Need advice for apartment hunting in LA/Santa Monica from OR...
June 27, 2020 9:00 AM Subscribe
My daughter is scheduled to start at FIDM in LA this October and is looking for an apartment in Santa Monica or near FIDM in LA (less so)...
My daughter is scheduled to start at FIDM in LA this October (as of now) and is looking for an apartment in Santa Monica in the hope she may be able to work there and commute.
We are currently in Oregon and I have been too busy to assist and am trying to let her take the lead. Now as I try to educate myself on the difficulties of the process I am finding there is a huge amount of fraud on CL apartment ads (no surprise). With the pandemic the idea of masstransit may be less appealing from SM to downtown LA. although she is fine with masking, etc and so am I.
Does anyone have advice about 1: sites/brokers to assist with finding housing from Oregon? and 2: ideas about neighborhoods closer to FIDM that may appeal to and be somewhat safe for a 20 y/o female?
Thank-you.
My daughter is scheduled to start at FIDM in LA this October (as of now) and is looking for an apartment in Santa Monica in the hope she may be able to work there and commute.
We are currently in Oregon and I have been too busy to assist and am trying to let her take the lead. Now as I try to educate myself on the difficulties of the process I am finding there is a huge amount of fraud on CL apartment ads (no surprise). With the pandemic the idea of masstransit may be less appealing from SM to downtown LA. although she is fine with masking, etc and so am I.
Does anyone have advice about 1: sites/brokers to assist with finding housing from Oregon? and 2: ideas about neighborhoods closer to FIDM that may appeal to and be somewhat safe for a 20 y/o female?
Thank-you.
Westsiderentals.com is still the go-to real-estate-type apartment portal. Those listings are generally not frauds, though obviously keep your antennae up. (It's not limited to the west side, it covers all of LA.)
Define "safe"? LA changes block to block; I generally don't advise people rent sight-unseen here (also landlords were, pre-pandemic, disinclined to it as well since there's almost certainly someone who wants the place who can hand them a check) and sublet/rent a room instead, but that's probably going to be very difficult right now. But if you can at all pull off temporary lodging, there's a decent chance she might make a connection when school starts and find a roommate situation that way.
If she needs to work in Santa Monica, it's probably best to live there. If that's not a given, she should probably live either in DTLA or near a transit hub that's a straight shot. South Pasadena is one option, Koreatown is another (that's probably the hippest hip-young-people neighborhood right now, according to the interests of my younger acquaintances).
It will limit your pool of available housing a little (not necessarily in a bad way, with fraud being such a concern), but you can engage a Realtor to do the legwork for you. I don't know any myself, but someone else here might have one they recommend.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:23 AM on June 27, 2020
Define "safe"? LA changes block to block; I generally don't advise people rent sight-unseen here (also landlords were, pre-pandemic, disinclined to it as well since there's almost certainly someone who wants the place who can hand them a check) and sublet/rent a room instead, but that's probably going to be very difficult right now. But if you can at all pull off temporary lodging, there's a decent chance she might make a connection when school starts and find a roommate situation that way.
If she needs to work in Santa Monica, it's probably best to live there. If that's not a given, she should probably live either in DTLA or near a transit hub that's a straight shot. South Pasadena is one option, Koreatown is another (that's probably the hippest hip-young-people neighborhood right now, according to the interests of my younger acquaintances).
It will limit your pool of available housing a little (not necessarily in a bad way, with fraud being such a concern), but you can engage a Realtor to do the legwork for you. I don't know any myself, but someone else here might have one they recommend.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:23 AM on June 27, 2020
We lived two blocks away from FIDM for six years and several people in our building were students there. I told my partner your daughter's desire to live in Santa Monica and go to FIDM and he made a horrified face.
Does she already have a job in Santa Monica or is she going to be looking for one? There are a lot of jobs in DTLA, and if she wants to work in fashion, well, they don't call it the "Fashion District" for nothing. Many, I'd dare to say most, fashion jobs are downtown.
If her goal is to work near where she lives, well, that's frankly the big challenge in LA. The big advantage of DTLA (where FIDM is) is that it is the center of LA's transit system, so if she doesn't find a job in DTLA proper she can still find something she can commute to easily. I was the only person I knew who could take public transit to my last job in Century City. It is easier to get from DTLA to most areas of the city than it is to get from Santa Monica to most areas of the city, whether you're talking about driving or public transit.
As far as areas that would be more appealing to a 20 year old female near FIDM...gosh, most of them. The area around FIDM is mostly young; we stood out for being over 40. South Park is particularly safe. The Arts District and Little Tokyo are also safe but a bit further from FIDM. (Not hugely, but a little further. There's a couple of bad blocks in between but if you take a bus or an Uber that's not an issue.) The Historic Core, particularly Spring and Broadway between 8th and 4th are a bit sketchier but very popular and rent is a bit cheaper. Santee Lofts themselves are safe but on the edge of a bad area. These are all close to the Fashion District (Santee's technically in the Fashion District, I think). Like, generally really close. Our apartment was owned by a fashion mogul who had initially wanted someplace to live where he could walk to work in 5 minutes.
There is also what we nicknamed the NQD (Not Quite DTLA), which is just across the 110 from DTLA and is a fairly easy walk to FIDM.
As people above have mentioned, Westside Rentals is good for finding a rental place. There's also a fair amount of buildings (like AMP Lofts, Broadway Palace, etc.) which have websites showing their rentals and privately managed rental offices. I'm zero help for Santa Monica but if she decides to seriously consider DTLA I can point you at a few of these.
posted by rednikki at 3:04 PM on June 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
Does she already have a job in Santa Monica or is she going to be looking for one? There are a lot of jobs in DTLA, and if she wants to work in fashion, well, they don't call it the "Fashion District" for nothing. Many, I'd dare to say most, fashion jobs are downtown.
If her goal is to work near where she lives, well, that's frankly the big challenge in LA. The big advantage of DTLA (where FIDM is) is that it is the center of LA's transit system, so if she doesn't find a job in DTLA proper she can still find something she can commute to easily. I was the only person I knew who could take public transit to my last job in Century City. It is easier to get from DTLA to most areas of the city than it is to get from Santa Monica to most areas of the city, whether you're talking about driving or public transit.
As far as areas that would be more appealing to a 20 year old female near FIDM...gosh, most of them. The area around FIDM is mostly young; we stood out for being over 40. South Park is particularly safe. The Arts District and Little Tokyo are also safe but a bit further from FIDM. (Not hugely, but a little further. There's a couple of bad blocks in between but if you take a bus or an Uber that's not an issue.) The Historic Core, particularly Spring and Broadway between 8th and 4th are a bit sketchier but very popular and rent is a bit cheaper. Santee Lofts themselves are safe but on the edge of a bad area. These are all close to the Fashion District (Santee's technically in the Fashion District, I think). Like, generally really close. Our apartment was owned by a fashion mogul who had initially wanted someplace to live where he could walk to work in 5 minutes.
There is also what we nicknamed the NQD (Not Quite DTLA), which is just across the 110 from DTLA and is a fairly easy walk to FIDM.
As people above have mentioned, Westside Rentals is good for finding a rental place. There's also a fair amount of buildings (like AMP Lofts, Broadway Palace, etc.) which have websites showing their rentals and privately managed rental offices. I'm zero help for Santa Monica but if she decides to seriously consider DTLA I can point you at a few of these.
posted by rednikki at 3:04 PM on June 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm placing FIDM somewhere near downtown because I can't easily find an address. I live in Glendale in the valley and commuted through downtown to USC for years. By car it can be a relatively pleasant trip to DTLA if you know the quick way. My apartment complex was bought by new owners in February and most people moved out and they've spent the past months completely gutting and rebuilding pristine units with all new stuff. They just put out the sign offering 1 and 2 bedroom units. It's not a hip area, it's totally boring, mostly Armenian, it's as safe as anywhere I've ever lived. Close to the 2, the 134, and the 5.
Because they probably do want to evict me but can't (no hard feelings, they bought the place at just the wrong moment in time), I'm thinking of bargaining to move into a new apartment so they can have mine to remodel and upsell. I've been here 20 years and it's a nice quiet safe place close to freeways and not that difficult to make it downtown. But I'm a bit old and easy to please.
You could catch a bus over to Pasadena and hop on the Metro to get downtown. Stops at the corner.
Anyways, not quite an answer but there are a dozen brand spanking new apartments in various states of being ready in a decently connected area in the valley that I'd have no issues going "sight unseen" 'cause I've seen them.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:30 PM on June 27, 2020
Because they probably do want to evict me but can't (no hard feelings, they bought the place at just the wrong moment in time), I'm thinking of bargaining to move into a new apartment so they can have mine to remodel and upsell. I've been here 20 years and it's a nice quiet safe place close to freeways and not that difficult to make it downtown. But I'm a bit old and easy to please.
You could catch a bus over to Pasadena and hop on the Metro to get downtown. Stops at the corner.
Anyways, not quite an answer but there are a dozen brand spanking new apartments in various states of being ready in a decently connected area in the valley that I'd have no issues going "sight unseen" 'cause I've seen them.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:30 PM on June 27, 2020
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posted by pinochiette at 9:22 AM on June 27, 2020