Los Angeles

Living In and Around Los Angeles

Probably the two best things to remember about living in Los Angeles is that real estate is hugely expensive, and you’re going to spend a lot of time in the car (probably moving very slowly). And if you’ve ever seen the recurring Saturday Night Live sketch, “The Californians,” where all the conversation is about the highways people took to get there, be prepared: this is a reflection of real life in LA. Talking about taking the 405 to the 101 to the 134 and dropping down the 110 to South Pas is standard cocktail party conversation.

Something else to remember here is that if you’re going to work for the recently relocated Los Angeles Rams, their temporary home is downtown at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Their permanent home will be about 5 miles southwest as the crow flies (more like a 10-mile drive) in Inglewood. City of Champions Stadium is slated to be completed for the 2019 season. In a city of traffic jams, “freeway close” proximity makes a difference. (For this reason, we’re also going to bypass looking at the San Fernando Valley, as it’s a really long haul to downtown. But if you have freeway perseverance, you can handle the heat, and you want more real estate for you dollar, it’s there.)

If you’re an urban dweller and like the idea of living in a downtown, you’re in luck. Downtown Los Angeles has been undergoing a renaissance. Renovation, rehab and new construction are all part of the gentrification wave. Just don’t be fooled by the median home price in the mid-300,000 range. Yes, you can find a 1-bed/1-bath condo for around $350,000. You can also find a 1-bed/1-bath condo for around $750,000. Anything of appreciable size is not going to come cheap. The good news for downtown, besides proximity to the Coliseum, is proximity to arts and entertainment, restaurants, nightlife, Chinatown and Little Tokyo. You’re also right by the freeway, and can get many places around LA in about 20 minutes. (Which is also a running gag: wherever you live, you’re always about 20 minutes away from wherever you’re going.)

Moving away from downtown, there are some iconic suburbs. North of downtown is South Pasadena, which has the distinction of being the oldest self-builder of floats in the historic Tournament of Roses Parade. A small community, the median home price is about 2.5 times higher than downtown, but you’ll also get more for your money. For the price of that 750K 1-bed condo, South Pas can give you 3-bed/2-bath condo or a 3-bed house with a yard. It’s still not cheap, but it’s quieter, has great amenities, a great location, and better schools.

The ninth biggest city LA County, Pasadena proper has about five times the population as South Pas. The real estate inventory is obviously bigger, and is also more varied. The city also has some rough parts. But overall, it’s a pleasant city with excellent amenities and good schools. And the Rose Bowl. But if you really want to go upscale, adjacent San Marino is the place. A beautiful and affluent community, it has the top-performing school district in the county. Across the board, scores for amenities, housing and education are excellent. And all that comes at a price: the median home price is over $2 million. At the time of this writing, the least expensive listing we could find was a 1,500 sq. ft. 3-bed/3-bath on a 6,000 sq. ft. lot, Spanish-style, built in 1935, for about a mill and a half. (Stunningly rehabbed, of course.)

Want to live where Mickey Mouse was born? Look to the affluent, hillside community where Walt Disney first drew Mickey in his uncle’s garage: Los Feliz. (If you speak Spanish, it goes out the window with a lot of LA’s oddly anglicized pronunciations. Case in point: this place is pronounced “Los Fee-lez.”) Originally a 1795 Spanish land grant, half of Rancho Los Feliz’s almost 6,700 acres was donated to the city in 1919 and became Griffith Park. The rest was developed. Some of LA’s most noted architecture is here, including a couple of Frank Lloyd Wright homes. With lots of entertainment industry folks here, the median home price of around three quarters of a million is deceiving. If you’re lucky, that price might snag you a 3-bed/3-bath condo. A single-family home on a small lot can easily run into seven figures.

Adjacent Silver Lake was also originally part of Rancho Los Feliz, and is somewhat more affordable than its more upscale cousin. Silver Lake has a reputation as a hipster neighborhood with good restaurants and abundant nightlife. Since its 1970s status as an underground haven for the demimonde, gentrification has set in. Many entertainment-industry notables live here, too. The name Silver Lake refers to the reservoir around which the community is built, and is named for Water Board Commissioner Herman Silver.

Like swimming pools and movie stars and jokes about the Beverly Hillbillies? Beverly Hills can oblige. And compared to San Marino, it looks positively affordable. There’s actually residential inventory under a million. But if you want to bypass the condos and get into a single-family home, you’re probably going to have to double that. (Unless, of course, you look into what’s affectionately known as Beverly Hills Adjacent real estate. Almost in BH, but not quite.) Beverly Hills amenities are excellent, as are the schools, but it’ll cost you. Neighboring Bel Air is also quite nice, with home prices similar to Beverly Hills, more leafy green property, and fewer amenities. Bel Air seems somewhat tucked away and off the beaten path relative to Beverly Hills, and feels more private.

Moving west through the Wilshire Corridor (which has a concentration of high-rise condos), you find a median home price under a million in West Los Angeles. UCLA is right there, and it’s a diverse and vibrant community. Slip through West LA, and you’re in Brentwood. Made famous (infamous?) by OJ Simpson, Brentwood used to fly below the radar. Now, it’s on the map. But unlike Beverly Hills, three quarters of a million will actually buy a home big enough for a family. For that matter, so will half a million. Schools here are good. Amenities are excellent. An overall pleasant town, if somewhat inundated by the crush of traffic, it’s a nice place to live.

Further west, Santa Monica is equally pleasant if not more so. It also ups the ante considerably, with a median home price more than double that of Brentwood. It’s a great town with a great beach. It also suffers from the congestion and high prices that have become so endemic to LA. (Not to mention that some folks are challenged by the city politics that inspired the mid-20th-century nickname, The People’s Republic of Soviet Monica.) Lending to the congestion is the wildly popular destinations of the beach, Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade. On a good day, the drive to the Coliseum is only about a half an hour. (Be prepared for the bad days.)

Further up the coast is Pacific Palisades. The home prices climb from Santa Monica’s median to almost a million. And that million will get you a nice condo. You can find one for as little as half a million if you don’t need much room. And entry level single-family home is about a mill and a half. The schools are excellent. The views are stunning. The amenities are limited. And if you really want to make a statement, you can drive further up the coast to Malibu. Just don’t be surprised if your nifty little $3-million beachfront home is suddenly blocked from access to work by the next mudslide into PCH. (Remember all that flooding mentioned earlier?)

Just down the coast from Santa Monica is Marina del Rey, where one is more likely to live in a condo. Or on their yacht. But further down, past LAX, is one of LA’s premiere neighborhoods, Manhattan Beach. Yes, you’re looking at million-dollar plus residential inventory. But if you can justify it, it’s a favored community with excellent schools and amenities—including what seems to be a rarity in LA, families who have been there for generations. And the beach is a delight. Rancho Palos Verdes and Palos Verdes Estates are further south. And while they’re expensive and lovely, the 45-minute drive to downtown (without traffic) could test the limits of your patience.