director of U.S. investment sales at Avison Young.
“If somebody puts everything into a spreadsheet, they may find that several months of free rent is worth more,” Edeen said. “But that’s not necessarily the entire point. You’re trying to create some stickiness and give somebody a reason to choose your building and stay there.”
About 43% of Los Angeles apartment properties are offering some form of concessions, up from the 29% share in 2025, according to CoStar data. That comes as Los Angeles’ luxury apartment inventory has grown 29% over the past five years, adding more than 37,000 units, with roughly 12,000 more under construction.
Not every property offers a concession, yet the increase comes as many owners of luxury buildings face challenges beyond increased supply — specifically, a loss of some high-earning technology workers who could historically afford these rents.
“The jobs [the region is] adding aren’t necessarily the jobs that support an $8,000- or $10,000-a-month apartment,” said Catherine Yeh, CoStar’s director of market analytics for Los Angeles. “That’s another challenge for the top of the market.”
Number Of New Luxury Apartments Is Slowing
U.S. developers opened nearly 695,000 apartments in 2024, the highest annual total since the mid-1980s, according to CoStar. That figure fell to about 431,000 units opened in the four quarters ending with the third quarter of 2026, down roughly 24% from a year earlier.
Construction starts have fallen even more sharply. Developers began about 60,000 apartments in the third quarter, roughly 71% below the cycle’s peak and the lowest quarterly total since 2012.
Demand, meanwhile, has held up better than supply. Renters absorbed roughly 142,000 apartments nationally during the third quarter, exceeding the roughly 98,000 units opened during the period. Overall vacancy has declined to 7.8%.
Yet conditions remain softer toward the top. Vacancy among four- and five-star properties stands at 9.5%, compared with 7.9% for three-star properties and 6.1% for one- and two-star apartments, according to CoStar.
