Links: A big discount on a Little Tokyo loft

I'm test-driving a new feature: Morning links from here and there.

From Redfin via Curbed LA: A Little Tokyo Loft -- once sold for $400,000 -- lists for $245,000.

Opinion, from the New York Times: The federal bailout of Fannie Mae violates constitutional principals.

From Newsweek via Patrick.net: Our "infatuation with homeownership" has created a housing nightmare.

From Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking: An update on an alleged fraud ring in Riverside County.

From Forbes.com: West Hollywood 90038 ranks among America's "most overpiced zip codes."

Top housing-related story on Digg: Bush signs housing bill.

I'd like your feedback on this one: Tell me whether you like the list-of-links concept, feel free to suggest specific stories you'd like to see linked, or to suggest specific blogs or websites you'd like to see featured  on a regular basis.

-- Peter Viles

Photo: Little Tokyo Lofts; Credit: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[CD]

Here is my point : There is a battered women shelter moving under the Tokio lofts. Now would anyone care to guess the consequences ?The situation with the homeless downtown is out of control, it is a dumping ground. If you read calculatedrisk blogs, you saw the article from Nouriel Roubini and the bloggers comments following.NEWS FLASH: Things are not good and will not be good for a while, yes we are in a housing nightmare. Yes Fannie and Fred should be sold . In this corner, we still are happy renter with our investments in CD, gold, silver and various other assets. No houses in CA.
This will be a L shape recession. We will be at the bottom for a long while. Cheerleaders, at your mark, get set, go !!!!! Now is time to buy blablablablabla.....

[IToldu2CashOut]

Curbed LA had a post on this as well. Here is one of the comments:

Little Tokyo Lofts

At over $360/ sqft, it is still not cheap. The unit is in interior courtyard so no view and likely darker compare to the units facing outside unless sun happens to shine into the windows (at least it is on the 5th floor not 2nd). With high HOA as well: over $400/month, I'm not sure if this unit is a steal. Plus mental clinic downstairs and batter women shelter across street, frankly make this unit overpriced still. Even if the downtown real estate prices recovered to its former glory, I can't see the units in this building appreciate anytime soon due to its location and the mental clinic within the building. I feel bad for the owners in this building. If this comp goes through, which it will someday (or perhaps at a lower price point), then everyone's prices will go down as well. Ouch.

[Laura]

I like the links.

Weho is overpriced. Certain parts of Weho are priced right, but the rest, especially the condos are ridiculously priced.

[Tim K.]

The Little Tokyo Lofts are a prime example of the hysteria and marketing that went on in Downtown LA for the last few years.

The developers were selling the fantasy of an upscale urban landscape and you want to be a part of it. Problem is, they priced the condos as though that utopian vision existed TODAY.

Even if downtown was on an upward climb, if you bought a condo at those prices your upward appreciation was already priced-in. But the reality is that downtown was not on an upward climb - it was a catch-22. The only thing upscale about downtown were the condos themselves. None of the businesses could support employees who made enough money to live there, and none of the services would show up to support that lifestyle either.

The irony is that Little Tokyo Lofts are not even in Little Tokyo.

[Rob Dawg]

OT: great comments on NPR Peter.

[Bubblewatcher]

ALL of WeHo is overpriced; 90038 is just the most eggregious example. We own a condo in 90046 that we bought in 1999 -- our total PITI plus HOA is still $300 a month less than the folks upstairs pay to rent the exact same apartment, and we've got a 15 year mortgage.

Meanwhile, everyone who's bought into our building since 2003 is paying roughly twice as much each month to own their places as it would cost them to own them. At least.

The saddest part is all the new development -- 300 renters have been displaced over the past two years to make room for new condo buildings that in many cases are just sitting empty for lack of idiots willing to pay $1 million for an apartment.

[sfvrealestate]

Peter, how about a link to James Rainey's column in today's LAT? The one titled "Website comment boards bring out the inner vulgarian"?

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

To get the mojo back,they might want to rename them Little Beijing, Little Mumbai or Little Dubai lofts...you know, to give the prospetive buyers the impression that that's where the noaveau riche live.

[Cassiopoea]

Regarding the format -- well.. thanks for putting all this together, but I do want to hear your voice, too.

As for the Little Tokyo Lofts... I went to an open house there once out of curiosity. Very cool building, but at the time the lofts were in the $400K-range and the woman did disclose that a batter women's shelter was going in next door. I wouldn't mind that so much, but it made me think: "What if one of the guys who likes to beat up women finds his lady is there and comes and shoots the place up?" Paranoid? Not really -- I lived in Downtown for a miserable year. That aside, this was before the Mental Clinic went in. I feel so sorry for people who bought there thinking they were getting a deal. Oh, and the lofts are NOT in Little Tokyo -- they are on skid row. Go one block west and see what I mean.

And the overpriced zipcodes? 90038 is NOT West Hollywood... unless you mean it as the "western" part of Hollywood. That area is a shite hole. That's the part of Santa Monica Blvd. that looks like Tijuana. The article says "...rents trail prices by 30 times..." No kidding. Anyone who paid premium there is crazy. My Godson's grandmother has lived in that area since the '30s and she has to call the police almost daily (they take anywhere from half and hour to an hour or more to get there), because drunks are playing dice on the sidewalk in front of her house, or a drug deal is going down, or someone is trying to break into a car, or...

[Wes Boudville]

About 5 years ago I went to an Open House evening party at Little Tokyo Lofts. The building had recently been refurbished, and the owners were trying to attract buyers or tenants. Hilariously, even though they touted the safety of the neighbourhood, they provided a minibus to shuttle some visitors in from nicer [ie. safer] parts of Little Tokyo. The visitors would park in those areas and take the minibus.

Which also unintentionally highlighted another problem. Not enough parking around the building. I doubt if this has changed. So to live here, you need to be comfortable about walking a several blocks through wasteland.

The party was DJ'd and well catered, and slick brochures were handed out for the units, which were indeed quite nice. But even then, prices were ridiculous. The management also touted the "artist ambience". Scuttlebutt circulated that management was letting some artist types rent at massively discounted prices, as window dressing tokens. People speculated as to who could actually afford to live here. Consensus seemed to settle on financial types working in the CBD.

When we looked out the windows of some units, we could see several homeless derelicts camped across the road. This is still often true, if you go by the building at night. The locality hasn't visibly improved in 5 years.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

Speaking of Utopia, and I hope this is relevant to Big Brother, people could use more Dymaxion houses, those energy efficient, low cost buildings by Buckminster Fuller, in Little Nippon.

By the way, his Dymaxion car could, in 1933, do 90 MPH while consuming fuel at a rate of 30 MPG.

[Chris Finley]

West Hollywood does encompass part of 90038, but only about 5% of the 90038 zip code is West Hollywood. The rest is Los Angeles.

[DF]

I looked at a few of the LT lofts in spring 2006, just as the bubble was really beginning to burst. The area was and is decidedly sketchy, right by skid row and next to a battered women's shelter. You could walk to the flower or toy districts, but would you want to? It would also be very dangerous considering the area. Little Tokyo itself is pretty far away, actually.

The agent I talked to when I visited offered a "discount" in the form of no HOA dues for a couple years, but this was hardly an incentive when the prices were in the $400k range. Nor were the units themselves that appealing; they are true lofts in the sense that they typically consist of one large undifferentiated space, and while there are people who find that appealing, I'm not one of them.

There was a bit of a desperate air about the place when I went there, with some residents hanging around (including a kind of weird old dude lingering out by the pool) along with lots of employees trying desperately to sell units. They touted having one of the lowest price per square foot ratios in LA, but even then before the meltdown it was pretty clear the value just wasn't there. I used to be on their email list, and kept getting all these notices of incentive offers and eventually, price decreases, but after seeing the place up close, I wouldn't live there for free. I'd rather rent in a part of the city that isn't depressing, inconvenient, and dangerous.

As for the parking issue raised by Wes, there is plenty of parking including guest parking there, but it says a lot about the neighborhood that they have a massive security presence at the gate of the parking structure to make sure it's safe.

[KC42]

Yes, please post links to other stories. Any and all sites welcome.

I've been reading this blog reguarly since last November. Shy to post.

It is in our nature to own a home - we're the types who love to work on it, but the math keeps us happy renting for now.

[E]

90038 is pretty nasty. Not as bad as Highland Park or similar places but none the less...it's a run down slummy area.

I highly recommend the Cactus Taqueria on Vine however.

WRT downtown skid row area condos...

Nothing but future section 8 housing with granite counters.

[CrazyCrazyForUnits]

Who were the crazy people that actually paid $700k for units at LIttle Tokyo Loft? Did they not walk around the block during the daytime or the nighttime? That block is completely skid row. I drove by there once and I thought I was in one of those movie about Crackheads and Zombies! That place is scaring. Like other said, they can not pay me to live there. Not unless they give me a bulletproof car to zip past all the crazy into the parking garage.

Even at $245k, it's still way overpriced(for a normal person that doesn't want to come home to a homeless encampment).

[Wes Boudville]

DF, Thanks for the correction about the parking situation. None of the people I was with at the party lived there, so we were unfamiliar with how much parking was available in the building.

For Itoldu2cashOut: having a loft with only a view of the courtyard is not necessarily bad. Depends on what you're looking for. Some chaps might not want to see a view of Los Angeles, shocking though this might seem to most of us. Instead, if you just want to look at a secluded courtyard, then those lofts can be attractive. (Still way overpriced however.)

[NevadaGal]

Peter,

I would like to see the links once a day on your blog, but I would still like to read your commentary on your other entries.