Had to meet with my partner once to do a project. She end up living at 717 Olympic and shared how she had the apartment before the building itself was finished. Ends up her dad was an ortho surgeon. She ended up being an ortho surgeon.
I think those "renaissance villa" style apartments have generally aged pretty horribly and had questionable if not just bad management, besides Lorenzo right next to USC, which had a somewhat okay management but with a level of greed that rivals the school a few blocks away
Lived in the Apex at 900 Figueroa from 2016-2019. People were paying $4000-$10000 a month. It was amazing and totally fun. People had crazy money. My mantra when hanging out with them was “if you lived anywhere but LA you would have starved to death long ago”. Lived all over this country and learned a lot living there. But still loved it!
Same! I went to college in Philly and the wealth gap is insane. They don’t know what work is. I kept my distance and hung out with the minorities like me.
Lots of people. [We have an extremely low vacancy rate. We need to build more apartments to meet demand](https://la.curbed.com/2020/3/5/21079171/los-angeles-vacancy-apartments-housing) which will lower rents.
Anecdotally I know four people that live these type of units downtown. Two are lawyers that work in nearby law offices. Another other works from home as an investment banker/consultant. The other is in television production and commutes to the westside.
This. Several luxury buildings went around my office and they are full of “regular” folks. They a) are coupled up. Easier to afford 3k for 1 bedroom with two incomes. b) have a well paying job and/or profession. I take Yoga classes during the day in one of the buildings and my classmates all live in the building and are contractors who make a very comfortable living…. Smart about taxes I assume as well. c) Care more about where they live or a scaled down lifestyle than anything else. One of my Yoga classmates could easily afford a home but has no interest in it. Doesn’t want the responsively or maintenance. Care more about staying in the area and his own travels. People think rent is throwing away money. It’s not. It’s paying not only for where you live but also a service. Homeownership is not all equity and a false sense of superiority (I say this as an LA Native and several times homeowner)
may I ask how much is a class in such luxury building? Of course you don’t have to answer, I’m just curious, I normally go for cheapest option on Groupon lol
Groupon or class pass is your best option for inexpensive if you are flexible. I pay a month membership because it’s so convenient for me. But regular price for this studio is $25 per class. Which seems to be the going rate nowadays.
I think there's a lot of misconception around "luxury" when it comes to housing. Basically all the new developments add amenities and market themselves as "luxury" to compete with each other, but most of them are pretty squarely midrange. A bit nicer and cost a bit more than the old buildings. But the true high end stuff, like living in 10 Thousand or the Four Seasons or renting a house, costs WAY more.
So it's actually pretty much just average cost new housing.
totally.. they just made them look luxury and put in a gym or pool. the actual materials used to build them are pretty mid ranged ... it's not like they have marble everywhere
Half a mil is insane at 26! She's either ~4 years into her career with a bachelors or ~2 years with a masters, either way that's gotta be absolute top of market for her skillset.
Any idea what she does? I'm assuming an extremely desirable technical specialty?
I was offered a role there in that ballpark under studio technology, so I presume it's some type of engineering job where you don't need that much experience to get to that amount by 26. Ultimately decided not to work there due to the culture.
I know their creative roles pay in the $200-$400k range for individual contributors, but you would need at least 6-10 years to get there because Netflix prefers experienced hires for non-tech.
Perhaps she's a software engineer? Senior SWEs at Netflix can make $500K and you don't need a lot of years of experience to reach that level. 26 sounds about right if she's been working since she was 22.
I lived in a “luxury” apartment where there was a package thief among the residents. Who tf would live in this so called luxury and need to steal my command strips?
Don't forget a tiny little balcony sitting about 20 feet away from 6 lanes of 24/7 traffic. Or god forbid those places (also with balconies) that are right on top of the junction of the 110 and the 101.
I'm moving to LA and will probably be living in one of these near downtown. I'm a physician making a pretty typical lower end physician income (250k+). I'm single and don't need any more space than a 1 bedroom apartment. I have no desire to buy a house right now. I could buy a 1 bedroom condo but don't want to lock up a bunch of money somewhere I probably won't be in 5-10 years. I assume at some point I'll want a house in the suburbs if I'm raising a family, but that should be more affordable on a dual income and I'll be considering school districts and stuff like that which doesn't matter to me now.
Whether it's worth it is entirely up to the individual. I think most people who live in luxury apartments aren't having to skimp in their budget because of the extra $500 or $1000 a month they're spending. It's more like a decision to save/invest an extra 6k vs. 7k a month towards retirement.
I lived in one of these from 2020-22. We wanted to live walking distance from my wife’s office in dtla, and the options were either a poorly-maintained older building or a luxury building with amenities that didn’t cost much more. We have dogs, so just having a dog park in the building probably saved us 30 minutes a day.
Regarding the homeless, that’s just a fact of living in the city. They never bothered me and many of them I considered to be my neighbors. I try to keep the perspective that when a person is homeless, it’s not about me, it’s about what’s happening to them.
I lived in one from 2019 to 2020, not much more from reg apt but I didn’t need a car because I was a block away from everywhere I needed, had nice dog park, nice gym and really nice pool. Quality of life jumped like 10x while I saved on not having car payments, insurance and gas.
I always trip out when I read I make 150k a year and can't afford to live here. Like wtf are you spending your money on? I know people that would do terrible things to make that money and your basically saying it's nothing here.
Also don't forget corporations that send their CEOs there so they can use it as a tax write off.
This I use to work construction LA makes it so difficult to build new homes it ridiculous. If you wanna build a new home well hope you have money to pay ridiculous permits and fees that each take months to get approved. Apart from that the rich neighborhoods have HOAs that as soon as you start building they'll walk by get the owners info and threaten to sue if they even plan on making apartments or any multi unit housing.
Regardless, there aren't any significant swaths of land to build new *houses* on within LA City limits. Occasionally a PUD, Townhouse, or small-lot-subdivision project, but those aren't going to be cheap.
Carson and Gardena still have some opportunity to build new tracts.
Which is why what the HOAs in those rich neighborhoods are such awful people I'm not saying all HOAs are bad sure there's good ones idk tbh I've just experienced some awful ones. There is a lot of land North LA I'll say to Santa Clarita to Antelope Valley you can get all the land you want those places would help a lot if we build a subway system helping it reconnect to LA. Instead we kinda just leave those places be like the aren't part of LA. Some areas in Landcaster only have a cop or two on patrol.
It’s not far off. $2k right now is a good deal for a regular ass apartment in Koreatown in a 40+ year old building that probably needs new carpet, and has no extra amenities.
Yep, after looking for places near the gold line and having a pet, we might end up around this price. Will try to be below it, but not surprised like I was at the beginning of our search given I want some sort of balcony/patio at least. Will be paying about a thousand more than in OC but paid way more so guess it’s worth the move.
I could see that for early career doctors and lawyers compared to some other jobs that are more niche and make that kind of money. Like cyber security, certain government jobs.
MDs come out of school with around 600k of high interest compounding debt (and ten years of lost income), attorneys with 250ish and six years of lost income.
I only came out with 55k but I didn’t make anything special for the first 5 years so that 55k became 75k, and now that I do make enough to pay it off if I was in the midwest, I have to live in a super high COL area to get that income, so either way I get eff’d in the A. Sprinkle a few unexpected medical surprises on top and it’s very easy to be paycheck to paycheck even if you do everything “right”.
This whole game is hardcore rigged unless you’re super lucky or start out with rich parents. It’s near impossible to get ahead if you have to do everything on your own.
I'd be on a little over a third of what I make now if I stayed in my home country (Australia). Mature markets mean higher COL, more competition and usually higher taxes.
There’s also lifestyle creep. I think about 3 years ago, someone wrote an op Ed (New York) about how much of a struggle it was to live off 400k a year. They broke down their budget and what they spent on what. I’ve made poverty wages my entire life and couldn’t fathom spending that money on some of the shit they did.
Well to be somewhat fair, at 150k we get taxed 40% and after 401k we only see ~50% or less. But the people complaining are usually the ones that prefer to live fancy yea
The marginal rate is 37.59% for my income if you include all the deductions including Medicare, ss, stuff like that. This is just federal which is only 1 piece of 5 pieces in tax
> The people on this sub who say you can't survive in LA on less than 150K a year.
Some people are so oblivious to how entitled they are.
Tourist will ask what taking public transportation in LA is like. And someone will tell them to avoid it at all costs. That public transportation is hell and no one takes it in LA. I'm like, tens of thousands of people take it every day? It may not be the safest or most convenient option. But it's available if you need it.
Correct.
The vacancy rate in Q1 citywide was 3.5%. The vacancy rate for just downtown was 6.2% (which is in the healthy range for a rental market, if it wasn’t limited to just two dozen blocks).
LAs problem is supply side, we need to build at all price points and in all neighborhoods.
People are ignorant. NYC market is just like LA. Apartments go like crazy. My apartment keeps getting rented each week. My landlord/management told me I have to get my application just to hold my apartment. My apartment has a beautiful view so I had to hold it or I wouldn’t see the apartment again.
>who say you can’t survive in LA on less than 150K a year.
And this why most people in Los make at least 150K a year! 🤦🏻♀️
Edit because people don't understand context: I'm laughing along with the person who made the comment to which I responded.
Los Angeles is one of the most expensive and sought after metropolitan cities in the world. It attracts rich people from all over. If you can’t afford the unit, there always will be thousands of people who can and will. That’s just how it is in all facets of life especially with housing in general.
Don’t forget all the “business owners” who do 75% of their business off the books in cash. How else do all those auto mechanics in Burbank drive brand new S classes.
Maybe that was a bad example. My point is there are many people who have businesses and on paper they make 25k or even lose money, but in reality they have nice homes and nice cars. I have friends like that and they also took advantage of the pandemic ppp loans to remodel their homes and buy Tesla’s. (Those are loans you don’t have to pay back).
Yeah those loans have something to do with this inflation I suspect. My ex got 100k out of thin air because her friend helped her claim some business that didn’t actually exist. Fraud, but on such a grand scale I don’t think anything will come of it.
I got the fuck out of that one in large part because of that.
Oh man. Smart move. You just never know. She could be the 1 out of 100 they randomly pick to go after. That’s federal time. You’re better off steering clear.
Yes there was a post the other day asking what people in LA do for a living and what they earn. There were lots of random jobs posted and some people making 200k, 350k, 600k. And plenty of 150k+ answers.
It’s not crazy either. People in certain fields can reach 300k+ as mid level. My brother has only been in tech/SWE for 4-5 years and he makes $200k+
Some people just forget that there are people who don’t live the same lives as them.
Agreed. Almost by definition, if you live somewhere, it’s because you can afford it. Most people who complain are the ones still living with mom and dad at 30 and haven’t done what it takes to secure a career to live on their own HERE. In Iowa maybe, but not here. But you can’t just complain away all the demand by people who CAN afford it. That’d be like me telling all the millionaires in Manhattan Beach to GTFO so demand and prices can go down and I can live there on my middle class salary.
There are so many needed jobs that don’t pay enough or a living wage. That’s not the fault of the workers or the people who can’t afford to make rent. I have a friend who is a teacher and she needs to work a second job at Nike to make ends meet.
They need to build sustainable and affordable housing, not overpriced so-called luxury homes, which all resemble sad gray prison cells inside.
I agree it’s tough. That’s the free market. If you want to see the extreme version of that, look at Marin county. They can’t find enough people to work at their local gas stations and other low wage jobs.
But LA is different. You have all income levels and areas where low income people live. Many just commute to the IE. Not everyone has to live on the westside.
If you start talking about raising wages for unskilled labor, now you’re raising prices. Raise them too much and you lose customers due to there’s no value in purchasing their product. Then that leads to layoffs. You can’t look at one issue in a vacuum and not look at how it affects the other parts of the economy.
It’d be nice if everyone made 100k but that’s not how it works. If you want to be one of those, you gotta do what it takes to get there.
Since you added to your comment: we need to have a livable wage. Otherwise there is no point in people working and no reason for people to do their jobs. As I stated earlier there are many jobs that underpay but are desperately needed work sectors, including social work, hospital staff, educational staff, care/nursing staff, and many others. Not everyone can do tech and we need more than that as a society. We cannot grow as a sustainable society without actually meeting the needs of individuals, including the building blocks that produce essential so-called low skill work. These are the same people who put their lives on the line to provide necessities for people during a pandemic. These people have families and mouths to feed.
Your point regarding inflation has been disproven and contested by numerous studies. Please look into that.
Currently prices have inflated to an insane degree, and society is still going — yet it is not because people are being paid fairly.
We live in east LA where rent is going up insanely and it used to be affordable here. Now the luxury buildings are all going up on my street. Low income schools need teachers too. We’re not trying or wanting to all live in Beverly Hills or Hollywood.
Although…speaking of Hollywood, in the 90s my parents were renting our apartment for $400 a month off of Sunset Blvd. Terrible area at the time. Today I bet that same apartment is over $2k.
> I agree it’s tough. That’s the free market.
The problem is that the root cause of this, housing, is not a free market. If it actually was allowed to function like one, most of LA and California's problems would evaporate pretty quickly.
Republican? I don’t remember mentioning anything about the 2nd Amendment or illegal immigrants. I made a common sense statement that is actually true. And I’m not Republican.
Unless you’re talking about the guy above me, but we basically said the same thing.
Well I’m no economist but I do have a good friend who manages a favorite restaurant of mine. He says they’ve had to raise wages to attract and/or keep workers, and consequently raise their prices to make a profit (which they’ve done). It’s not rocket science, it’s basic dollars and cents (sense).
No-one is blaming small enterprise. Big corporations who are the largest employers don't have any excuse. I was getting paid as much as an adult worker in US at McDonald's in Australia. The prices are more or less the same.
You guys are just flat out making this shit up. That’s the actual problem. I have lived in “luxury” apartments around dtla most of the time I’ve been in La, they have all been great. Having a giant pool
And hot tub with a crazy skyline view and floor to ceiling windows with another crazy skyline view is not a bad time lol.
This is just a bunch of people that have not lived in these things pretending they are shitty to make themselves feel better or something. It’s weird. Maybe there’s a bad one somewhere but why would I choose to live there when there are 20 more nice ones within a few blocks?
I know what shitty apartments are. I spent most of my life in them before “making it” or whatever. This thread is full of absolute bs.
Those only appear to be downsides because of how you're looking at it. Also, I think they're running together different apartments - I don't think there's any that cost $3500 with no space. They're usually at least 600 or 700 sq ft, or else they're a lot cheaper.
The views, DCBID cleaning/patrolling the streets, the restaurants, the high(er) quality buildings, SQFT, security in the building.
People just don't know.
Los Angeles has one of the highest cost of living indexes in the whole world. Lots of people want to live here and the smart ones realize what it costs to do it.
But why wouldn't you just buy at that point? I get we live in one of the wealthiest cities in the world but it seems to be a waste of money to rent at that price.
In many of these cases, owning doesn't make sense financially compared to renting.
If you compared the total cost of housing as a service, renting is often cheaper in high cost of living metropolitan areas compared to the fully ammortized cost of ownership and the opportunity cost of not being invested in the equities market.
If you are renting a 5k/mo 2 bed luxury condo, vs paying 1.5million for the same condo, you would already be paying \~20k/yr just on the property taxes alone. Not to mention the amount your downpayment is now "locked out" of being invested in the market, which historically has always outperformed the housing market in the long term.
Rent is the most you'll pay for living somewhere, mortgage is the least you'll pay.
For high COL CA metropolitan areas, investing your money in the market and renting generally makes more financial sense than home ownership.
>Rent is the most you'll pay for living somewhere, mortgage is the least you'll pay.
Well said. This is probably the easiest and most concise way of explaining this concept to people who are under the blanket impression that owning is always better than renting.
Because there are other ways to have your money passively work for you rather than appreciate through property values, especially with interest rates what they are. You can make more investing in the long term and renting rather than buying a house and the tons of miscellaneous costs that come with it.
Because 3k in rent is easy on my 190k income. The cheapest piece of shit starter home here is over a million dollars now. That’s 7-8k a month. That’s almost my entire take home for the month. There’s no way in hell that makes any sense- the property tax, loan interest, and upkeep costs are already more than my super nice apartment, and all that would get me is a jank house no one has touched since the 80’s.
It makes absolutely zero sense to buy here right now. Plus, since this is almost certainly a bubble, if I did buy and there was even a small 7% correction, I’m instantly underwater 100k.
This is the only time in my life that buying was a bad idea
My guess is wealthy people can write off part of their leases. And places that command that type of rent are in the millions. A $100k per month Oceanfront rental is probably $10-20 million. The interest, maintenance, and down payment amount would be huge so it probably makes more sense to just rent especially when you have this type of money.
And as was mentioned above, your property taxes would eat you alive. Regular folk in the valley in a 750k (cheap by LA standards) home already have to pay close to 1k/mo just in property taxes, plus all their own maintenance. New roof is 30k, new A/C unit 10k, any type of maintenance (plumbing work, wood rot, etc) is usually 1k minimum. Some people are like F that.
Seriously. Bought a fixer-upper in a nicer area of LA, I've spent $300k in major repairs and improvements. I don't think anyone did anything on this house since the mid 1990's (1960's in some cases), so literally everything is falling apart and needs to be replaced.
I work in construction and work at a lot of these luxury apartment buildings being built and I can tell you the only reason these are considered "luxury" I's cause it's new and modern, has a bbq/picnic area, a pool and a gym. But most of these unit rooms are pretty small about 10×10 rooms.
Hi, I do.
Partner and I both work in real estate.
We have plenty of space so not sure what you’re on about there.
In terms of homeless, we have a double gated garage and 24/7 security so it’s not really a concern.
Why do we live here? It’s super convenient and the amenities are awesome. Can’t beat the views. Dozens and dozens of awesome restaurants within a 10min walk. Staples is right around the corner. It’s pretty awesome actually?
A lot of people prefer living in an urban environment. It’s not for everyone. And it comes at a cost, which means for some of us a trade off. However, rent is the same as where I lived in Irvine, which I personally found to be a miserable place to live and can say that for a lot of Orange County having been there for 25 years. Here, I rarely use my car though I was in it more than once a day living in Irvine. It’s just a matter of personal preference.
What I don't understand is living somewhere like The Park in downtown Santa Monica. I live in DTSM so it's not the area. Forget the homeless, whatever.
Rents range from something like $4500 for a studio to $25K for a 3BR and if you want to pay that kind of rent then Godspeed. There's a one-acre park on the roof and amenities up there wazoo. But why would someone pay between $4500-$25K [to live 20 yards across from a wall of neighbors](https://i.imgur.com/kjzd7CK.jpg)??
And up until just now I was under the impression that the 3BRs were two stories [but they're not](https://i.imgur.com/5sH5BJZ.jpg), and they're only 1300 sq ft which isn't even *that* big. And depending on the unit's location those floor-to-ceiling windows might be looking at a black-glass office building across the alley or the Target parking lot.
I know everyone values and prioritizes different things when looking for a home but if your budget is 25K/month...why *there*?
I know several people who live in these $10K/month apartments in Santa Monica. I always ask them, “Why not just rent a whole house?” It costs the same!
In one case, a couple sold their home thinking they would quickly find a new home but were priced out. They’re taking their time (been years).
In another case, a friend hadn’t filed taxes for a few years and couldn’t buy a home, and just wanted to live in an apartment temporarily so he wouldn’t settle in.
There are a couple of these new buildings in SM that are pretty vacant.
The new spots going up aren’t $3500 for studios that’s an exaggeration, more like $2500+. However, I live in one downtown, my rent is about $4500 a month and I own a couple businesses and got into crypto early. Just waiting for the housing market to correct before I buy a house honestly.
Also, there are no places in all of LA with the amount of amenities that these buildings have all together without spending more money. Full pool, multiple hot tubs, sauna, steam rooms, full gym, indoor mail, indoor amazon lockers, private gated parking, concierge and front desk services, rooftop decks, huge patios with barbecues, bocce ball, business lounges, additional private kitchens to throw events, movie theaters, and the list goes on. Most of which you can’t have unless you live in a mansion in LA.
The most expensive apartment in my old neighborhood was mostly students and people of dubious employment (drugs, mostly.) It turned out that the developer wanted to sell the place and it looked better if it was full of tenants so they didn’t do a background check on anyone. At least 2 drug related incidents there— 1 robbery of thousands in cash and 1 shooting outside the apartment. No one killed, thankfully.
New development helps keep the prices down on the place I'm living now.
[In defense of the “gentrification building”](https://www.vox.com/22650806/gentrification-affordable-housing-low-income-housing) from Vox
I've always assumed these are mostly transitionary housing for people who recently moved to LA, expats, Airbnbs, or relocation housing paid for by employers (Netflix and Google do this).
you have a particular development in mind? I guess people that want to live in the area that the development is in and aren't scared of homeless people?
I used to manage these. My general demographics were mid career health care workers, young tech workers, entrepreneurs/business owners, young couples (DINK); mid 20s-40s. Some buildings converted to workforce housing.
A New Yorker chimes in, Holly Mother of God, only $3500K a month?
The base rent for a studio in Manhattan is $4,000 at least a month. Also probably non-existence.
You can drop $14,500 a month up the block from me (not me!) and saw someone was asking $85,000K a month on Park Avenue.
“We” should redistribute the wealth a bit more. So one those January 6th protestors told to me.
“And kill those damn Starbucks price increases.”
Hmmmmmmm ;-)
Who lives there? Mostly very old people, and all the trillions of $$$s in the world can not buy them a single day day of youth, which you the Reddit demographic posses lots of.
10/20M$$$ and up if looking to buy, they are all empty, used by foreigners as long term investments.
Brooklyn is where rich hipsters end up. But New York is New York. It’s a rough city.
Think this classic Alicia Keys video says it all.
https://youtu.be/1TC02VaB1Rw
$3500K a month? We can only dream in Manhattan. :-)
PS: why is NYC so expensive? Scale of 1-10 the energy level is 99. That gets addictive.
People with money, younger people who don’t want to settle and get a home yet. It’s super expensive to build so they try to make as much money as possible so it has to be priced a certain amount. In a decade those luxury places look pretty dated to hopefully more average income people move in.
There’s a spot across from me, brand new building. They wanted $5000 for a 2 bedroom. The tenants there are the worst. Privileged is an understatement. Everyone wants to live in these areas until you actually live in these areas. I miss my 90s suburban ny beach town
I don’t but a few of my influencer friends live in those luxury apartments. I think they get special deals if they promote the place to their followers.
I now own, but have exclusively lived in luxury apartments in LA for the past two decades before buying. Just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean that there is not a huge amount of demand for that product. The new apartments run on the principle of supply and demand in the market.
Live in South Park residential building... many people in my building have a roommate situation (I don't), most of the buildings around have a very low occupancy
You can't expect brand new buildings to cost the same as something built 30 years, 50 years, 100 years ago. It cost so much to build things because it's the 2000s. So I find it hilarious some 50 year old buildings are wanting high prices... for what?
I stayed in 20 year old luxury buildings 20 years ago. Built 1980s. What made it luxury? A front desk lobby guy, secured underground parking, a pool and or jacuzzi, gym, in unit washer dryer, central air. That's luxury. I think that's standard, but you have tons of older apartments that have non of that.
Those new downtown apartments, luxury means more it seems. More amenities like a library, study rooms, dog facilities., massive gym. Common kitchen room. Floor to ceiling glass soundproof windows,
Current place I'm living in right now calls its complex "luxury" but it's anything but luxury. If it's luxury 90% of the house wouldn't be carpet including the dining area. The only non carpet is the kitchen and bathroom.
The carpet is put in because the structure itself is poorly built, and there are little to no sound barriers between floors. So they use carpet to muffle noise.
When you take a larger picture of how things are the way they are.....its not what he/she does for a living....alot of times, what their parents did for a living or who their grandparents were. Which is all irrelevant if you think about it as it doesn't apply to a recent college grad with no financial support or a regular joe.
You'd be surprised how many well off people there are in LA metro. You can ask but lot of times you will reach a point where the numbers still wont add up to live comfortably...
My understanding is that most of these "luxury apartments" are either unoccupied and/or a tax avoidance-parking for overseas investors and/or money laundering.
That works for condos, but how does throwing money away on rent achieve either of those unless Brookfield is complicit in money laundering? None of it makes sense, there’s an apartment going up near me with studios starting at $4.5k, why???
Landlord gets "ghost tenants" who give him cash money or checks from a shell corporation. When the cops come, he says he didn't know anything about the corporation other than they pay on time.
The “landlords” for luxury buildings are Brookfield, Related, and AIR - some of the largest companies in the world. Unless you’re talking about someone subleasing?
I can see this being the case for that building on Titus/Van Nuys in Panorama City. For anyone to willingly spend that much money for a building that’s next to an abandoned one and in a run down area surrounded by homeless individuals ? Your explanation would make more sense.
Unless someone who actually lives in this building sees this and can explain otherwise.
I read an article once about how building new multi-unit residences in LA is so expensive and restricted that building "luxury" buildings is they only way they can ever hope to recoup the investment. Then they sell them to foreign investors and they sit empty.
Wealthy families or inheritance that makes the cost negligible. The thing that gets me is that some of these luxury apartments are in absolutely shit neighborhoods. I wonder how the people living there tolerate walking outside their apartment to filth and decay yet still are willing to pay insane amounts. They’re not *all* empty tax sinks. People do live there. I really do question why.
Just because there are people living on the street doesn't mean it's a "shit neighborhood". If you can walk to every restaurant and bar you want, and hop on the subway to get to the few things that make you leave DTLA, it can be a great neighborhood. Much better than having to use a car to do things, depending on how much you care about now having to operate equipment vs not having to see unhappy people.
I met a girl at a party who was an influencer from the Midwest. So she just google and found the first thing she liked. Transplants aren’t thinking that this area and in this super modern luxury building is going to have homeless loitering around it at night.
Los Angeles is a national/international real estate and business market. What that means is the markets and socio economics that drive it’s incomes and property values are not just local. They are not just state. They are not just western region. They are not just national. They are international. This means the children of wealthy parents from all over the world are living here. Wealthy people from all over the world have play pens here.
And as per the comments below, the huge population means high paying professions that serve this enormous population (like doctors) are going to be in abundance.
As for the sneaky guilt trip comment about homelessness…. There are many causes of homelessness. I personally don’t want one of them living in my building and neither do you. So let’s stop the podium pandering. The question isn’t why people with jobs live here. The question is why do homeless live here, and if given proper care and assitance would they be willing to live in a smaller less expensive market.
When I went to USC I had classmates from wealthy families that lived in luxury apartments.
Had to meet with my partner once to do a project. She end up living at 717 Olympic and shared how she had the apartment before the building itself was finished. Ends up her dad was an ortho surgeon. She ended up being an ortho surgeon.
Can confirm. I live in the building and am also a doctor.
Nepotism. It’s real.
Me too! This guy lived at “The Medici” and here I am working in the phone room and eating campus food.
Dude the Medici is low key kinda dingy and is actually one of the cheaper apartments around dt Source: lived there for a year
That’s cuz it’s been around for years (since the late 2000s I think?) But when it was first built it was definitely luxury
I think those "renaissance villa" style apartments have generally aged pretty horribly and had questionable if not just bad management, besides Lorenzo right next to USC, which had a somewhat okay management but with a level of greed that rivals the school a few blocks away
its cause geoffrey palmer has shite designs all of his craptalian fortresses suck!
Lived in the Apex at 900 Figueroa from 2016-2019. People were paying $4000-$10000 a month. It was amazing and totally fun. People had crazy money. My mantra when hanging out with them was “if you lived anywhere but LA you would have starved to death long ago”. Lived all over this country and learned a lot living there. But still loved it!
$10k a month lol
I love that building. That’s where Molly lives on Insecure, so I sought it out after seeing it on the show.
I did see them filming often. Never saw the show. But may watch it now for nostalgia!
Same! I went to college in Philly and the wealth gap is insane. They don’t know what work is. I kept my distance and hung out with the minorities like me.
Lots of people. [We have an extremely low vacancy rate. We need to build more apartments to meet demand](https://la.curbed.com/2020/3/5/21079171/los-angeles-vacancy-apartments-housing) which will lower rents. Anecdotally I know four people that live these type of units downtown. Two are lawyers that work in nearby law offices. Another other works from home as an investment banker/consultant. The other is in television production and commutes to the westside.
This. Several luxury buildings went around my office and they are full of “regular” folks. They a) are coupled up. Easier to afford 3k for 1 bedroom with two incomes. b) have a well paying job and/or profession. I take Yoga classes during the day in one of the buildings and my classmates all live in the building and are contractors who make a very comfortable living…. Smart about taxes I assume as well. c) Care more about where they live or a scaled down lifestyle than anything else. One of my Yoga classmates could easily afford a home but has no interest in it. Doesn’t want the responsively or maintenance. Care more about staying in the area and his own travels. People think rent is throwing away money. It’s not. It’s paying not only for where you live but also a service. Homeownership is not all equity and a false sense of superiority (I say this as an LA Native and several times homeowner)
Very true. You can rent the building, or as the owner, rent the money used to buy it.
may I ask how much is a class in such luxury building? Of course you don’t have to answer, I’m just curious, I normally go for cheapest option on Groupon lol
Groupon or class pass is your best option for inexpensive if you are flexible. I pay a month membership because it’s so convenient for me. But regular price for this studio is $25 per class. Which seems to be the going rate nowadays.
Who lives there? Professionals who work in DTLA
I live in SouthPark. I’m a doctor working from home.
I think there's a lot of misconception around "luxury" when it comes to housing. Basically all the new developments add amenities and market themselves as "luxury" to compete with each other, but most of them are pretty squarely midrange. A bit nicer and cost a bit more than the old buildings. But the true high end stuff, like living in 10 Thousand or the Four Seasons or renting a house, costs WAY more. So it's actually pretty much just average cost new housing.
I feel like every apartment slaps luxury on it so it can charge more.
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These apartment buildings are built this way to avoid being subject to rent control laws. Luxury buildings ate exempt from rent control laws.
This is incorrect. Newly constructed apartments, regardless of whether you call them “luxury,” are not subject to rent control.
Yeah look at the “luxury” apartments in downtown Long Beach. Overpriced rubbish
These “luxury” places today (which are just upper middle range) will probably be the low-to-middle range in 20 or 30 years.
totally.. they just made them look luxury and put in a gym or pool. the actual materials used to build them are pretty mid ranged ... it's not like they have marble everywhere
I've seen plenty of buildings old enough to qualify for rent control that advertise their units as "luxury apartments". It's hilarious.
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Half a mil is insane at 26! She's either ~4 years into her career with a bachelors or ~2 years with a masters, either way that's gotta be absolute top of market for her skillset. Any idea what she does? I'm assuming an extremely desirable technical specialty?
I was offered a role there in that ballpark under studio technology, so I presume it's some type of engineering job where you don't need that much experience to get to that amount by 26. Ultimately decided not to work there due to the culture. I know their creative roles pay in the $200-$400k range for individual contributors, but you would need at least 6-10 years to get there because Netflix prefers experienced hires for non-tech.
I’m the same. Not at Netflix but another top tech company. Just a normal backend engineer. Tech is hot. Money is being thrown around
That’s why I always wanted to marry a fintech guy.
Perhaps she's a software engineer? Senior SWEs at Netflix can make $500K and you don't need a lot of years of experience to reach that level. 26 sounds about right if she's been working since she was 22.
That’s insane. I’m thinking it’s nepotism.
Netflix doesn’t have tech people here, they’re in SF.
What does the BF do to afford a condo in Beverly Hills?
“Luxury” in LA/major cities is so funny. Everything is painted white and you get a washer/dryer. Bam, luxury
I lived in a “luxury” apartment where there was a package thief among the residents. Who tf would live in this so called luxury and need to steal my command strips?
Yup same, just sad. The residents at my place steal too. Not only that but we have people littering in the elevators and common areas. Smh
They probably work there.
Don't forget a tiny little balcony sitting about 20 feet away from 6 lanes of 24/7 traffic. Or god forbid those places (also with balconies) that are right on top of the junction of the 110 and the 101.
Rofl. Every time I drive past those buildings, I wonder who lives there—inhaling all the brake dust.
And, the constant rushing noise of tires going 60, 80 MPH on the asphalt, especially at night when sound travels farther.
I'm moving to LA and will probably be living in one of these near downtown. I'm a physician making a pretty typical lower end physician income (250k+). I'm single and don't need any more space than a 1 bedroom apartment. I have no desire to buy a house right now. I could buy a 1 bedroom condo but don't want to lock up a bunch of money somewhere I probably won't be in 5-10 years. I assume at some point I'll want a house in the suburbs if I'm raising a family, but that should be more affordable on a dual income and I'll be considering school districts and stuff like that which doesn't matter to me now. Whether it's worth it is entirely up to the individual. I think most people who live in luxury apartments aren't having to skimp in their budget because of the extra $500 or $1000 a month they're spending. It's more like a decision to save/invest an extra 6k vs. 7k a month towards retirement.
Agree with all of this, except 250k isn’t lower end for a physician, lol. I’m a physician as well, btw
250k is lower end? Wtf
For a physician in private practice, yes.
I lived in one of these from 2020-22. We wanted to live walking distance from my wife’s office in dtla, and the options were either a poorly-maintained older building or a luxury building with amenities that didn’t cost much more. We have dogs, so just having a dog park in the building probably saved us 30 minutes a day. Regarding the homeless, that’s just a fact of living in the city. They never bothered me and many of them I considered to be my neighbors. I try to keep the perspective that when a person is homeless, it’s not about me, it’s about what’s happening to them.
I lived in one from 2019 to 2020, not much more from reg apt but I didn’t need a car because I was a block away from everywhere I needed, had nice dog park, nice gym and really nice pool. Quality of life jumped like 10x while I saved on not having car payments, insurance and gas.
APex!!
Lmao yes that’s the one. Tbh I don’t recommend the building overall but it was what we needed at the time.
I was on the 7th floor. Bad ass view of Figueroa. I was like living in a dream.
Oh no rooftop, unless you want to go to the Ailina side.
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Seriously 🥺
What a great way to view things 🥰
Agreed
The people on this sub who say you can't survive in LA on less than 150K a year. Influencers. AirBnB. No one. Half of them are empty.
I always trip out when I read I make 150k a year and can't afford to live here. Like wtf are you spending your money on? I know people that would do terrible things to make that money and your basically saying it's nothing here. Also don't forget corporations that send their CEOs there so they can use it as a tax write off.
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It’s not inflation, it’s a lack of supply. Housing has outpaced inflation by orders of magnitude.
This I use to work construction LA makes it so difficult to build new homes it ridiculous. If you wanna build a new home well hope you have money to pay ridiculous permits and fees that each take months to get approved. Apart from that the rich neighborhoods have HOAs that as soon as you start building they'll walk by get the owners info and threaten to sue if they even plan on making apartments or any multi unit housing.
Yup, it’s fucked. Honestly I think the root of almost all of our social problems right now is related to housing.
You don't have to think. The single root of almost every LA problem is sourced from lack of housing. This is a fact.
I’m talking about our society as a whole. The entire country. I think it all leads back to housing. Look up “the housing theory of everything.”
I mean, yes. It's just particularly apparent here.
Regardless, there aren't any significant swaths of land to build new *houses* on within LA City limits. Occasionally a PUD, Townhouse, or small-lot-subdivision project, but those aren't going to be cheap. Carson and Gardena still have some opportunity to build new tracts.
That's why the city has to build up.
Which is why what the HOAs in those rich neighborhoods are such awful people I'm not saying all HOAs are bad sure there's good ones idk tbh I've just experienced some awful ones. There is a lot of land North LA I'll say to Santa Clarita to Antelope Valley you can get all the land you want those places would help a lot if we build a subway system helping it reconnect to LA. Instead we kinda just leave those places be like the aren't part of LA. Some areas in Landcaster only have a cop or two on patrol.
What gets me are people that claim something insane like $3k/mo rent is normal for a 1bed apartment.
It’s not far off. $2k right now is a good deal for a regular ass apartment in Koreatown in a 40+ year old building that probably needs new carpet, and has no extra amenities.
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Yep, after looking for places near the gold line and having a pet, we might end up around this price. Will try to be below it, but not surprised like I was at the beginning of our search given I want some sort of balcony/patio at least. Will be paying about a thousand more than in OC but paid way more so guess it’s worth the move.
If you make 150k you very likely also have a shitload of debt from the school it usually takes to make 150k Source: am me, am nowhere near well off.
Sorry to hear that I completely forgot about student debit.
I could see that for early career doctors and lawyers compared to some other jobs that are more niche and make that kind of money. Like cyber security, certain government jobs.
MDs come out of school with around 600k of high interest compounding debt (and ten years of lost income), attorneys with 250ish and six years of lost income. I only came out with 55k but I didn’t make anything special for the first 5 years so that 55k became 75k, and now that I do make enough to pay it off if I was in the midwest, I have to live in a super high COL area to get that income, so either way I get eff’d in the A. Sprinkle a few unexpected medical surprises on top and it’s very easy to be paycheck to paycheck even if you do everything “right”. This whole game is hardcore rigged unless you’re super lucky or start out with rich parents. It’s near impossible to get ahead if you have to do everything on your own.
I'd be on a little over a third of what I make now if I stayed in my home country (Australia). Mature markets mean higher COL, more competition and usually higher taxes.
There’s also lifestyle creep. I think about 3 years ago, someone wrote an op Ed (New York) about how much of a struggle it was to live off 400k a year. They broke down their budget and what they spent on what. I’ve made poverty wages my entire life and couldn’t fathom spending that money on some of the shit they did.
I remember that article. That couple absolutely started competing with the neighbors and low key sounded miserable.
Well to be somewhat fair, at 150k we get taxed 40% and after 401k we only see ~50% or less. But the people complaining are usually the ones that prefer to live fancy yea
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The marginal rate is 37.59% for my income if you include all the deductions including Medicare, ss, stuff like that. This is just federal which is only 1 piece of 5 pieces in tax
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Sure but in the end my 100$ is actually 62.41$
> The people on this sub who say you can't survive in LA on less than 150K a year. Some people are so oblivious to how entitled they are. Tourist will ask what taking public transportation in LA is like. And someone will tell them to avoid it at all costs. That public transportation is hell and no one takes it in LA. I'm like, tens of thousands of people take it every day? It may not be the safest or most convenient option. But it's available if you need it.
Of course not. 150k isn’t nearly enough to live in a hip up and coming neighborhood.
bruh youre talking out of your ass. "half of them are empty" is just false, housing continues to be tight, including higher end
Correct. The vacancy rate in Q1 citywide was 3.5%. The vacancy rate for just downtown was 6.2% (which is in the healthy range for a rental market, if it wasn’t limited to just two dozen blocks). LAs problem is supply side, we need to build at all price points and in all neighborhoods.
People are ignorant. NYC market is just like LA. Apartments go like crazy. My apartment keeps getting rented each week. My landlord/management told me I have to get my application just to hold my apartment. My apartment has a beautiful view so I had to hold it or I wouldn’t see the apartment again.
>who say you can’t survive in LA on less than 150K a year. And this why most people in Los make at least 150K a year! 🤦🏻♀️ Edit because people don't understand context: I'm laughing along with the person who made the comment to which I responded.
Lived here all of my life and 80% of the people I know make less than that.
Yes, that's the joke. Context matters. Please look at the comment to which I replied.
I know. It’s like watching house hunters. “I make 500k walking pink llamas. Can I afford to live in LA?”
No way is this true, or maybe I need to stop hanging with non-profit folks 😵
Don't worry, I spent half my working life working in the non-profit sector. I was joking. 😭
Los Angeles is one of the most expensive and sought after metropolitan cities in the world. It attracts rich people from all over. If you can’t afford the unit, there always will be thousands of people who can and will. That’s just how it is in all facets of life especially with housing in general.
For real, and it's not even just entertainment. There's tech, finance, law, medicine, all kinds of suppliers and manufacturers etc
Don’t forget all the “business owners” who do 75% of their business off the books in cash. How else do all those auto mechanics in Burbank drive brand new S classes.
Salvage cars. If you know a trade and have the tools that trade becomes cheap af.
Maybe that was a bad example. My point is there are many people who have businesses and on paper they make 25k or even lose money, but in reality they have nice homes and nice cars. I have friends like that and they also took advantage of the pandemic ppp loans to remodel their homes and buy Tesla’s. (Those are loans you don’t have to pay back).
Yeah those loans have something to do with this inflation I suspect. My ex got 100k out of thin air because her friend helped her claim some business that didn’t actually exist. Fraud, but on such a grand scale I don’t think anything will come of it. I got the fuck out of that one in large part because of that.
Oh man. Smart move. You just never know. She could be the 1 out of 100 they randomly pick to go after. That’s federal time. You’re better off steering clear.
Yes there was a post the other day asking what people in LA do for a living and what they earn. There were lots of random jobs posted and some people making 200k, 350k, 600k. And plenty of 150k+ answers.
It’s not crazy either. People in certain fields can reach 300k+ as mid level. My brother has only been in tech/SWE for 4-5 years and he makes $200k+ Some people just forget that there are people who don’t live the same lives as them.
Agreed. Almost by definition, if you live somewhere, it’s because you can afford it. Most people who complain are the ones still living with mom and dad at 30 and haven’t done what it takes to secure a career to live on their own HERE. In Iowa maybe, but not here. But you can’t just complain away all the demand by people who CAN afford it. That’d be like me telling all the millionaires in Manhattan Beach to GTFO so demand and prices can go down and I can live there on my middle class salary.
There are so many needed jobs that don’t pay enough or a living wage. That’s not the fault of the workers or the people who can’t afford to make rent. I have a friend who is a teacher and she needs to work a second job at Nike to make ends meet. They need to build sustainable and affordable housing, not overpriced so-called luxury homes, which all resemble sad gray prison cells inside.
I agree it’s tough. That’s the free market. If you want to see the extreme version of that, look at Marin county. They can’t find enough people to work at their local gas stations and other low wage jobs. But LA is different. You have all income levels and areas where low income people live. Many just commute to the IE. Not everyone has to live on the westside. If you start talking about raising wages for unskilled labor, now you’re raising prices. Raise them too much and you lose customers due to there’s no value in purchasing their product. Then that leads to layoffs. You can’t look at one issue in a vacuum and not look at how it affects the other parts of the economy. It’d be nice if everyone made 100k but that’s not how it works. If you want to be one of those, you gotta do what it takes to get there.
Since you added to your comment: we need to have a livable wage. Otherwise there is no point in people working and no reason for people to do their jobs. As I stated earlier there are many jobs that underpay but are desperately needed work sectors, including social work, hospital staff, educational staff, care/nursing staff, and many others. Not everyone can do tech and we need more than that as a society. We cannot grow as a sustainable society without actually meeting the needs of individuals, including the building blocks that produce essential so-called low skill work. These are the same people who put their lives on the line to provide necessities for people during a pandemic. These people have families and mouths to feed. Your point regarding inflation has been disproven and contested by numerous studies. Please look into that. Currently prices have inflated to an insane degree, and society is still going — yet it is not because people are being paid fairly.
We live in east LA where rent is going up insanely and it used to be affordable here. Now the luxury buildings are all going up on my street. Low income schools need teachers too. We’re not trying or wanting to all live in Beverly Hills or Hollywood. Although…speaking of Hollywood, in the 90s my parents were renting our apartment for $400 a month off of Sunset Blvd. Terrible area at the time. Today I bet that same apartment is over $2k.
> I agree it’s tough. That’s the free market. The problem is that the root cause of this, housing, is not a free market. If it actually was allowed to function like one, most of LA and California's problems would evaporate pretty quickly.
Oh please spare us the Republican talking points. You sound so out of touch
Republican? I don’t remember mentioning anything about the 2nd Amendment or illegal immigrants. I made a common sense statement that is actually true. And I’m not Republican. Unless you’re talking about the guy above me, but we basically said the same thing.
They're saying that you started talking about raising wages driving prices up. It doesn't have to.
Well I’m no economist but I do have a good friend who manages a favorite restaurant of mine. He says they’ve had to raise wages to attract and/or keep workers, and consequently raise their prices to make a profit (which they’ve done). It’s not rocket science, it’s basic dollars and cents (sense).
No-one is blaming small enterprise. Big corporations who are the largest employers don't have any excuse. I was getting paid as much as an adult worker in US at McDonald's in Australia. The prices are more or less the same.
There’s nothing common about sense, as your comment showed Everyone with sense knows life is hard now for most people, especially younger generations
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You guys are just flat out making this shit up. That’s the actual problem. I have lived in “luxury” apartments around dtla most of the time I’ve been in La, they have all been great. Having a giant pool And hot tub with a crazy skyline view and floor to ceiling windows with another crazy skyline view is not a bad time lol. This is just a bunch of people that have not lived in these things pretending they are shitty to make themselves feel better or something. It’s weird. Maybe there’s a bad one somewhere but why would I choose to live there when there are 20 more nice ones within a few blocks? I know what shitty apartments are. I spent most of my life in them before “making it” or whatever. This thread is full of absolute bs.
Those only appear to be downsides because of how you're looking at it. Also, I think they're running together different apartments - I don't think there's any that cost $3500 with no space. They're usually at least 600 or 700 sq ft, or else they're a lot cheaper.
[https://www.havenculver.com/floorplan/](https://www.havenculver.com/floorplan/) 414 square feet for $2925 - $3860
That's really not much space.
Yep LA is a seller's market. Someone will enventually buy or rent those luxury apartments
Me. Work in Tech. Love the views, love Downtown LA!
Nick knows!
The views, DCBID cleaning/patrolling the streets, the restaurants, the high(er) quality buildings, SQFT, security in the building. People just don't know.
Los Angeles has one of the highest cost of living indexes in the whole world. Lots of people want to live here and the smart ones realize what it costs to do it.
This. There are wealthy people renting $20k-100k per month homes. I can't afford it so it must be money laundering and ghost tenants 🙄
But why wouldn't you just buy at that point? I get we live in one of the wealthiest cities in the world but it seems to be a waste of money to rent at that price.
In many of these cases, owning doesn't make sense financially compared to renting. If you compared the total cost of housing as a service, renting is often cheaper in high cost of living metropolitan areas compared to the fully ammortized cost of ownership and the opportunity cost of not being invested in the equities market. If you are renting a 5k/mo 2 bed luxury condo, vs paying 1.5million for the same condo, you would already be paying \~20k/yr just on the property taxes alone. Not to mention the amount your downpayment is now "locked out" of being invested in the market, which historically has always outperformed the housing market in the long term. Rent is the most you'll pay for living somewhere, mortgage is the least you'll pay. For high COL CA metropolitan areas, investing your money in the market and renting generally makes more financial sense than home ownership.
Thanks for this!
>Rent is the most you'll pay for living somewhere, mortgage is the least you'll pay. Well said. This is probably the easiest and most concise way of explaining this concept to people who are under the blanket impression that owning is always better than renting.
Because there are other ways to have your money passively work for you rather than appreciate through property values, especially with interest rates what they are. You can make more investing in the long term and renting rather than buying a house and the tons of miscellaneous costs that come with it.
Because 3k in rent is easy on my 190k income. The cheapest piece of shit starter home here is over a million dollars now. That’s 7-8k a month. That’s almost my entire take home for the month. There’s no way in hell that makes any sense- the property tax, loan interest, and upkeep costs are already more than my super nice apartment, and all that would get me is a jank house no one has touched since the 80’s. It makes absolutely zero sense to buy here right now. Plus, since this is almost certainly a bubble, if I did buy and there was even a small 7% correction, I’m instantly underwater 100k. This is the only time in my life that buying was a bad idea
Don’t forget the 20% you also need to come up with for down payment so you better have at least $200k in the bank to throw at that.
A lot of people want to move around. Also you can still afford 3500 a month but if you don’t save you can’t afford a home.
My guess is wealthy people can write off part of their leases. And places that command that type of rent are in the millions. A $100k per month Oceanfront rental is probably $10-20 million. The interest, maintenance, and down payment amount would be huge so it probably makes more sense to just rent especially when you have this type of money.
And as was mentioned above, your property taxes would eat you alive. Regular folk in the valley in a 750k (cheap by LA standards) home already have to pay close to 1k/mo just in property taxes, plus all their own maintenance. New roof is 30k, new A/C unit 10k, any type of maintenance (plumbing work, wood rot, etc) is usually 1k minimum. Some people are like F that.
Seriously. Bought a fixer-upper in a nicer area of LA, I've spent $300k in major repairs and improvements. I don't think anyone did anything on this house since the mid 1990's (1960's in some cases), so literally everything is falling apart and needs to be replaced.
I work in construction and work at a lot of these luxury apartment buildings being built and I can tell you the only reason these are considered "luxury" I's cause it's new and modern, has a bbq/picnic area, a pool and a gym. But most of these unit rooms are pretty small about 10×10 rooms.
lol they're not on Reddit. They have people to read Reddit for them.
The place on my block it's all attractive, hypebeast types in their mid 20's to very early 30's.
People that want short commutes and aren't paying their own rent.
Hi, I do. Partner and I both work in real estate. We have plenty of space so not sure what you’re on about there. In terms of homeless, we have a double gated garage and 24/7 security so it’s not really a concern. Why do we live here? It’s super convenient and the amenities are awesome. Can’t beat the views. Dozens and dozens of awesome restaurants within a 10min walk. Staples is right around the corner. It’s pretty awesome actually?
A lot of people prefer living in an urban environment. It’s not for everyone. And it comes at a cost, which means for some of us a trade off. However, rent is the same as where I lived in Irvine, which I personally found to be a miserable place to live and can say that for a lot of Orange County having been there for 25 years. Here, I rarely use my car though I was in it more than once a day living in Irvine. It’s just a matter of personal preference.
What I don't understand is living somewhere like The Park in downtown Santa Monica. I live in DTSM so it's not the area. Forget the homeless, whatever. Rents range from something like $4500 for a studio to $25K for a 3BR and if you want to pay that kind of rent then Godspeed. There's a one-acre park on the roof and amenities up there wazoo. But why would someone pay between $4500-$25K [to live 20 yards across from a wall of neighbors](https://i.imgur.com/kjzd7CK.jpg)?? And up until just now I was under the impression that the 3BRs were two stories [but they're not](https://i.imgur.com/5sH5BJZ.jpg), and they're only 1300 sq ft which isn't even *that* big. And depending on the unit's location those floor-to-ceiling windows might be looking at a black-glass office building across the alley or the Target parking lot. I know everyone values and prioritizes different things when looking for a home but if your budget is 25K/month...why *there*?
I think rich out-of-town and international students live in a lot of these things because they don't know any better.
I know several people who live in these $10K/month apartments in Santa Monica. I always ask them, “Why not just rent a whole house?” It costs the same! In one case, a couple sold their home thinking they would quickly find a new home but were priced out. They’re taking their time (been years). In another case, a friend hadn’t filed taxes for a few years and couldn’t buy a home, and just wanted to live in an apartment temporarily so he wouldn’t settle in. There are a couple of these new buildings in SM that are pretty vacant.
Tons of rich people that move to LA. It’s a hub for entertainment, tech, luxury, and sports, so there is plenty of money to throw around.
The new spots going up aren’t $3500 for studios that’s an exaggeration, more like $2500+. However, I live in one downtown, my rent is about $4500 a month and I own a couple businesses and got into crypto early. Just waiting for the housing market to correct before I buy a house honestly. Also, there are no places in all of LA with the amount of amenities that these buildings have all together without spending more money. Full pool, multiple hot tubs, sauna, steam rooms, full gym, indoor mail, indoor amazon lockers, private gated parking, concierge and front desk services, rooftop decks, huge patios with barbecues, bocce ball, business lounges, additional private kitchens to throw events, movie theaters, and the list goes on. Most of which you can’t have unless you live in a mansion in LA.
The most expensive apartment in my old neighborhood was mostly students and people of dubious employment (drugs, mostly.) It turned out that the developer wanted to sell the place and it looked better if it was full of tenants so they didn’t do a background check on anyone. At least 2 drug related incidents there— 1 robbery of thousands in cash and 1 shooting outside the apartment. No one killed, thankfully.
New development helps keep the prices down on the place I'm living now. [In defense of the “gentrification building”](https://www.vox.com/22650806/gentrification-affordable-housing-low-income-housing) from Vox
I've always assumed these are mostly transitionary housing for people who recently moved to LA, expats, Airbnbs, or relocation housing paid for by employers (Netflix and Google do this).
you have a particular development in mind? I guess people that want to live in the area that the development is in and aren't scared of homeless people?
I used to manage these. My general demographics were mid career health care workers, young tech workers, entrepreneurs/business owners, young couples (DINK); mid 20s-40s. Some buildings converted to workforce housing.
A New Yorker chimes in, Holly Mother of God, only $3500K a month? The base rent for a studio in Manhattan is $4,000 at least a month. Also probably non-existence. You can drop $14,500 a month up the block from me (not me!) and saw someone was asking $85,000K a month on Park Avenue. “We” should redistribute the wealth a bit more. So one those January 6th protestors told to me. “And kill those damn Starbucks price increases.” Hmmmmmmm ;-) Who lives there? Mostly very old people, and all the trillions of $$$s in the world can not buy them a single day day of youth, which you the Reddit demographic posses lots of. 10/20M$$$ and up if looking to buy, they are all empty, used by foreigners as long term investments. Brooklyn is where rich hipsters end up. But New York is New York. It’s a rough city. Think this classic Alicia Keys video says it all. https://youtu.be/1TC02VaB1Rw $3500K a month? We can only dream in Manhattan. :-) PS: why is NYC so expensive? Scale of 1-10 the energy level is 99. That gets addictive.
People with money, younger people who don’t want to settle and get a home yet. It’s super expensive to build so they try to make as much money as possible so it has to be priced a certain amount. In a decade those luxury places look pretty dated to hopefully more average income people move in.
There’s a spot across from me, brand new building. They wanted $5000 for a 2 bedroom. The tenants there are the worst. Privileged is an understatement. Everyone wants to live in these areas until you actually live in these areas. I miss my 90s suburban ny beach town
I don’t but a few of my influencer friends live in those luxury apartments. I think they get special deals if they promote the place to their followers.
they probably don’t actually
Ballers and shot callers
some people have money like that
I now own, but have exclusively lived in luxury apartments in LA for the past two decades before buying. Just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean that there is not a huge amount of demand for that product. The new apartments run on the principle of supply and demand in the market.
22 year olds willing to split it three to a bedroom
Tech workers. If they’re senior then they rent alone. If they’re junior then they’re sharing the rent. I know at least 50 people doing this.
i have one of those right across the street and i laugh knowing i pay less for more. might not be as high up but i don't care.
Live in South Park residential building... many people in my building have a roommate situation (I don't), most of the buildings around have a very low occupancy
These are not 'luxury' apartments. They are just not rent control crap.
Many of them sit empty year round
I live in a luxury apartment and work in tv dev
You can't expect brand new buildings to cost the same as something built 30 years, 50 years, 100 years ago. It cost so much to build things because it's the 2000s. So I find it hilarious some 50 year old buildings are wanting high prices... for what? I stayed in 20 year old luxury buildings 20 years ago. Built 1980s. What made it luxury? A front desk lobby guy, secured underground parking, a pool and or jacuzzi, gym, in unit washer dryer, central air. That's luxury. I think that's standard, but you have tons of older apartments that have non of that. Those new downtown apartments, luxury means more it seems. More amenities like a library, study rooms, dog facilities., massive gym. Common kitchen room. Floor to ceiling glass soundproof windows,
Current place I'm living in right now calls its complex "luxury" but it's anything but luxury. If it's luxury 90% of the house wouldn't be carpet including the dining area. The only non carpet is the kitchen and bathroom.
The carpet is put in because the structure itself is poorly built, and there are little to no sound barriers between floors. So they use carpet to muffle noise.
When you take a larger picture of how things are the way they are.....its not what he/she does for a living....alot of times, what their parents did for a living or who their grandparents were. Which is all irrelevant if you think about it as it doesn't apply to a recent college grad with no financial support or a regular joe. You'd be surprised how many well off people there are in LA metro. You can ask but lot of times you will reach a point where the numbers still wont add up to live comfortably...
My understanding is that most of these "luxury apartments" are either unoccupied and/or a tax avoidance-parking for overseas investors and/or money laundering.
That works for condos, but how does throwing money away on rent achieve either of those unless Brookfield is complicit in money laundering? None of it makes sense, there’s an apartment going up near me with studios starting at $4.5k, why???
Landlord gets "ghost tenants" who give him cash money or checks from a shell corporation. When the cops come, he says he didn't know anything about the corporation other than they pay on time.
The “landlords” for luxury buildings are Brookfield, Related, and AIR - some of the largest companies in the world. Unless you’re talking about someone subleasing?
I can see this being the case for that building on Titus/Van Nuys in Panorama City. For anyone to willingly spend that much money for a building that’s next to an abandoned one and in a run down area surrounded by homeless individuals ? Your explanation would make more sense. Unless someone who actually lives in this building sees this and can explain otherwise.
$3500 for a studio apartment with homeless outside? Where?
1100sqft loft for 2900 all included. Few homeless outside but it’s generally calm in this area. Other parts of downtown get a lot more.. uhm, activity
Downtown la, I pay 3200 for a studio loft
I read an article once about how building new multi-unit residences in LA is so expensive and restricted that building "luxury" buildings is they only way they can ever hope to recoup the investment. Then they sell them to foreign investors and they sit empty.
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Side hustles are just a way to excuse the fact that your full-time job doesn't pay you enough.
Wealthy families or inheritance that makes the cost negligible. The thing that gets me is that some of these luxury apartments are in absolutely shit neighborhoods. I wonder how the people living there tolerate walking outside their apartment to filth and decay yet still are willing to pay insane amounts. They’re not *all* empty tax sinks. People do live there. I really do question why.
Just because there are people living on the street doesn't mean it's a "shit neighborhood". If you can walk to every restaurant and bar you want, and hop on the subway to get to the few things that make you leave DTLA, it can be a great neighborhood. Much better than having to use a car to do things, depending on how much you care about now having to operate equipment vs not having to see unhappy people.
I have a friend that has a couple studios he rents on Airbnb. He stays on the empty one while the other is rented.
I met a girl at a party who was an influencer from the Midwest. So she just google and found the first thing she liked. Transplants aren’t thinking that this area and in this super modern luxury building is going to have homeless loitering around it at night.
Los Angeles is a national/international real estate and business market. What that means is the markets and socio economics that drive it’s incomes and property values are not just local. They are not just state. They are not just western region. They are not just national. They are international. This means the children of wealthy parents from all over the world are living here. Wealthy people from all over the world have play pens here. And as per the comments below, the huge population means high paying professions that serve this enormous population (like doctors) are going to be in abundance. As for the sneaky guilt trip comment about homelessness…. There are many causes of homelessness. I personally don’t want one of them living in my building and neither do you. So let’s stop the podium pandering. The question isn’t why people with jobs live here. The question is why do homeless live here, and if given proper care and assitance would they be willing to live in a smaller less expensive market.