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speedingpullet
Participant…no, but ballet shoes, ra-ra skirts, assymetric shoulder lines and studded belts are all back.
Can I ever forgive the 80’s for such heinous crimes against fashion…?ParticipantSeconded.
I stopped using Realtor altogether, once I realised that ZipRealty had data on DOM and a price history.
Having said that, does Zip cover as many areas as Realtor?BTW – I keep on seeing condos in the SFR sction of Zip as well.
Nice try, but no cigar…;-)ParticipantStrangely enough, Buyer, I was going to ask the esteemed company at Piggington’s the very same question….
Seems that Zillow was actually updating weekly as late as August.
September – 1st and 15th (current) appears to be bi-monthly – except that that would mean an update on 30th sept, 4 days ago.
I can’t seem to find any info from Zillow themselves as to when they will update, or why they are updating to erratically. Like others, my guess would be lack of sales data for comps.
Seeing as I’m using the Zestimate as an upper price guideline, I would like to know when I have to trawl through the 60 or so places I’m tracking on Zip to see a difference.
Yes, I know, Zestimates are notorious for their innaccuracy, but in conjunction with previous sales data and even tax assessed value, it gives some indication of which prices are going for a particular property. I’d rather see no change on a weekly basis, than waiting a month and having to update like mad.ParticipantWe’re renting a 2b/2b SFR, 6K lot with garage in Van Nuys for $2100. Currently valued on Zillow in the low 600’s.
Using the 150x rent formula, still roughly double what its ‘worth’. So, we’re not planning on leaving anytime soon.ParticipantI read and enjoy her intital posts, but find the ensuing posts by others, on semantics and her personal qualities, very dull.
ParticipantI’d second Carlislematthew on the UK stuation.
The UK is much, much more secular than the United States.
The Church of England has had a steadily declining membership over the last 20 years, to the point where clergy are finding it hard to find (and hold) a viable congregation, and churches are being decommisioned (often coming on the market as refubished condos or SFRs).
Church attendance is very, very low, and is not increasing, due to the fact that the large percentage of church goers are aging, and younger people are not replacing them.
Most people see the church, and consequently christianity, as an outdated paradigm that has little to offer people in the modern world. Certainly, any body, group and individual that tries to impose christianity is met with resistance and resentment.To use a housing analogy – comparing The C of E with christianity in the US is like comparing Apples with Oranges.
ParticipantAnd, c’mon, who on earth wears a Bow Tie at 6.30 in the morning?
ParticipantAhhh…. đŸ™‚
Splendid fun!
ParticipantWell, its definaltey the reason my husband and I are here! Wages are roughly double what we could expect for similar jobs – he: games programmer, me: contact animator -in the UK.
If you’re thinking of renting then either Craigslist or Westside Rentals (www.westsiderentals.com) are the places to look. Westside Rentals charges $60 for 60 days, but you might be able to find someone to ‘share’ a password for it.
Unfortunately, my memebership has lapsed, or I’d give you mine. Anyway, I’d hazard a guess that you’d be able to find something suitable in Studio City, North Hollywood or Burbank. Word on the street is that rents are all over the place at the moment, due to the uncertaintly (in some people’s minds, anyway) of which way prices are going – so you may be able to get a decent place for decent price, or at worst, get a free laugh from the more delusional LLs prices/properties.As a guide, our place in West Van Nuys (Balboa/Roscoe) – 3b/2b SFR with a 6,000 lot, 2 car garage, washer/dryer/dishwasher, nicely landscaped, on a quiet street and in very good condition (hardwood floors, granite doodads in the kitchen) is $2150 per month. So, expect to pay anything from $2500 – $1500 for simliar, depending on the area.
Good luck!ParticipantCardiffBaseball – you won’t get any criticism from me on where you want to live!
Despite there being fairly clear-cut areas for Latino/non-Latinos, lots of people of all races and ethinicites live in all areas. As your search seems to be based on living space and non-LAUSD cachment areas, then you might consider some of the following. Unfortunately, as I don’t have kids, I don’t really keep track of the school districts, but ZipRealty will be able to show you the cachement areas.I’m assuming you’re thinking of taking a job near the studios in Burbank/Universal Studios, so the nearer the better.
The 101 is bascially a parking lot at rush hour, so I’d advise finding a place south of the 101 with decent access to the US/Bbk area. Ventura Blvd or Moorpark are often used as a better east/west road, but as they are surface street, it can be time consuming.I’ll take Universal City as ground-zero, so to speak.
Both the Burbank and Universal City areas are on the northern slopes of the Holywood Hills/southernmost part of the San Fernando Valley, so if you want a view ..look southeast, east, south and southwest of Universal City. If you want a flat yard and don’t mind living in SFV…then look northeast, north, northwest and west of UC.Bear in mind that the San Fernando Valley can be as hot as hades in the summer, especially the further west you go, but if you don’t mind a ‘desert’ heat and have good A/C then its a nice, and cheaper alternative to living on the Westside – south of the Hollywood Hills.
Westside properties have a huge ‘sunshine tax’ premium (as does most of L.A at the moment), and people still look down on the SFV, but if you have a family that needs some room, then its definately worth looking at.I’d definately avoid Hollywood proper altogether – its crowded and pretty sleazy. West Hollywood has some sweet little houses, emphasis on the little – but a word of warning, your neighbours have a much better chance of being gay in here, as this is a predominantly gay/lesbian area.
The hills above Sunset Blvd have some nice houses but being in the hills means that yards are hard to some by, and the prices are astronomical at present, for quite modest houses. Look for Cahuenga Pass, Mount Olympus, Hollywood Hills, Whitley Heights and Los Feliz for decent – if sometimes extremely expensive – places directly south of Universal City.
East of UC is Burbank which is quite a nice, safe area, and close by. It also has one of the 3 IKEAs in L.A, which is a plus in my book đŸ˜‰ Lots of studio folk live there and the area isn’t as pricey as south of the hills. IIRC its also not in the LAUSD cachement area (being an incorportated city), but you’d need to check that. East of Burbank, I dont really know the areas, but i’m sure someone on Piggintons can advise you.
North and West of Universal City are Toluca Lake, North Hollywood, Valley Glen, Valley Village and Studio City. These areas are mostly north of Ventura Blvd, which means that they are less ‘desirable’ – South of Ventura nomally means more toney and more expensive. They’re mainly in the flat land of south San Fernando Valley, but these areas all have SFRs with decent yards. southern Studio City is actually up in the Hollywood Hills, so look for bigger prices and smaller yards.
I’d hazard a reccommendation at this point and say that you might like North Hollywood. It has a decent mix of Latino/non-Latino, and is cheaper than many other areas. Its quite a young and upcoming area, but there are some dodgy part of it, so research it well. Valley Glen and Valley Village are pretty much parts of the North Hollywood area.
Further West and South are Beverly Hills, Sherman Oaks and Encino and Van Nuys.
Van Nuys – where I am – is a lower middle class area, with a mix of Latino and non-Latino. The areas around Van Nuys Airport are nice, but very hot in summer. Prices are coming down, and 2b/2b SFRs with a decent (6000+ sqft) lot are anything from 500 – 700K.
Encino and Sherman Oaks are your typical ‘stale white’ areas. North of Ventura Blvd is cheaper – and flatter – and south of Ventura more expensive.
Everyone has heard of “Beverly Hills 90210”, so expect to pay for it!
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Anyway, I hope I haven’t scared you off with too much information!ZipRealty has searches for all these areas, so make up your own mind. And please feel free to pick my brains on any area you’re particularly interested in and I’ll do my best to help you out.
ParticipantInteresting point, PerryChase.
While class distinctions are still very important in the UK (most English people can tell which class you’re from, and where you were born/brought up, almost before you’ve finished a sentence, its that ingrained), after WWII the rise of the middle class has lead to less emphsis on it, and more on material wealth.
for instance, most people in London and the surrounding area speak, in what my mum used to call “Estuarine English”, ie sort of a watered down Cockney, so its difficult to tell exactly what class younger people belong to by thier speach. I know, I’m one of them – despite growing up in the affluent middle class suburb of Putney, years of living in South East London has given me the sort of accent you’d expect from an extra on “Eastenders”.
You’re right in the fact that the very rich tend to be much more understated, but the stuff they have tends to be of better quality. And people tend to hang on to houses – especially in the posher areas of London – and pass them on to thier kids. This is “old” money, so they don’t feel the need to show it off.
Having said that, Margaret Thatcher lives in a newish Gated Community in South London, but they certainly don’t build McMansions in London, simply because there’s not the land to do it.
Of course, the younger generations do like a bit of Bling!, but on the whole people are wary of too much showing off. Despite being class-ridden, there’s still a strong undercurrent of Soci-alism in the UK that finds ostentatious displays of wealth tacky and in-your-face. But, then again, there’s David and Victoria Beckham, so who knows…
But, I’m sure its much the same in France, too, n’est ce pas?
Participantlindismith 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.
ParticipantMarina 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.
ParticipantActually, most of the Landed Gentry in the UK are as poor as church mice these days. Just because you have a posh accent, a double-barrelled name and coat of arms doesn’t guarantee that you are stinking rich anymore.
OK, your family might own Blenhiem Palace…but what with Estate Taxes and prohibitive maintenance costs, you have to rent the crumbing pile out to the National Trust in perpetuity.
And if the NT is feeling generous, they might allow you to rent one of your own coachhouses, or gardener’s cottages for a nominal fee. -
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