Property Ladder house found on ziprealty

[lamoneyguy]

This was pretty interesting. The latest episode of Property Ladder featured a brother and sister team remodeling a 3br/1ba house in Westchester, CA (LA suburb near Loyola Marymount Univ). They took 8 months to complete the remodel (a bit more than their 12 week timeline). They overpriced the house in hopes of making enough profit to mentally justify all the time they spent on the flip, and at the end of the show is saying, “if it doesn’t sell, we may pull it off the market until the market comes back. I just hope we can get enough rent to cover our carrying costs.”

Here’s the mls per ziprealty: 06_125209

See my blog post for more about the episode.

[Chrispy]

With all that renovation, that house still doesn’t grab me. How much could they possibly get for rent? $2500? That puts them $1000 underwater on their current mortgage, and something tells me their payments are gonna ratchet up…

I sure wouldn’t want to have spent $92K in hard cash AND eight months of hard labor to make a renter happy.

[speedingpullet]

Its a nice enough place, in a nice enough area.

But $900K for it? I think…not

[avidsaver]

The house does grab me as Westchester is always on my radar, and it’s nicely remodeled. But… if and when there’s a correction, I would imagine that Westchester will be hard-hit (part of the reason that it’s on my radar) because it’s near LAX, and it’s in L.A. Unified school district. So, these sellers are probably in for a rude awakening — especially when there are other homes in the area that are currently going for so much less (and dropping) with more square footage (even though not as updated)… just the take of this total novice…

[lamoneyguy]

Good take avidsaver. You’re right about the proximity to LAX. I lived in that area after college because I was able to find cheap rent, it was close to the South Bay where I had family, and not too far from the Westside, where I worked. That said, it’s not where I would want to buy a $900k 3br house. Not with the constant sight and sound of airplanes overhead.

[PerryChase]

avidsaver, lamoneyguy, what do you think of the Marina Del Rey, Playa Del Rey areas? I like the area but I’ve never lived there. I may consider relocating to that area when the price is right. What do you think of the noise situation near LAX?

[lamoneyguy]

I have never lived in Playa Del Rey, but it is an area that has grown tremendously. It is middle-upper income/price. Marina is pretty expensive, but less so once you get inland a bit. On the actual marina you will not find any SFRs, only condos and apartments. My impression of MDR has always been older folks, some artist types with money. MDR would not have a noise problem. I can’t speak to PDR.

[speedingpullet]

Marina is almost exclusivley condos/apt, most having been built within the last 10 years or so. There’s some very nice townhouses on Admiralty Way, if THs are your cup of tea.
The further inland you go, the more SFRs you get, but due to the 90 and the 405 crossing perpendicularly just above Linclon, you get a lot of freeway noise in the back streets. These are your standard 1200 sf 2b/2bs with sub-5000 lots, which at the moment are around 800K.The good new is that LAX noise is less of a problem than the freeway noise, and a good selection of stores in the mall on Mindinao/Glencoe.

Playa is nice – on the beaches its all condos/apts, but go inland, up on the bluffs near Loyola Marymount University, and there are some incredible (and incredibly priced) Mansions overlooking whats left of the Ballona Wetlands. A big new condo complex was bult last year right by Electronic Arts on Lincoln. The wetlands themselves are dimishing fast, and mainly just driven through at speed by people on their way to somewhere else. Beaches are OK, but get crowded in summer. If you’re picky about polloution, watch out for the chemical plant at the end of Imperial Ave, a couple of miles west of Playa proper.
A fun, if rather strange, beach experience is to sunbathe under the end of the LAX runway and watch the jumbos clear the end. If you lie in the right place, you can watch (and hear) them thundering away, not 100 ft over your head before they climb and disperse to all points of the compass.

Bad news – traffic can be a bitch. On the beachfront is a road that goes down to the south beach towns (Redondo, Manhatten, etc…) and further inland is Lincoln, which gets used as an alternative to the 405 and as direct route to LAX, so you’re pretty much caught between a rock and a hard place, as there’s very few times of the day when these two roads aren’t stop-start traffic.

Noise polloution from LAX varies – depending on the time of day and which way the wind is blowing. Nighttime flights by law have to embark and climb over the sea, so once they’re high enough the noise isn’t so bad.
There are no residential buildings at the end of the runway (though PdR village is only 1 mile down the road), so you won’t be woken up by your ornamants falling off the shelves, but you will live with a dull constant roar, which you may or may not be able to tune out..

Both places are a little too congested, crowded and expensive for my liking, but if you work on the Westside then they are a good alternative to unafordable Santa Monica and Apartment Hell West L.A.

[Bugs]

My grandmother once owned a house located directly under the takeoff pattern for LAX and overlooking the beach areas. Spectacular view but the noise from those jets was overwhelming. It would rattle the house and you couldn’t hold a converstation until it passed over. Those neighborhoods all got condemned in the early 1970s and now they’re nothing but sand, but there were some nice homes up there at one time.

[avidsaver]

PerryChase – both Marina Del Rey and Playa Del Rey can be a little pricey, but both are nice. In Playa Del Rey near Loyola Marymount University and near the bluffs that speedingpullet referred to, there are very nice homes. Westchester borders Playa Del Rey (to the East), and has some nice pockets and less nice pockets. The noise from the planes (now this is from someone who grew up here) is bad when you’re directly in the flight path, but not so bad when you’re removed.

As an example, I live in El Segundo, about five blocks south of LAX, and the noise is not NEARLY as bad as when I lived in Inglewood (about 6 miles east of LAX but directly in the flight path). My sister lives about three blocks south of me, and I rarely notice the noise there. But you weren’t asking about El Segundo (which by the way is where the plant is). My brother lives in Westchester, and they are pretty close to LAX, but I don’t think that they have any ridiculous plane noise either.

You wouldn’t have to deal with airplane noise at all in Marina Del Rey, but as far as I’ve seen, the SFRs aren’t that great. I would probably consider Santa Monica (where I work) any day before Marina Del Rey, but I’d consider Playa Del Rey before both MDR and SM.

I’d agree that the traffic is nothing to be happy about. I am one of the people driving through the wetlands a couple of times a week to get to work. The thing about Playa Del Rey is that there isn’t the most convenient way to get in and out.

Hope that made sense with all the ramblings.

Oh yeah — the traffic of the airport does vary depending on the day and time. The rule about taking off and landing over the ocean at night is not always followed though.

[lindismith]

Perry,
I lived in Playa for 8 years. I lived right down on the sand in the area called The Jungle. It’s the last affordable beach front property. The homes are all duplexes, so you can live in 1 and rent out the other. It is a great area to live in because of the community – everyone knows each other, and the weekends are about playing volleyball down at the beach. I think it is a great place for kids too.
In my opinion, Manhattan Beach is too homogenous, and Marina Del Rey is too cold (it has a feeling of old, tired, something’s-not-quite-right about it).
Check out Trolley Way, and see how much the homes are selling for.
If you work on the Westside, you can take surface streets to work. Plus, it’s easy to get to Hollywood up the 91 and over to La Cienaga.
The only downside is a little riff-raff on summer weekends, but I alwas quite like that. It’s not for everyone though.

[speedingpullet]

lindismith said:
“Marina Del Rey is too cold (it has a feeling of old, tired, something’s-not-quite-right about it).”

I couldn’t put it better myself. Despite having a few friends who lived there, I never took to MdR – there’s a sort of lost, haunted quality to it. I quite like Playa, but can’t afford it, and don’t want to live in a condo or a duplex.

[avidsaver]

Interestingly, I’ve never had any desire to live in Marina Del Rey either. It seems that there used to be much more to do there in the ’80s (at least in my limited POV of those days), but not really now. But I don’t really know anyone who has lived or currently lives there.

I’ve actually been more of an “urban” type than a South Bay dweller with most of my adult life having been spent in L.A. proper (9 years) and West Hollywood (6 years). But parenthood changes perspective, and I’m all about a good school district now (if I can afford it).

[PerryChase]

Thanks for the comments on MDR and PDR.

I agree about the not-quite-right, old, haunted feeling of MDR. That’s because many of the buildings have that 1970s feel to them. But I see that it’s changing.

If I relocate to LA, I’ll try my best to stay on the Westside. I need to go up there more frequently and look around. My preference would be for a SFR. For some reason, I’d much rather live in a concrete high-rise than in a low-rise condo complex built out of wood. I’ve been to some wood condo complexes near the ocean and there’s a musty, damp, termite infested smell to them (in San Diego and in LA).

[CardiffBaseball]

I was curious about applying for a job up there, but decided against it. The position was near the NBC Universal building, just north of Hollywood (I guess), I am not sure what area that is called. It seemed like parlaying my skills to enter into the Entertainment industry wouldn’t be a bad idea so it still bugs me a bit.

In any case having a couple of kids who like to go outside and throw a ball around, it seemed like a rough area to try and move to. I hadn’t considered these South Bay areas mentioned. I tend to prefer stale white dominated areas for school district purposes. Yes I know it’s boring, but it seems to do us well.

Sounds like from here there are some areas. It looks like when you get east of Hollywood, the demographics really change. I have mixed feelings about hispanic dominated areas. If you cruise around Bonita you see people out jogging, park activities, basically great neighborhood activities. However the whole gang thing up there makes me want to avoid these areas so I was looking at rentals around burbank and didn’t see a whole lot that makes me want to leave San Diego.

[Author]

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