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June 13, 2005L.A. Real Estate Search - Day 1Ok, after 3 hours I'm tired and frusterated. We actually wound up going to 4 homes; one in Santa Monica and 3 in Mar Vista which I guess is considered West L.A. The nice thing about looking for a home in L.A. is that there is so much real estate available that you go out with the intention of looking at one place and you end up finding other homes on the way. The place in Santa Monica which is only a few blocks from where we live was definitely nice and somewhat affordable considering it is in Santa Monica. It was a 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath built in 1940 for $875,000. The problem with the house was that it was only 1200 sq. feet which is way too small for 2 kids and a dog. Next, we went to look at our second option in Mar Vista. The house was in a nice neighborhood and was in relatively good condition. It also had 4 bedrooms which is something we could definitely use. All of the homes we have lived in (at least homes we have purchased and not rented) have had 4 bedrooms. This is nice because it allows us to use the fourth room as an extra bedroom and computer room. The only problem with the house was the price. The asking price is $915,000 but the real estate agent was quick to point out that the sellers we anxious and would probably be willing to come down a couple thousand dollars if we were serious. I felt much better after this comment, yeh right.....on to the next home. On our way to what was supposed to be the third and final house of the day we came across an open house sign. We followed the signs until we came upon a very big house. The funny thing was it was by far the biggest home on the block. In fact, it was probably 1500 square feet bigger than the next closest home. I told my wife she could go in if she wanted to but that I wasn't even going to waste my time. I bet her it cost around $1.4 million. She said she wanted to go in so I told her I would wait in the car with the kids. She was gone for about 10 minutes and as she was approaching the car she just grinned. My guesstimate was actually low. The house was going for $1.8 million. Considering the neighborhood, I thought the price was high even by L.A. standards. I mean the house was 3600 square feet but $1.8 million, come on.....Well at least my wife was able to get 2 tootsie rolls from inside for my kids. The last house we saw isn't even worth mentioning. It was old, dirty, on a busy street and over priced. One word can sum up our day; FRUSTRATING. The LA housing market is so out of touch with reality that I really don't know what we are going to do. Well, actually I do know, we will go back out next weekend and continue our real estate search. Posted by Dogger at June 13, 2005 09:51 PM CommentsSome time ago i thought about this. Posted by: Mar Vista real estate at August 28, 2005 12:11 PM Post a comment |
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