I would say Downtown LA Condos are the worst thing to get into right now.

I used to work downtown and love the lofts that were going up 5~7 years ago. Back then the prices made sense and there weren’t a lot of nice lofts. But now if you drive around Downtown LA you’ll notice many many buildings in the process of being turned into “Luxury” condos. I’d say there are about 8~10 condo buildings comming into market in next two years.

And we’ve been talking about Downtown LA being cleaned up for the last 7 years. And to give credit, it is better. But it’s still no where near safe enough to live without worry. The area is still home to 20,000 homeless people. And they are not going anywhere. (if you can come up with a good place to dump 20,000 homeless people, I’m sure LA City Counsel would love to hear it.)

It’s a cool place to live for single males or young couple with no kids if your condos has a parking inside the bulding with 24/7 security. But how many single males and young couples can afford $350,000 and up 800sq foot condos that they will need to move out of as soon as they get to the next stage of life (kids).

The only thing that can possibly give any hope of price not going down in downtown LA is the construction of the new mall next to Stapes Center & Convention Center. But I’d say the price of Downtown LA Lofts holding up are minimal. I think Downtown LA is the riskiest place to put your money in LA area.