Downtown Housing Prices Got Way Too Crazy During the Boom

After thousands of false starts, it's finally started to look the last few years like Downtown is back on top to stay. It's been more than a decade since the city passed the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance that paved the way for the neighborhood's gentrification (and since Staples Center opened), and while it's not all freewheeling development like it was back in 2004, developers are starting to build again and existing buildings are coming back from recession-era bankruptcies. Record scratch! The LA Weekly wants you to know that things are perhaps more troubled than they seem Downtown--who would've thought that pricing got a little crazy during the boom?: "According to Zillow Real Estate Research, 31 percent of American homes are underwater, about like the city of L.A. (Other data peg the percentage lower.) But in 90014 [the area roughly between Sixth/Ninth/San Pedro/Grand] ? an astonishing 78 percent of condos and lofts are underwater."

And it's not just the lower Historic Core:

· Downtown L.A.'s Underwater Home Mortgage Crisis [LAW]