Long Beach is the most internally diverse LA County submarket on our list, ranging from the high end Belmont Shore coastal strip to transitional north Long Beach. The Sage Real Estate Group 2024 end of year update reported an average price per unit of $247K for 5 to 20 unit assets in Long Beach for 2024, down 9.1 percent from 2023. For 2 to 10 unit assets, the range is broader but the midpoint sits in the $230K to $350K band.
The city enacted a Just Cause for Termination of Tenancies Ordinance in February 2020, which prevents no cause evictions for tenants with at least 12 months of tenancy. There is no local hard rent cap beyond AB1482. Building vintage is distinctive: Long Beach has a rich inventory of 1920s to 1950s California bungalow courts and Spanish style duplexes, particularly in the Wrigley, Bixby Knolls, and Cambodia Town neighborhoods. These buildings are genuinely rare as a building type.
The City of Long Beach has been an aggressive adopter of ADU streamlining and maintains a pre approved ADU plan library, which is one of the better municipal ADU programs in the county. Cap rates of 5.5 to 6.5 percent reflect the combination of price correction from 2022 highs and improved buyer selectivity. Per Sage, larger buildings of 5 plus units required 40 percent down to pencil in the current rate environment, which has pushed some buyers toward smaller 2 to 4 unit assets with owner occupied FHA financing.
Long Beach is the OC adjacent LA submarket for cashflow first buyers. The architecture rewards patience, the ADU permitting is friendly, and the price correction off 2022 highs makes this a buyer's window.
