few Q's about life in L.A. (Los Angeles, Beverly Hills: middle-class, for sale)

[caroline33]

Hi all,
we are family of 5 moving to LA in a year.
I looked at some neighbouhoods and I think Hollywood Hills is best for us. But im little confused about prices coz there is a lot difference online about prices.
What price in your opinion can I expect for house with pool and garden. We are going to live there only for 3-4 yrs so we don't want to spend very much on house. Is approx 4M enough?
And what can I expect in terms of bills, food, gas? We are currently in Paris and it is very expensive. We need at least 5,000 euros for food, bills, gas. are prices more resonable there
Thnx in advance for answers!

[Mike121]

Originally Posted by caroline33

Hi all,
we are family of 5 moving to LA in a year.
I looked at some neighbouhoods and I think Hollywood Hills is best for us. But im little confused about prices coz there is a lot difference online about prices.
What price in your opinion can I expect for house with pool and garden. We are going to live there only for 3-4 yrs so we don't want to spend very much on house. Is approx 4M enough?

Is $4,000,000 enough for a house? Honestly I don't know anything about the price bracket. I wish I did.

But once you buy your house in the hills with a pool, please feel free to invite me over to hang out.

But I can tell you that the house across the street from me is for sale for $300,000 but it isn't on a hill, and it doesn't have a pool.

[Ceece]

Why would you buy a house if you are only going to live in it for 3-4 years?

[caroline33]

well we are selling our paris app. and it is better to buy house that you can always sell or rent than to pay rent for 4 yrs and basicly loose money.
I really don't know anything about real estate prices there. I just heard it is expensive so i thought it is somewhere like paris. and we will pay for house how much we get for our place here and that is around 4M. Do you think that is too much?
What about other expenses.
We found out about this only 10 days ago so i didn't really did any research

[yoyoma02]

Originally Posted by caroline33

well we are selling our paris app. and it is better to buy house that you can always sell or rent than to pay rent for 4 yrs and basicly loose money.
I really don't know anything about real estate prices there. I just heard it is expensive so i thought it is somewhere like paris. and we will pay for house how much we get for our place here and that is around 4M. Do you think that is too much?
What about other expenses.
We found out about this only 10 days ago so i didn't really did any research

Most people don't own, they rent in LA. However, most people don't have 4 mill to spend either.

Personally, I would rent for a year until you learn the area and find out a bit more about where you would like to live.

You wouldn't want to live in Hollywood if you enjoyed spending time at the beach. Or, you wouldn't want to live in South Bay, if you wanted to be close to downtown.

[Mike121]

Originally Posted by caroline33

well we are selling our paris app. and it is better to buy house that you can always sell or rent than to pay rent for 4 yrs and basicly loose money.
I really don't know anything about real estate prices there. I just heard it is expensive so i thought it is somewhere like paris. and we will pay for house how much we get for our place here and that is around 4M. Do you think that is too much?
What about other expenses.
We found out about this only 10 days ago so i didn't really did any research

Sorry for being a bit snarky. With the death of the middle-class here in Los Angeles, 13% unemployment, four years of recession, huge number of homeowners owing more on their house than they're worth, and the fast widening gap between rich and poor, it is hard to take a post like yours seriously.

But let me try to be serious for a second.

$4M is a reasonable amount to buy a house in the hills. You're probably looking a 4 bed / 4 bath or 5 bed 5 bath for that price. You could also get a house in the flat, non-gated part of Beverly Hills for that amount.

In the hills, prices vary a lot depending on the view of the house, so houses that look over the LA basin can be more expensive.

Take your commute, if any, into consideration. It can take some time to get into and out of the hill neighborhoods, especially at rush hour.

I don't know what to tell you about other expenses other than to say that medical care will be much more expensive than in France, and most people up in the hills sent their kids to private school, which can be $15k to $35k a year, depending.

If you get a house in the hills, buying earthquake, fire and flood insurance is vital.

[smokingGun]

food & consumer items are very very cheap here compared to Paris because there is no VAT and the large number of big box stores & internet retailers which keep prices in check. Plus here in LA we have a large supply of undocumented workers to handle menial chores like housecleaning, gardening, home repair.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by Mike121

Sorry for being a bit snarky. With the death of the middle-class here in Los Angeles, 13% unemployment, four years of recession, huge number of homeowners owing more on their house than they're worth, and the fast widening gap between rich and poor, it is hard to take a post like yours seriously.

And those are exactly the reasons why the costs of housing will continue to go down. Unless these problems are reversed soon then property values will keep declining. Anyone who would buy property right now in L.A. for anything but income/rental purposes has to be very naive or nuts. Even the wealthy in L.A. rent more than own.

[caroline33]

hmm so you say renting is better? I mean we didn't make any final decisions plus we have 12 more months to consider. But can you tell me than what price I can expect if i want to rent a place?
How much do you spend on food and utilities?????

[JonathanLB]

Boy, I wish I had just lived in Paris and had $4 million, I'd sure think differently of the cost of living in Los Angeles!

This place is extremely expensive to live what I consider an acceptable lifestyle in. There's no place for less than $1,500 per month rent that would be good enough for me to be actually happy living in and even at that rate, I wouldn't be happy, I'd just be... not unhappy. It's going to be more like $2,000/month to get a decent place. You have enough for a nice house, which is awesome, so you can probably enjoy a nice quality of life.

Groceries here are expensive, gas is expensive, parking is outrageously expensive almost anywhere, basically it's an expensive city in general.