Congress has cut federal funding for public media — a $3.4 million loss for LAist. We count on readers like you to protect our nonprofit newsroom. Become a monthly member and sustain local journalism.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Stucco Apocalypse: Now Is The Time To Buy!
()
Ken Layne is the West Coast editor of Wonkette.com. Each week he makes another ridiculous claim about his LAist feature: This week, it's apparently a real-estate column or something!
How about paying $1,500 a month for 30 years for a no-bedroom loft over a single-car garage in a cramped corner of Echo Park? With six grand per year in property taxes and insurance and maintenance, that's $24,000 a year for three decades -- $720,000 in all, not counting property-tax and insurance increases, and not counting catastrophes.
That's what you get at 1416 Fairbanks Place, just off Echo Park Avenue north of Sunset, for the asking price of $295,000 or $893 per square foot, not quite double the 90026 norm.
Support for LAist comes from
No slight on Echo Park is intended. I live up the street from here, my kid goes to day care right up the road, Elysian Park is where I hike with the dog every day and the neighborhood is full of great little bars and restaurants. It's also filled with the homeless, gangstas, lunatics, couches dumped everywhere, piles of human shit, syringes, and utterly crap public schools.
You can generally walk around at night without catching a stray bullet or being grabbed by a stray nutty cop, unlike a decade ago, but it's still Echo Park.
And at the end, you'll still have a 330-square-foot guest quarters atop a single-car garage in Echo Park, which will either be semi-sketchy, very sketchy, totally abandoned or covered in earthquake rubble by the time that title is free and clear.
According to the property fanatics at LA Curbed, this very same tiny abode sold for $29,000 in 1996, just 11 years ago.
But of course you'll sell it at a profit and everything will be fine because real estate always goes up. Except it doesn't, and this whole real estate boom has been a particularly savage example of the usual SoCal boom & bust cycle.
When the last bust hit in the early 1991, prices didn't recover -- in inflation-adjusted dollars -- for 10 years. That's where we're going now, again, and it's been happening for 18 months. Don't be fooled by the "median price gains."
The sub-$1 million market is so dead that the only action is in the fancy wealthy properties, which are still dropping while simultaneously skewering the median upwards. Even the boosters admit prices won't recover before 2011. Millions of people in the American Southwest are already upside down: They owe more on their mortgage than what the house is worth.
Support for LAist comes from
It could be worse. It will be worse, but at least not today. In Nevada, one of every 166 homes is in foreclosure. Those kinds of horrid numbers are only starting to hit the terribly overbuilt Central Valley and the "Inland Empire" this summer.
Once the 7.0+ earthquake/permanent drought/$10 gasoline catastrophes start to hit, we will wonder how a 1927 single-car garage with a living space above ever sold for $29,000.
As Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone.
Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us.
We rely on donations from readers like you to stay independent, which keeps our nonprofit newsroom strong and accountable to you.
No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, press freedom is at the core of keeping our nation free and fair. And as the landscape of free press changes, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust, but the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news from our community.
Please take action today to support your trusted source for local news with a donation that makes sense for your budget.
Thank you for your generous support and believing in independent news.
Chip in now to fund your local journalism
(
LAist
)
Trending on LAist
-
The L.A. City Council approved the venue change Wednesday, which organizers say will save $12 million in infrastructure costs. -
Taxes on the sale of some newer apartment buildings would be lowered under a plan by Sacramento lawmakers to partially rein in city Measure ULA.
-
The union representing the restaurant's workers announced Tuesday that The Pantry will welcome back patrons Thursday after suddenly shutting down six months ago.
-
If approved, the more than 62-acre project would include 50 housing lots and a marina less than a mile from Jackie and Shadow's famous nest overlooking the lake.
-
The U.S. Supreme Court lifted limits on immigration sweeps in Southern California, overturning a lower court ruling that prohibited agents from stopping people based on their appearance.
-
Censorship has long been controversial. But lately, the issue of who does and doesn’t have the right to restrict kids’ access to books has been heating up across the country in the so-called culture wars.
Best of LAist