Los Angeles

[NolanSame]

A recent article gives us the breakdown about Silverlake's median rental prices. Is this absurd or normal? Would you pay mortgage-like payments to rent in Silverlake? Some say yes, and others will disagree. What is your take?

[McRad]

I live in Silverlake.  With home prices still hovering around $600,000 to $800,000, a mortgage would be double or triple a rental price of $2,100, wouldn't you say?

[john72]

I agree with McRad. Renting is WAY cheaper than buying in Silver Lake. I just ran a search on Redfin for sales of 2bd/1.25ba+ homes in Silver Lake over the past three months.. There were 6 hits.

851 N. Hoover - discard from consideration as it need 100's of thousands in work.

1108 Westerly Terrace - ???????????? $380K. No pic of kitchen = bad sign and I'd assume its not an apples to apples comparison to the rentals.

1530 Silverwood Terrace - $771K

2051 Kenilworth -$680K

2428 Meadow Valley - $645K

1347 McCollum - $726K

I'll also note that the price of the studios is quite reasonable for LA(downtown for the same thing is probably around $400/mo more), and the $1400 for one bedrooms is not out of line.

[PonziScheme]

Much better deal to rent than to buy.

I pay $1,500 to rent. Same Condo cost $2,500 if I bought because of insane HOA and Property Tax. But I can move if I don't like where I'm living.

[Bruin99]

Seeing as the article is talking about apartments and you guys are talking about homes, it's not a fair to compare the rent of an apartment to the home price of a single family home.

According to the article, for a 2 bed 1 bath apartment, the median rent is $2200.  The median condo price that sold in the last 3 months when you search for silver lake is $340k for 2 bedroom with average of 1.9 baths. 

Using the NY Times rent vs buy calculator, given those assumptions and $400/monthly condo fee, 20% down, 3.75 interest, and the remaining default assumptions, it's better to buy then rent after 4 years.  That seems pretty reasonable to me.

[john72]

You're right Bruin. I didn't catch that the article was citing only apartment prices. The pictures threw me off, as did a recent search I'd done while my lease was being renewed. I had found several small bungalow or duplexes in the $2000-2500 range in Silverlake and just assumed thats what was contained in the article. 

Currently I only find one similiar listing under $2500(listed at $1995/mo) on craigslist. For whatever reason, appears rents recently spiked there.

[Goran_K]

No. Silverlake may be at rental parity but too much distressed properties and shadow inventory that will cause further declines, and unless you live in that condo for 10 years, it's a solid loss.

[vfxdrummer]

$2200 is not a very high rent for Los Angeles - especially for a house.

Am I missing something, here? How much home does $2200 / month buy you? $450,000?

My guess is a 2/2 in Silverlake costs at least $650,000 - just a guess.

Renting is cheaper, save your money.