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The Status of Rent and Rental Properties in the City of Monterey
At its March 17, 2026 meeting, the Monterey City Council received its second annual report on the city's Rental Registry and Inventory Program, enacted in 2023. The program requires landlords to register their market rate rental units and provide other information about these units to the City on an annual basis. (Owners of three or fewer rental units within the boundaries of the City of Monterey are exempt. Subsidized affordable housing and military housing are not included.)
The second annual report shows the program now identifying a total of 6,205 rental units in Monterey owned by an entity renting four or more units in the city. Small landlords own 80% of those units, and only 1.5% of the units are owned by corporations based outside of Monterey County. Monthly rents increased by 9% from 2024 to 2025 ($1,966 to $2,135), not including additional utility charges and fees (electricity, garbage, gas, and waste) that further increased renters' costs.
About 25 percent of the city’s rental units were built before 1960 (mostly owned by small landlords), 37 percent between 1960-1979, and only 2 percent since 2000. From your Chamber’s perspective, this failure to increase housing supply is a major cause of the high rents.
Costs for the city to run the Rental Registry and Inventory Program decreased $50,217 from 2024 to 2025 (from $285,672 to $235,455) as the program became established. Fees collected increased $16,821 from 2024 to 2025 (from $195,169 and $211,990) as more units were identified and brought into compliance. The program spent $90,503 more than it collected in 2024 and $23,465 more than it collected in 2025.
Read the staff report for the second annual report here: Rental Inventory Program Annual Report. Read the second annual report here: City of Monterey 2025 Rental Inventory Analysis Update. Get information about the program from the City of Monterey here: Rental Inventory. Read the Rental Registry and Inventory law in the Monterey Municipal Code at this link: Section 8, Article 2 – Housing – Rental Inventory.
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