What is the Rental Percentage?

We tracked down through the MLS how many units have sold in Laurel Bay, over the past 5 years. As of June 29, 2026 there are 40 new owners. 12 of those units are rented (30%). Fact.

Far from the "heading to 60-70% rentals" used in scare tactics, using hyperbolic claims. Rentals are trending down!

Source: San Diego County Recorded Deeds & MLS

Read the next section to see that there is nothing to justify an expensive, useless effort to cap rentals.

The Rental Cap Committee shared some actual data the weekend of July 11. They compute that currently Laurel Bay is 45% rentals. While they don't reveal their source or methodology, we think that's probably correct.

When you combine their estimate with our hard facts that 40 units in our community have changed owners in the past 5 years and only 12 are rentals (30%) it proves our point that any rental cap is completely unnecessary!

Let's use the rental cap committee's count

How long would a cap take to reduce rentals if adopted?

We did the math for a cap scenario. Let's say a rental cap tries to drop rentals from 50% (we estimate this current % is 40-45%) down to 26% rentals. It would require Laurel Bay to permanently change 36 homeowner units to capped from our 150-unit building. That would take 25 YEARS!

We used a realistic San Diego market baseline, where Laurel Bay experiences a net loss of 1.5 rental units per year (3.5 investor sales minus 2.0 new homeowner rental conversions - the rate for the last 5 years), here's how it unfolds:

Years 1 to 5 (~45% Rented): Current high interest rates keep property turnover low. Most grandfathered owners stay put or take advantage of their right to rent rather than sell into a soft condo market.
Years 6 to 12 (~38% Rented): A steady stream of original investors sell off their units. These units are forced to convert to owner-occupied.
Year 17 (~33% Rented): The building is likely to hit 33% rented mark.
Years 18 to 24 (~26% Rented): At this stage, nearly 2/3 of the building’s original owners have moved/sold. The pool of grandfathered owners who can legally bypass the cap is tiny, the building should reach the 26% rental mark. 25 years away, Year 2051 .

For most of us, this is NOT in our lifetime!