LA Finalists

We woke up early Saturday morning to catch our flight to LA. Shortly after landing we picked up our rental car and began our search for the perfect LA apartment. We had few showings scheduled throughout the day, so we made our way from neighborhood to neighborhood (Sawtelle, Santa Monica, Brentwood, Westwood, Mar Vista, Bel Air). The scheduled showings and open houses were great because they gave us a realistic idea of prices and properties (rent.com, hotpads.com and other websites often don't have accurate pricing or good pictures).

So after our first few hours, it became apparent that we would have to re-evaluate our ideal housing budget ($1200-$1300) if we didn't want to live in an apartment that was stuck in the 70s. Between our scheduled showings we drove around the neighborhood stopping at any FOR RENT/LEASE sign we could find. Our best finds were towards the end of our first day as we walked around the Sawtelle area-- a really cute residential area just south of Santa Monica Blvd. with cool restaurants and shops nearby.

 
Around 6pm we called it quits and had some B.A.D. sushi for appetizers followed by some Vietnamese slow drip coffee at Le Saigon (to make sure Tom stayed awake during our apartment review later that night) and Thai at Siam Chan (amazing Panang curry and some good Pad Thai) for the main course. We drove back to our hotel near LAX and deliberated over the 20ish apartments we saw that day--evaluating price, distance to Anderson, and all the pluses/minuses. By the end of the night we had a list of 7 semifinalists ranging from $1250-$1600 and another list of nice properties to check out that we found on the Century West Properties website (CW has some of the nicest but not too pricey great properties all over LA--highly recommended).

The next morning we woke up and headed to see a few more places that we had appointments with and the other newly found properties. By noon we had had enough, and began the tough process of picking our top 4 over some good Pho at Le Saigon. Over the weekend we had seen the whole spectrum of what LA had to offer--beautiful complexes with pools, saunas, gyms, club rooms, cute apartments nestled in small community courtyards, sketchy but cheap apartments, tiny kitchens, new kitchens...

Though it was hard to let go of some places, it was surprisingly easy to agree on our top 4. It now looks like we will have our choice of all 4, so 2 days and 20-30 apartments later, I present you the top 2:

#1. Acanto St.
$1395/month
1.9 miles from Anderson
+ cute, quiet area in BEL AIR (practically neighbors with Mr. Fresh Prince himself) near hiking areas
+ great open space living/dining room
+ REAL hardwood floors everywhere but the kitchen (not that wood laminate stuff)
+ great price for what it is

- not walking distance to restaurants/grocery stores
- somewhat small kitchen, but it's open so its not THAT bad

  

 

 

  

#2
Federal Ave.
$1450/month
2.9 miles from Anderson
+ great area (Sawtelle) near bars, restaurants, coffee shops, markets around Santa Monica Blvd.
+ great open space distribution (large living/dining room)
+ 2 closets one of which is (Alba's) BIG walk in closet
+ cute courtyard area in complex and great private small yard
- tiny kitchen

 

 

 

 

Where do you see us living?