Long Beach is a city of roughly 450,000 — the seventh largest in California and a genuine urban market rather than a suburb of Los Angeles. The multifamily stock is deep and varied: 1920s Spanish courtyards in Bluff Park and Belmont Heights, mid-century walk-ups along Ocean and Broadway, dense pre-war blocks in Alamitos Beach and Downtown, and post-war garden apartments spreading east. Renter households make up well over half the city.
Roughly 450,000 residents and one of the most diverse cities in the United States — substantial Latino, Black, Asian-American and Pacific Islander populations, including the largest Cambodian community outside Cambodia. Renter share is well above half, with a young age profile driven partly by the universities.
The Port of Long Beach, one of the two busiest container ports in the United States, alongside logistics, healthcare, aerospace and a growing downtown office and creative sector. California State University Long Beach and Long Beach City College anchor a substantial student renter population. The city's economy is more diversified than its port reputation suggests.
Metro's A Line terminates downtown, running to Los Angeles via the Blue Line corridor, and Long Beach Transit operates an extensive municipal bus network. The 405, 710 and 22 freeways frame the city. Downtown, Alamitos Beach and the waterfront are genuinely walkable by Southern California standards.
Long Beach Unified School District, which has drawn national attention for its outcomes and is a real factor in family rental demand. CSU Long Beach and Long Beach City College additionally shape the rental market around their campuses.
The Queen Mary. The Aquarium of the Pacific. The Long Beach Grand Prix circuit through downtown streets. Belmont Shore and Second Street. The Pike. Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos, two surviving adobe ranch sites.
El Dorado Regional Park, Bluff Park along the shoreline, Shoreline Aquatic Park, the Long Beach beaches and the bike path running the length of the shore. Signal Hill's viewpoints sit just inland.
Cambodia Town along Anaheim Street is a nationally significant food destination. Second Street in Belmont Shore, Retro Row on Fourth Street, and a downtown restaurant and brewery scene that has grown substantially over the past decade.
The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach each April. The Long Beach Pride festival. The Long Beach Marathon. Cambodian New Year celebrations in Cambodia Town.
Snoop Dogg, Cameron Diaz, Billie Jean King, Sublime, and generations of port and aerospace families.
Founded in the 1880s as a seaside resort, Long Beach was transformed by the 1921 discovery of oil on Signal Hill — for a period one of the most productive fields in the world. The Navy's presence through the twentieth century shaped the city until the shipyard closed in 1997. The port's growth and downtown redevelopment have driven the last three decades.
Long Beach is the largest genuinely separate multifamily market adjacent to my territory, and its regulatory position is worth stating precisely because owners get it wrong in both directions. There is no local rent cap — the city repealed its relocation ordinance in 2019 on the view that AB 1482 was more comprehensive — so rents are governed by the state formula, currently 8.7%, rather than an LA City building's 3%. But Long Beach does keep its own just-cause eviction ordinance. And there is no Measure ULA. A Long Beach building's income can grow nearly three times as fast as an equivalent LA City one, and that is what its pricing reflects.
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