Welcome to Curbed Comparisons, where we explore what you can rent or buy for a certain dollar amount in various LA ’hoods. We’ve found five homes and condos within about $10,000 of today’s price: $639,000.
Altadena
This sweet cottage was built in 1924 and retains lots of period charm, from the large picture window and fireplace in the living room to the glass and brass doorknobs to the original 1920s hexagonal bathroom tile floor. Coming in at 1,134 square feet, the residence holds two bedrooms, one bathroom, a bonus room, dining area, and mudroom on a 5,857-square-foot with a rather large backyard. It’s listed at $649,000.
Long Beach
Off Fourth Street and Pine Avenue, walking distance to all the action in downtown Long Beach, lies the handsome Walker Building—a former department store designed by Meyer and Holler, the firm that gave Los Angeles the Chinese Theatre. It’s now home to 46 condos and penthouses, and one of those units is for sale. Spanning 1,183 square feet, it features porcelain and concrete floors, a steel and tempered glass loft, a private bedroom, and an in-unit washer and dryer. The price tag is $649,000, with monthly HOA fees of $550.
Downtown
This 1,060-square-foot condo is on the second floor of the historic Pan American Lofts. The building opened in 1894, making it one of the oldest in Downtown, along with the Bradbury Building across the street. The sun-dappled unit has an open floor plan with a partial separation between the living spaces and bedroom. It comes with in-unit laundry and a private deck. It’s listed at $639,000, with monthly HOA dues of $620.
Valley Glen
Fronted by a porch and deep yard populated with citrus trees, this traditional San Fernando Valley home was built in 1947 but was recently remodeled. In its 1,200 square feet, it holds two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a bonus room. The open concept kitchen flows into the living room, where there are hardwood floors and a fireplace. Out back, find a large backyard with more fruit trees . The 6,257-square-foot lot, which also contains an attached two-car garage is asking $639,000.
Highland Park
This cheery home butts up against the hills in Highland Park, and is a steep but short jaunt to the Hi Hat, the new home of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, and Super A Foods. It packs two bedrooms and one bathroom, plus a formal dining room, bonus room, and little basement, in 876 square feet. Built in 1928, it is freshly remodeled and asking $649,000.
Comments
Highland Park. Nice house with lots of real house amenities like parking, laundry, storage in what looks to be a decent close-in neighborhood for a really reasonable price. Bet it sells quick
By mrjim1 on 11.18.19 9:56am
But only 876 sq ft. Ridiculous! No wonder there are so many homeless in SoCal.
By mrxman on 11.18.19 3:30pm
All you need is about $130,000 yearly income to afford it. That’s the top 10% of income earners in the USA.
By mrxman on 11.18.19 3:36pm
You should check out the Payment calculator to get an more accurate estimate.
By subaruwrx on 11.19.19 12:11pm
Highland Park is hideous. The cost to undo the "renovations" would probably be prohibitive. This house must have been screwed up before HP became an HPOZ or it fell outside of that zoning.
I keep saying Altadena is the best kept secret in LA. Here you have a super charming home in original condition with plenty of room to add-on in back, where it won’t screw up the look of the neighborhood. And it’s affordable.
By calzada on 11.18.19 12:59pm
Agreed. I looked at the street view and the homes all appear relatively consistent and unchanged. Also, the street is devoid of any homes with stupid horizontal slat wood fencing, or any fencing for that matter.
By Cleavon Little on 11.18.19 1:19pm
I think that fence belongs to the neighbor house
By mrjim1 on 11.18.19 2:32pm
But you’re not close to anything!
By mrxman on 11.18.19 3:31pm
It’s close to DTLA, Google Maps says right now it’s only a 34 minute commute by car and that’s because the 110 Freeway is never busy north of the 101. Pasadena is even closer, tons of stuff to do there and lots of jobs. Altadena is near 3 major freeways and if light rail is your thing there’s the Gold Line with stops in nearby Pasadena. The schools aren’t the greatest, I will give you that.
By calzada on 11.18.19 3:58pm
mrxman …Ever hear of this thing called PASADENA? tons of things to do there, theaters, restaurants, shopping, galleries, etc. Sheesh! get out more.
By KlunkerRider on 11.19.19 8:12am
Altadena has some interesting older homes at a (relatively) affordable price point… but it also has no sidewalks, sketchy schools and is just as rundown as Highland Park (without any of the hip cafes or nightlife.)
By corner soul on 11.18.19 3:55pm
"Run down" means now’s the time to buy. Lots of hip places in nearby Pasadena. The Altadena neighborhoods that don’t have have sidewalks have very wide streets and almost no traffic. Unless you’re walking at night in an area without streetlights I don’t see a big issue even with kids.
By calzada on 11.18.19 4:04pm
Maybe… but it was definitely a dealbreaker for my family.
We almost made an offer in the area, but it just didn’t feel very safe (or much of a neighborhood) walking around with a toddler. Even on major streets, the sidewalk will just end and you’re stranded in the gutter with cars rushing by at 40mph (not cool… especially at night!)
To me it felt a world away from the walkable charm of Pasadena… but I gather that’s the appeal for a lot of the locals (semi-rural living with a 15 minute drive into downtown Pasadena.)
To each his own, I suppose.
By corner soul on 11.18.19 4:30pm
This article’s title should be "Here’s what $639K buys around Los Angeles COUNTY" Ha ha. Just kidding. I selected Altadena. Seems to be the best deal in a very good part of town.
It looks like the Valley Glen/North Hollywood property was taken off the market for some unknown reason. It’s located across from a school which will be a pain in the arse Monday through Friday.
By subaruwrx on 11.18.19 1:19pm
I noticed that too, had to take Valley Glen out of the mix because it doesn’t appear to be for sale
By mrjim1 on 11.18.19 2:27pm
Valley Glen was probably removed because somebody approached the owner directly and hit them with a giant wad of cash.
By KlunkerRider on 11.19.19 8:14am
Subaruwrx, YES!!! I am so sick and tired of the editors including Long Beach properties in these "Curbed Comparison" articles allegedly about housing for sale or rent in L.A.
For the MILLIONTH TIME, Curb Editors/Writers, Long Beach is NOT a "neighborhood" in or around Los Angeles (aside from the ultra skinny, gerrymander-style strip of land connecting San Pedro to "actual" Los Angeles 25+ miles away so that the City can maintain/control an official port on the bay).
Long Beach is its own freakin’ city of half a million people quite some distance away from Los Angeles, aside from the aforementioned asterisk of San Pedro. People who are looking to buy in L.A. are not considering Long Beach, nor vice versa. This is not a judgment call on the merits of either location, just a reality check. And yet week after week Curbed LA continues to clog up these polls with such harebrained inclusions. It is misleading to anyone unfamiliar with Los Angeles who should happen to participate in the poll, and remains irritating and nonsensical to anyone who is familiar.
By christopher brisson on 11.19.19 10:58am
Does anyone else find it a little strange when they feature condos at the target price, but with massive HOA fees? The mortgage payment on some of these will be like adding another $150k to the price tag.
By corner soul on 11.18.19 4:46pm
Yes and I’ve made that point a few times. What’s really interesting is that even with the un-stated price advantage for the condos everyone always picks the cute old home. This is why we need to protect the well-preserved SFR neighborhoods — they have the homes people want to buy, are a good investment and why talented people want to move to LA.
By calzada on 11.18.19 5:05pm
here, here!!! save the HPOZ’s.
By cicinla on 11.18.19 5:52pm
"What’s really interesting is that even with the un-stated price advantage for the condos everyone always picks the cute old home. "
That’s a bit of an exaggeration. 250 voters picked a condo.
By PAS@CC on 11.18.19 6:04pm
Just curious how you’d feel about infill development in your neighborhood if it was done in a tasteful, incremental way (i.e. rowhouses, duplexes, corner stores) so as to compliment the existing architecture?
I have a personal theory that a lot of the opposition to housing comes down to poor execution… but maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part
By corner soul on 11.18.19 6:41pm
I was OK with 4-plexes by right the way Senator Mike McGuire laid out in SB 4 — no demos, you can add up to 1,500 SF with no more than 25% visible alteration to the front of the house (or something like that).
I have since soured on the idea for the nicer parts of LA because of the AirBnB abuse — it’s clear from our ADU experience that too many people would want to turn their house into a hotel. How would that help with the affordable housing crisis? Then there are the traffic issues. I cannot believe how much worse traffic has gotten in the last two years. Chalk that up to the booming economy but it’s never going away without a breakthrough like self-driving cars + faster mass-transit.
When that comes, sure bring it on. But even then I wouldn’t trust amateur developers to put up good looking stuff. You would need something like an HPOZ review board for every neighborhood and that’s not going to happen. So you’d need to stick to the 75% no alterations rule in established neighborhoods. Some jerk put up a 4-plex near us with plans he bought off the internet. The shower windows face the street and the only landscaping is artificial grass and not the real looking kind.
Since we have so much run-down commercial to work with in LA why take a chance on ruining SFR neighborhoods, and making traffic in those family-oriented areas more dangerous.
The 4-plex by right idea would make a lot more sense in the Sunset district of SF where there really is no place else to build and the area has good public transportation. Just need a way to guarantee good looking design and no AirBnB abuse.
The best place for it would be in areas that have a lot of service and lower paid workers like housekeepers, gardeners, nurses and teachers, but very few rental units. Places like Marin and Santa Barbara come to mind. As it is a teacher in SB has to drive all the way to probably Oxnard or Santa Maria to find an affordable place to rent. Think of all the cars that would take off the road. It makes so much sense in these areas that McGuire refused to let small counties like Marin and Santa Barbara have an exemption for 4-plex by right in SB 4. Cities in these counties have less traffic and parking issues to deal with than a place like LA and usually the lots are larger.
A good approach might be to exempt LA from SB 50 and give other cities the option of more height on their corridors or low-slung 4-plexes by right in their R1 zones.
Speaking of long commutes I heard a wild story this weekend about someone who lives in Thousand Oaks and works in the Bay Area. He leaves TO at 3AM Sunday morning in his Tesla and sleeps all the way up, stopping once at a charging station where he reads e-mail while the car charges. AVs have the potential to solve so many of our problems that it kills me people are trying to stand in their way. Can’t wait to see the new Tesla pickup truck, Elon Musk will unveil it on Thursday in Hawthorne. Tesla’s stock price is up 45% over the last three months.
By calzada on 11.18.19 8:39pm
TO to SF… damn, that’s gotta be one for the record books!
Thanks for clarifying your position
By corner soul on 11.18.19 10:00pm
calzada I’m waiting to hear the inevitable follow up this winter on how he was killed when his self-driving Tesla got confused and drove him straight off the road during a rainstorm.
By KlunkerRider on 11.19.19 8:19am