rents - latimes.com An apartment building at 1800 West Temple Street in Los Angeles. Katie Falkenberg/For The Times / April 11, 2012 April 11, 2012, 9:51 a.m. The Southland's economic recovery may be halting and tepid, but the cost of apartment living is rising sharply with rents in Los Angeles County predicted to soar 7.9% over the next year, according to a USC report. The annual Casden Multifamily Forecast by the university's Lusk Center for Real Estate showed rents last year rose in 39 of the submarkets the report tracks in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino. That across-the-board increase is a change from 2010 when 26 markets showed flat or increasing rents and a big turnaround from 2009 when only three submarkets saw rents rising. Rents are expected to rise throughout the region over the next two years. Tracy Seslen, a USC professor and author of the report, said in a statement that the lack of new apartment construction, fewer homes for rent on the market and employment gains have squeezed the rental market. "This is boosting asking rents, reducing or eliminating concessions, and filling units," she said. Los Angeles County was the strongest performer out of all the counties analyzed, with a 6.2% increase in the average rent from 2010 to 2011 to hit $1,596. The average rent was up 3.2% to $1,523 in Orange County; 3.4% to $1,069 in the Inland Empire; and 4.3% to $1,377 in San Diego County.