If you've tried to rent a place to live recently, then you know prices are sky-high.
But there may be help on the way as city officials consider a plan to legalize apartments that don't have city approval.
Karen Fox had sticker shock when she moved from Florida to Los Angeles and tried to find an affordable place to rent.
"We looked for months and months and everything else was $1,800 and up if we wanted a two bedroom," she said.
She's not alone. A recent survey by real estate website Zillow found that on average, Angelenos pay 47 percent of their income on rent, the highest percentage in the country.
"The rents are as high as they've ever been," said Scott Hurst, a property manager. "They're higher than anybody thought they would be, so it's not a good time to rent in LA."
Relief may be on the way. There's a plan in the works to legalize apartments which were shut down when city inspectors found they were not permitted.
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"Converted rec rooms that nobody was using that might be an extra unit or the offices that were in some of these buildings," said Jim Clark, the executive vice president of the Apartment Association of Greater LA, which has been working with the city on this issue.
He said in the past five years, LA's Housing Department took more than 1,700 apartments off the market, not for health and safety violations, but for bureaucratic reasons.
"They couldn't prove they had an extra parking space for that particular unit or because there was a setback requirement for the extra unit and so these things are easy fixes," he said.
Under the proposed plan, landlords would be given amnesty to legalize the units, which Fox said would be a good move for everyone she knows.
"Anybody that has to move or relocate always has a problem finding a place that's affordable," Fox said. "Everybody I know has roommates. No one lives by themselves. It's the only way you can afford it really."
