The Ellis Act Has NO Place in an Extreme Housing Crisis
If you’re new here, I am a former property manager and I do not believe in the Ellis Act. Period.
The Ellis Act was theoretically designed to let small-scale landlords exit the rental housing market. Which is ridiculous and completely unnecessary, since landlords who no longer want to deal with a building have always had the option of selling it.
In practice, many larger-scale owners buy up properties, Ellis Act the tenants, hold the housing empty for at least five years (per state law), then redevelop the property to bring in higher-paying renters. RSO status is supposed to carry over to new housing built on the parcel, but we all know how that overwhelmingly tends to play out in Los Angeles.
My former boss - who is not a fan of rent control - had never heard of the Ellis Act. When I explained it to her, she was horrified. Keeping rental housing empty for five years, minimum, when people need places to live?! She couldn’t believe her ears. She, and I, believe that landlords who have a problem with RSO properties shouldn’t buy them in the first place.
The Coalition for Economic Survival has spent years compiling data on Ellis Act evictions and mapping them with the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, to give an idea of how severe the problem has become.
The most recent data is from 2024. Here’s the problem: despite the mass displacement of tens of thousands of Angelenos, Ellis Act evictions haven’t stopped.
Enough is enough. The Ellis Act needs to go. This is the exact opposite of the appropriate time to keep a building empty (IF such a time exists, which I doubt).
The problem is, legislators have blocked attempts to repeal or reform the Ellis Act. Big corporate landlords, big corporate developers, and the Apartments Association are big donors.
CES even offers up a very reasonable compromise:
Short of eliminating the Ellis Act all together, which CES fully supports, the State Legislature should, at the minimum, take action to amend the Ellis Act in the following ways:
Restrict the ability to use the Ellis Act to property owners who have owned the property for at least 5 years
Limit how many times a year a developer can use the Ellis Act.
Provide all tenants, regardless of age or family status, with a one-year notice of eviction.
To their suggestions, I’ll add one more amendment: suspend use of the Ellis Act in fire-affected counties until all of the lost housing has been replaced.
Since January 1, eight properties with a total of 20 units have filed to withdraw rent-controlled properties from the market. Given that Los Angeles has lost over 30,000 rent controlled units to the Ellis Act since 2001 (that’s an average of well over a thousand each year), I surmise the number would probably be significantly higher if it weren’t for the current state of the rental market.
Is it ever okay to Ellis Act desperately needed RSO housing in an extreme crisis? Is it? I don’t think it is.
Even if the owners of those properties are seeking to redevelop and add more units, they legally cannot do so for at least five years. Displaced Angelenos - and the lower-income Angelenos who are facing displacement for wealthier renters - need places to live NOW.
Surely I don’t have to explain how wrong it is to keep habitable housing empty under the circumstances. Oh, wait…this is Los Angeles.
A prime example of how such stupid regulations (keeping units empty for five years) ultimately backfires on the left itself. In response, they will not hesitate to impose even more regulations, thereby crippling the housing market further. Do you not see? It is a game that cannot be won. The market will always find a way.