Most Marina del Rey owners miss this extra 1 percent

Published July 18, 2026

Marina del Rey sits under the county rent cap at 1.93 percent for July 2025 through June 2026, but a small property landlord who self certifies with the DCBA can add a full point. That is money most owners leave on the table.

Marina del Rey is rent stabilized, and the reason surprises a lot of owners. There is no city hall here. The neighborhood sits in unincorporated Los Angeles County, so it answers to the county's Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protections Ordinance instead of a municipal one. For July 2025 through June 2026 the base allowable increase is 1.93 percent. But a landlord who self certifies with the county Department of Consumer and Business Affairs as a small property landlord can add one full percentage point and reach 2.93 percent. Most eligible owners never file the form, and the point they skip does not come back.

I manage buildings in this exact pocket, so let me hand you the version a manager actually watches for. The gap between 1.93 and 2.93 percent looks tiny on a single renewal notice. Over the life of a tenancy it is not, and the reason it slips past good owners is that nobody tells them the second number exists.

Why the Marina plays by county rules

Here is the part that trips people up. Marina del Rey is unincorporated. There is no City of Marina del Rey, so the rules come straight from Los Angeles County, and the one that governs your rent is the county's Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protections Ordinance. Walk a mile inland to a Venice or Del Rey building and you are suddenly under the City of Los Angeles ordinance instead, a different regime entirely, even though the whole stretch reads as one neighborhood from the sidewalk.

The county runs its allowable increase off a CPI formula and publishes the result. As the county's rent increase bulletin lays out, the increase permitted from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026 is 1.93 percent for a covered unit. That is what you serve on a standard renewal if you do nothing else, and it is the number most owners quietly assume is the ceiling. For a lot of them, it is not.

The point hiding behind a form

The county lets a qualifying small property landlord stack one percentage point on top of the base increase. The condition is that you self certify with the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs first. File that certification and your allowable increase for this cycle moves from 1.93 percent to 2.93 percent, again per the county's own rent increase guidance. Luxury units sit higher still at 3.93 percent under the same published schedule.

The whole catch is procedural. That extra point is never automatic. You claim it by registering your status, and if you never file you never get it, no matter how obviously you qualify. Because rent compounds, this is not a one year miss. A unit held at the base cap every cycle drifts steadily below one whose owner claimed the point each year, and after a few renewals the spread on a single door adds up to real money.

I want to be honest about the fine print. Eligibility as a small property landlord is a specific test, and the certification is a genuine county filing, not a checkbox you tick. Whether your ownership qualifies, and whether your units land as covered, exempt, or luxury on the schedule, is worth confirming with a licensed professional before you serve anything. Still, the move itself is simple to name. If you have never checked whether you can self certify, check that first, because it is the cheapest rent increase you will ever earn.

Sorting your own doors first

So before anything else, figure out which bucket each of your units sits in: covered by the county ordinance, exempt, or luxury. That answer alone decides whether your cap this cycle is 1.93, 2.93 with certification, or 3.93 percent. Owners who serve 1.93 across the whole building out of caution are often under serving themselves without knowing it.

Then, if you are a small owner, get the DCBA self certification onto your list. Not as something to fire off blindly, but as a filing to walk through with someone who knows the county rules. The real gift of owning in an unincorporated pocket is that the county carved out a lane built specifically for smaller owners, and that lane only opens for the people who show up and register.

The largest change on the water in a generation

The rent math rewards attention to paperwork, but the ground under the Marina is shifting in a way worth knowing as backdrop for what your building is worth. Almost the entire waterfront sits on land the county owns and leases to private operators on long ground leases. Twenty six of those leases roll off over roughly the next seven years, and the county is mapping what comes next under a redevelopment effort it calls Marina del Rey for All: The Next Wave.

For an owner, the number that matters is the affordable requirement. The county's plan doubles the affordable housing share on redeveloped parcels from 15 percent to 30 percent, and the lease expirations have opened what one local outlet called a high stakes fight over the future of the Marina. None of it touches your rent cap. What it tells you is that the county is planning a denser, higher amenity waterfront for the long haul, and that is the demand backdrop your existing units already sit inside.

New buildings, same next year for you

Two projects carry the near term supply story. Greystar and AMLI are leasing up a roughly 165 million dollar, ten acre, 585 unit waterfront community at Via Marina and Panay Way, now in active leasing. Separately, the Marina is getting its first fully affordable development, 120 units at 4206 Admiralty Way from Mercy Housing California, a quarter of it set aside for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

New waterfront supply reads like a threat, and across a long horizon more units genuinely compete. But a brand new luxury community leases at brand new luxury rents, and the affordable project serves a population that was never your renter pool to begin with.

For the next couple of years, the demand for a well run, sensibly priced existing unit in the Marina holds right where it is, which puts the certification point back at the center of the picture. That single form is the one lever fully within your control this cycle, and it costs you nothing but the filing. Everything else here is scenery. The point on the renewal is the part that pays you.

If you want, I can help you figure out which bucket your units fall in before your next renewal comes due.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm with a licensed professional before you act.

Topics: market, marina-del-rey, westside, rent-control

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Schofield Properties is a family run property management company at 323 Richmond St, El Segundo, CA 90245. We have managed the South Bay since 1972 and personally oversee about 186 doors today. Book a call to talk about your property.