Best place to buy a home 1 hour away from LAX (Los Angeles: best neighborhoods, real estate)

[lakerfan31220]

Need to find a 3 bedroom/2 bath home to buy for no more than $350,000 within a 60 to 90 minute commute (real-life commute time, not a mapquest estimated commute time) from LAX. Would prefer a new home 1500sq ft+. If anyone has inputs/suggestions it will be appreciated.

[Bunjee]

At that price point, following the rule of cheapest home in the best neighborhood your budget can afford you, Hawthorne and Gardena are probably your best bets. I think your commute would be 30 minutes or less. I could suggest areas further out (Bellflower, Norwalk, Paramount, etc.), but I don't think they'd be any better, just further away, so why not just stay closer to work?

[missionhome]

Other options in addition to Bunjee's:

You can easily find a home in Downey or La Mirada for under 350,000 with the size you want. Both are decent cities, La Mirada being the nicer of the two, but Downey is still nice. You just drive down the 105 freeway west and it ends at LAX. At rush hour it would probably be fastest to take the Green Line rail. From Downey for example you could park at Lakewood station. It is a twenty minutes ride on the train from Lakewood Station to LAX/Aviation Station. At Aviation Station just wait for the free and frequent "LAX Shuttle Bus Route G" to pick you up which takes you directly to each of LAX's nine terminals. It would be a nice commute and able to be done in under 45 minutes.

[yukiko11]

Try the town of Whittier, It has that small town feel. It is important to stay North of Whittier Bl for the best neighborhoods.

[Charles]

Not much.

I found one in bellflower, one in stanton, one in fullerton, one in la puente, one in silver lake and one in garden grove 1500, >1995, <$350K 3+2. Everything else is in basically south central or more than an hour away:

Redfin

I didn't integrate that with school data from

www.schoolperformancemaps.com

This is one reason I never could imagine working in El Segundo even though there were tons of great opportunities for me there.

[JohnG72]

Arleta(Blue Collar latino neighborhood in the SF Valley)

Van Nuys(Be careful of the area).

Sylmar

San Fernando

Granada Hills(nicest area you will find at your price point)

Lakewood(second nicest area at price point)

Whittier

Downey

[yukiko11]

The bottom is currently falling out of the LA affordable real estate areas. Do lots of homework before you commit your $$

[lakerfan31220]

Thanks all for your replies. I have lots of research to do.

[JohnG72]

You are not going to find a new home at that price either unless you are willing to buy a townhome in North Hills(ghetto) or commute from SantaClarita/Valencia/Canyon Country area which is probably more than an hour drive to LAX during rush hour.

I'm not sure where people get the idea that there are new homes in Los Angeles area. There is in the outlying places, but most communities in Los Angeles have been around since the 50's, and then another buildup in the late 60's. OC has many places that built up strong in the 80's.

The only reason North Hills has new townhomes is because the area was heavily zoned for farming and real estate never ran up enough to make investors want to buy those properties. But the last real estate run up was enough for them to buy and built pretty rapidly. It's still ghetto though. SC/Valencia/CC just is on the outskirts of LA so there is an abundance of land for new homes. The real estate crash hit very hard there so there is lots of inexpensive housing.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

You can find a new townhome in Oxnard within the OP's budget. Just depends on what part of the day the commute will take place. I have made it to LAX from Oxnard driving the coast route in under an hour and a half.