Moving to La-La Land

July 27, 2005 1:19 PM

I'm moving to LA soon and have two questions. First, I have a rental budget of around $1200 to $1500 a month for a one-bedroom (not a studio!). I want to live close enough to enjoy all that LA has to offer but not so close that I have to pay way more for a lot less. Any ideas on areas of town, specific rental agencies, websites, complexes, etc. Second, is living out there really all that much more expensive than saying living in Houston, Texas for example? Can anyone offer specifics on what costs so much.
posted by JPowers to work & money (27 comments total)

WestsideRentals. I live in the Hollywood Hills in a HUGE studio with a glass wall overlooking the whole city and pay $1450. There's often a few deals like this knocking around - guest apartments and the like.
posted by forallmankind at 1:29 PM on July 27, 2005

You should be able to find a nice enough 1BD place in the area within your budget. I'm sharing an $1800/mo 3BD apartment in the Burbank/Glendale area which I found through West Side Rentals. You DO have to pay to gain access to their listings, but they've got a lot more to offer than Craigslist does.

I'm not living in paradise but there aren't bars on the windows, I'm comfortable walking around the neighborhood at night, and there is tons of fun stuff to do. I can get to downtown Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank or Los Angeles in a matter of minutes, plus it's reasonable to drive out to the beach on weekend afternoons.

My biggest expenses are really rent and gas (probably because I have so many friends in Orange County). Everything else seems pretty reasonably priced to me. I don't foresee having any problems living in the area until I'm ready to settle down and buy a house... at which point the insane prices out here might drive me back to the midwest where the people who live in million-dollar houses are actually millionaires.
posted by adamk at 1:31 PM on July 27, 2005

For $1200-$1500 you can find a one bedroom in pretty much any part of Los Angeles. Westside Rentals is the most popular place to find apts, but craigslist is catching up.

When you say "all that LA has to offer", what exactly do you mean? There's beach, mountains, desert, downtown, suburbs, valley (no one wants the valley though), there's a lot to offer.

Your number one priority should be how you are getting to work. Depending on where you live and which direction you are driving, an 8 mile commute could take 45 minutes or longer. Let me know the area where you are working and what kind of LA activities you care about most, and I should be able to suggest a few neighborhoods.

Another thing about LA is that it is literally a place where one side of a Blvd is very nice and the other side is trashy, you need to be careful. I would not sign a lease with any place you haven't seen, I assume that you are going to come out here before you do that.
posted by jonah at 1:41 PM on July 27, 2005

That's a very reasonable budget for a 1BR, I think. You can even manage a pretty good 2BR for that in a lot of places. And Westside Rentals is the place to be looking. As to which area of town.... What are you interested in? Commute time can be a big factor, for instance; it can be really nice to live near your job. If you're interested in night life, there are lots of parts of town that have lots of different things to offer. Or do you want to be (relatively) near the ocean? There are so many different parts of town and it's so spread out that it's difficult to make recommendations without knowing what you're interested in.

I've noticed that groceries cost about 10-15% more here than they did in Seattle. Booze is cheaper, though.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:48 PM on July 27, 2005

If things go as planned, I should be working at a studio or agency -- but I have no idea which one yet so I can't offer an exact location. I know that William Morris and CAA are both in Beverly Hills so, as long as I'm reasonably close to them, I will be able to manage.

As far as what things I'm most interested in, I want to be close to cool theatres, restaurants, shops, etc. I have very little interest in the beach or the mountains or any of that.

Does that help?
posted by JPowers at 1:49 PM on July 27, 2005

Westwood, maybe? It's certainly centrally located, but it'll be tough to find a good deal on an apartment there....

I just found this Wikipedia page, which is awesome. I wish I had know about it before I moved out here. It can be hard to keep track of all the neighborhoods.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:00 PM on July 27, 2005

The Wikipedia page is all about neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the city -- but there's more to it than that. Beverly Hills, Pasadena, and Burbank are three of the better known cities in the LA basin, which includes both Los Angeles and Orange counties. And be advised, Westwood is among the more expensive places to live. Since it sounds like you're coming to work in the Industry, however, you probably want to be close to Hollywood, so Westwood might work out well.
posted by Rash at 2:11 PM on July 27, 2005

I would advise against Westwood unless you're going to UCLA. It is congested and overcrowded, and many of the apartments are run down (from years of college abuse, not that there's anything wrong with that)

When you say that you are working for a studio, or agency, that could put you anywhere from Santa Monica to Burbank. Do you already have an in at William Morris and CAA? If so, and you think that you are going to work there, I would suggest the Beverwill or Century City area. It's close to Beverly Hills and is a bit more affordable.

Personally, I prefer the Westside, but crossing under the 405 is a bit of a nightmare between 4:00 and 6:00 pm, and if you don't care about being closer to the beach, it wont be as appealing to you.

You may want to find a place with a shorter term lease, instead of being locked into a location for a year. Having to sit in gridlock for hours a day can really degrade your quality of life.
posted by jonah at 2:24 PM on July 27, 2005

Per Rash's comment, Westwood isn't really close to Hollywood. Westwood is UCLA and I would avoid living there, as it's pretty fratty (unless of course you like fratty).

I would suggest Silver Lake or even Echo Park if you like living around hipsters/musicians/artists/architects and so forth. This is really the only area in LA where these kind of people live in abundance, besides Hollywood and Venice, but Silver Lake and Echo Park are much nicer places to live (unless of course you want the hipster set with the beach, then live in Venice but be warned that it can be sketchy). If you're not into that kind of stuff, living in Santa Monica is probably your best bet. Especially if you're going to work at an agency. You could live fairly close to the beach and still be close to work. The weather in Santa Monica (and in Venice) is better than anywhere in the city, because the ocean breeze keeps temperatures constantly in the 70s in the summer and a little cooler in the winter. It's kind of yuppyish and skews older than Hollywood, but I think it's worth it for all that it offers. Also, West Hollywood, which is known as the gay hood of LA, is really nice - it lies between Beverly Hills and Hollywood. The only problems with W. Hollywood is that there are no freeways nearby, so it can be difficult to get to other parts of the city. Good luck with your move - I found that it was actually much easier to move to LA than I thought it would be, as there are a lot of vacant apartments (unlike NYC).

And I agree with others who've said that for $1,500 you will not have a problem finding something in any of these neighborhoods.
posted by billysumday at 2:28 PM on July 27, 2005 [2 favorites]

no one wants the valley though

Don't be hatin!
posted by menace303 at 2:35 PM on July 27, 2005

What billysumday said is true about freeway access. Having an easy route to the freeway is very important in LA, that's one reason why West LA/Palms is nice because you can get to the 10 (east/west) and the 405 (north/south) without too much trouble.
posted by jonah at 2:41 PM on July 27, 2005

You can get to the 10 or the 405 but for most of the day that just means you get to sit in freeway traffic sooner.
posted by rdr at 2:56 PM on July 27, 2005

Silverlake and Echo Park are a little far if you'll be working in Beverly Hills -- the trip down Sunset will be horrible. West Hollywood is cool, whether you're gay or not. (If you are, it's definitely an area you should seriously consider.) There are tons of restaurants and bars, and it's fairly easy to get to places like Westwood, Beverly Hills, etc. You can even get over to the Valley (although why would you? :-) pretty quickly via Laurel Canyon.

Your budget should be fine for a one-bedroom in WeHo, but probably nothing more; most of the 2-beds I see around the area are now $1700 and up.

Re: billysumday's comments about Santa Monica: if you live there, be prepared for cold(ish) fog for several hours in the mornings more often than not...
posted by littleme at 2:59 PM on July 27, 2005

Yes, as jonah and rdr are alluding to, JPowers, and as I'm sure you've heard from others, the traffic in LA is awful. Therefore, live where you want to live. You've got the money to do it, so I'd say live close to the beach, if that's what you want, or live in the hills with the cool kids and nice bars. Don't do Palms, don't do Westwood, don't do Century City, etc. Even though you could live in one of those places and save a little bit of time driving back and forth to work during weekdays, you may find that you're not close to anything that you want to enjoy and take part in on the weekends (this is typically either the beach/hiking [westside] or bars and live music and restaurants [Hollywood/Silver Lake]).

And that's more than my allotted two cents.
posted by billysumday at 3:04 PM on July 27, 2005

the traffic in LA is awful. Therefore, live where you want to live.

How's that? No, no -- live close to where you work. It's the secret to happiness.
posted by Rash at 3:12 PM on July 27, 2005

Yes, you can definitely find a good 1BR for that in many perfectly nice neighborhoods -- Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Miracle Mile, Hancock Park, Culver City, and West Hollywood are all areas I like (I've lived in Los Feliz and Miracle Mile).

Access is a tricky animal here, though. You do want some sort of reasonably easy access to a major highway (I mostly use the 10 and the 101), but you also want a sort of semi-central sense of surface street access to many other neighborhoods. (LA lingo alert: "surface streets" = major streets aren't highways) Surface street access is important so you don't have to rely on the highway to get everywhere and so that you can get to a variety of other neighborhoods relatively easily. This is one reason I prefer living in Miracle Mile over Los Feliz -- I'm basically splitting the difference between the West Side (e.g., Westwood, Santa Monica) and Hollywood/East Side (e.g., Los Feliz, Silver Lake), but I'm not so West Side dependent as I'd be in, say, Santa Monica. (I'm also literally 3 blocks from work, which is about as awesome as it gets.)

If you do wind up working in Beverly Hills, I'd personally recommend Miracle Mile/Park LaBrea/Hancock Park (all very near to each other), West Hollywood, and possibly Culver City. All of these neighborhoods have good access to BH, plus restaurants, shops, theaters, and suchlike. Also, you may not personally have much interest in the beach, but generally speaking, the closer you are to the water, the cooler it will be when the heat gets really bad. So when it's really sweltering, it's wonderful to be able to get to Santa Monica or Venice in 15 minutes.

As for other expenses -- the main additional cost I always notice in L.A. is food/drink/entertainment. Restaurants and bars are markedly more expensive here, even if you're not going to particularly fancy places (which I almost never do, actually). At my neighborhood bar, for example, the beers are about $5 and the cocktails are $7. At my comparable neighborhood bar back in Chicago, beers run about $2-3 and cocktails about $4. Also, get used to paying for valet parking -- it's not particularly expensive (between $3 and $5 most places) and there are plenty of times where I'll try to find street parking to begin with, but it's kind of a fact of life a lot of the time. Things like movies are a little more expensive too -- tickets for first-run movies at the nicer theatres run around $12.
posted by scody at 3:14 PM on July 27, 2005 [1 favorite]

Oh, and if for some reason you do end up working in Burbank, I have come to realize that there are parts of the Valley that really aren't bad (aside from the fact that it's always hotter up there) -- I think Studio City is quite fab in a lot of ways, actually (some great food and shops up there -- really!), and there's the whole North Hollywood ("NoHo") theatre/arts community thing going on these days. You also still have pretty easy Hollywood/West Hollywood access from that area via the canyons/Cahuenga Pass/101. (You just wouldn't want to live in Burbank itself.)

If you work in Hollywood, I'd recommend West Hollywood (aka "WeHo"), Hollywood Hills, or Los Feliz. (Los Feliz can also give you access to Burbank.) Hollywood proper is mostly a pain in the ass to live in -- traffic is substantially more chaotic, the neighborhoods are sketchier, etc. It's like that friend you had in college who was always calling you up in the middle of the night to freak out about some crisis and borrow $50 to pay the electric bill. I'm in Hollywood a lot to do stuff, but I'm always glad I don't live right there anymore (my first place in Los Feliz was right on the edge of H'wood).
posted by scody at 3:33 PM on July 27, 2005 [1 favorite]

Since nobody has mentioned it, I thought I should link the Metro. As you can tell from the comments above, nobody ever uses it, probably because it doesn't do a good job of serving the Westside. Still, it's clean and uncrowded so you might want to keep proximity to a Metro station in mind when choosing a place.
posted by cali at 4:47 PM on July 27, 2005

Well you guys answered bascially every concern I had -- huge thanks. Oh, one more thing, how does West Hollywood fair in terms of price?
posted by JPowers at 5:01 PM on July 27, 2005

If I were you, I'd forget Westside Rentals or any rental agency, and just -- drive around. Plan to spend the day in the car, arm yourself with a Thomas Guide and some information about neighborhoods where you might like to live, and drive around looking for "for rent" signs. Take notes, and a picture of each place you see.

Lots of landlords, particularly of smaller or older buildings, do not advertise or list with agents here, so if you don't drive by, you'd never know.
posted by Methylviolet at 5:06 PM on July 27, 2005

JPowers: West Hollywood is pretty reasonable. If that's where you go looking, you'll find some great places, I'm sure.
posted by billysumday at 5:13 PM on July 27, 2005

Silverlake and Echo Park are a little far if you'll be working in Beverly Hills -- the trip down Sunset will be horrible.

Dude. One of the first things I learned in LA is that you simply do not use Sunset to get you anywhere.
posted by bingo at 8:36 PM on July 27, 2005

bingo's right. if you want to check out WeHo, take Santa Monica. it will cut your time to a quarter. public transit is lacking in LA, but if you work off of the red line, it is feasible to live farther up the line (say NoHo).

jonah's advice is the best. you HAVE to live reasonably close to your work. i grew up in LA and think it is the greatest city in the world (being in kuwait does that to you), but a lot of my friends hate LA. every single one that hates it has at least a 45 minute commute in the morning.

if you work at cedars, don't live in reseda... no matter how cheap the rent is.

My advice for working in BH is live in Westwood or WeHo. i'd go for WeHo just because i like the atmosphere... and jumbo's clownroom, but that's another issue.
posted by bryak at 2:15 AM on July 28, 2005

By the way, if I'm understanding you correctly, JPowers, you don't have a specific job offer yet, right? If so, keep in mind that LA is such a company town that the film and TV business takes place everywhere. Look for a reasonably central neighborhood you like and can afford, and don't get too hung up on being close to William Morris or what have you.

Also, if you find a range of apartments in which you think you could be happy, I would strongly encourage you to choose from the absolute cheapest end of that range. As you can imagine, there are hordes of bright and ambitious young people moving to LA hoping to get entry-level jobs, and whether you get one a month after moving or three years is going to depend on luck as much as anything else. (Ditto for whether you are able to convert that entry-level job into your dream Hollywood career.) The more cheaply you can live, the longer you can sustain the unemployed/underemployed Hollywood hopeful lifestyle--and the longer you can sustain it, the greater your odds of coming across that lucky break. I'm speaking from personal experience.

Good luck, and enjoy LA! It's a great city.
posted by yankeefog at 7:51 AM on July 28, 2005

JPowers - feel free to drop me an email when you start scoping out places to live. I'm not much help with anything east of Hollywood, but I have the Westside and the South bay wired. I also run two local community websites (see my profile, no linking here) where I can post queries for you.
posted by jonah at 8:38 AM on July 28, 2005

Jonah: Will do! And big thanks -- to you and everyone else above.
posted by JPowers at 1:35 PM on July 28, 2005

if you want to check out WeHo, take Santa Monica. it will cut your time to a quarter.

While this might normally be the case, Santa Monica Blvd. is undergoing some serious construction east of the 405 right now, and traffic is awful. You'll want to avoid driving through that area for a while if at all possible.
posted by the_bone at 11:32 PM on July 28, 2005