tool462

This is pretty much what I was thinking as well. Somewhere near Santa Monica or West LA. Near UCLA would probably be his best bet. He'd be near an active nightlife, a fairly short drive from the beach, and not too far from downtown, if he ends up working there. Santa Monica is closer to the beach, but his commute would be a bitch, since I doubt he would get a financial job there. Most of the financial stuff seems to be downtown.

flitcroft

The area by the beach is stuffy -- full of older, rich people (Santa Monica) or directly under a busy LAX flight path (Playa Del Rey). IMO, the best place is closer to where I live which is just East of Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. On a map, it's near West Hollywood (but further South) by The Grove (the best high-ish end mall in town). If you don't live by the beach you can save 5-8 hours a week of commute and then drive to the beach in 20 minutes on the weekend. The nightlife and shopping, general 23 year old stuff (I'm 24), is the best in this little pocket. And, the girls are all incredibly hot in this area. I'm always hoping I don't get in trouble when I walk to the elevators in my building...

Check out these apartments in the area:
http://www.parklabrea.com/
http://www.palazzo-plb.com/

This is the spot for young professionals in LA. I think I have ~12 of the top 25 restaurants in the city within two miles of my apt, several are within a few minutes walking distance. The deal with this area is that it's so dense with incredible stuff that you almost have to live here to enjoy it. Otherwise, you have to deal with the traffic coming into the area (also, because there is no close freeway -- we take streets to get downtown).

Webdiva, who lives two blocks East of me, will probably back me up here.

webdiva

And actually...it's 4 blocks east, but it's not like I've been following you!

We're about a 15 minute drive downtown (down side streets - Olympic or 3rd), about 20 minutes from Westwood and 20 minutes from LAX. Pretty much the center of everything here in LA! It helps that I have a 4 minutes commute to work. Definitely work on that...totally improves your quality of life in LA.

Depending on where your apartment is, you can even walk to most places around here. One of the few places in LA that you can say that about. Flitcroft is 3 steps away from my one of MY fave restaurants in town, Cobras & Matadors. Mmmm... Plus the Grove has safe parking for the S. I have my special spots in the garage that keep other cars at least 2 feet away.

The apartments Flitcroft listed are the highest-end, but it generally doesn't get cheaper than $1000 for a 1 bedroom around here. You're looking at about $1600+ for a 2 bedroom, get a roomie and save a ton.

And and if we get more people over here...we'll have THE coolest meets in LA. Still working on it, since it's just 4 of us so far. hehe.

flitcroft

I just picked the two biggest ones. They have the best websites

I live here: http://www.apartmentguide.com/Property/pho...qsSFlg=&lk=phTb

Webdiva's right on, you'd be looking at $1,000 - $1,500 a month for a one bedroom apartment. I heard mention of buying a house so I didn't hestitate to list nice apartments. Houses start at $650k for a shack around here

webdiva

Actually...there's a really nice shack around the corner from work for $1.4 mil. Real Estate in LA is pretty crazy.

YellowFever

Thanks for the great info! with the above, sounds like a great place to live. Gonna try to fly over and check it out in a couple of weeks. Got a few more questions to ask. What's the tax rate in CA (income tax for a single non-dependent working man and sales tax)? Also, what kind of salary should I be making to be living comfortably in your area? This would help me in negotiating my salary. Thanks.

flitcroft

You're looking at 9.3% of state tax for over $39k a year. Sales tax in the city of LA is high: 8.25% or so. Yearly salaries are tough to extrapolate with limited info, but I'll say roughly $40,000+ a year to live in a 1br apartment with no roommates. That would put you at $12,000 a year of rent with ~$24,000 of pay checks after taxes. That of course depends on how much debt load you're carrying over from college. If you are making $50,000 you can live very comfortably here, but will not be building up equity with the apartment living

More on taxes: http://www.taxfoundation.org/california/

julius

I live in Westchester which is a quiet, normal suburban community plonked down in the middle of wacky neighborhoods.

North of me a few miles is Venice and Santa Monica. Venice is a boho hippie-new-age-tourist-funky-cool beach neighborhood with TERRIBLE parking. Santa Monica is an upscale liberal-to-the-max city -- think Berkeley but not as radical and with more BMWs. Westwood is right next to Santa Monica, and while parking is awful, it features some of the best movie theaters and hottest UCLA coeds around.

Southwest of me by a mile is LAX. Surprisingly, I get very little airport noise. West of me is Playa Del Rey, which does get a lot of airport noise, but is a very nice quiet neighborhood as well, and closer to the beach. (Westchester is 2-3 miles from the beach.) South of LAX are the beach cities, which are PARTY CENTRAL for ages 20-30: Redondo, Manhattan, and Hermosa Beach.

East of me is Inglewood. It's nice enough near me, but gets progressively worse the farther east you go. Nuff said.

Westchester is about 14 miles from downtown, but as someone indicated, the 10 freeway can be a horrendous commute. I've actually made it downtown from Marina Del Rey to USC in half an hour on surface streets, though. Typically it takes 45 minutes or more during late rush hour on the freeway. Probably an hour during the peak.

I lived in Pasadena for a few years and while it was very quiet and nice, it eventually drove me insane because of the tremendous number of very annoying, slow people who are in checkout lines, driving on the streets, walking around -- I don't know what it is, but it is a very slow community. Also it gets very hot in summer.

So, to sum up:
Venice: horrendous parking, your car could be broken into
Santa Monica: expensive, liberal, fun, safe
Beach Cities: horrendous parking near the beach, expensive, partyriffic
Westchester: perfect :)

I think the area near West Hollywood is pretty awesome in that you can walk to a lot of different stuff, but I wouldn't want to keep an S roadster there myself. Obviously the others have a different point of view, or very secure parking :)

Local sales tax is about 8.25% State income tax is ... I'm not sure, but I think it's about 8% too. I'm also not sure what your standard of living is, but I think anywhere from $50,000 on up would provide a pretty comfortable life for a single guy. Might be hard to ever buy a house on that, though.

julius

Haha, I'm glad I agree with flitcroft on the salary thing!

webdiva

Correct! The trick to living in the city is good parking! The area around Flitcroft and I is pretty upscale, not too many break-ins. However...people still can't drive in LA and it helps to have a garage spot in order to keep your S pristine. Street parking sucks ass.