Los Feliz Market: July - September 2009 - Robust Sales

The malaise in the high-end real estate market avoided Los Feliz during July - Setember 2009. Sales activity in this a neighborhood remained robust during this time. Forty-one homes sold with a median sale price of $864,000. One sale was for over $3 million, seven sales were in the $2 – 3 million range, and seven sales were in the $1 – 2 million range.

As a sign of the neighborhood’s real estate health, we can look to the sevens sales between $1 and 2 million. Currently, there are only twelve houses in this price range on the market – a scant five-month supply of inventory.

Four sales were short pays and one was a bank-owned property. All of the distressed sales were for $675,000 or less.
The highest priced sale, 2301 Chiselhurst Drive, gives us an idea of how the $3 million segment of the Los Feliz market fared through this decade. This 1937 traditional estate with 5 bedrooms, 5.5 baths, 5,300 sq ft of living area on a 19,650 sq ft lot, sold for $3,050,000 in July 2009, only 13% above its Sept 2001 sale price of $2.7 million.
Buyers’ fervor to purchase architecturally pedigreed homes in Los Feliz has not abated. 4520 Dundee Drive, a 1966 Edward Fickett Post + Beam home (also a registered cultural monument) sold in three days at $2,445,000, just off its $2.5 million asking price. The house has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,926 sq ft of living area on a 13,500 sq ft lot.
Fixers – even major projects – are still finding avid buyers. 2421 N Catalina Street, a 1923 Mediterranean estate with a colossal 5,112 sq ft of living area on a 20,040 sq ft lot sold for its $2,050,000 asking price after eighteen days on the market.
But all properties are not alike, and some “chased the market down”. 4838 Los Feliz Boulevard, 1987 construction on a busy thoroughfare, was originally listed for $2,599,000 in September 2008. The house has 3,471 sq ft of living area on a 11,466 sq ft lot and pool. It eventually sold in August 2009 for $1,501,000.


One sale illustrates how the Los Feliz market has held up remarkably well in the $1 million price range. 3205 Lowry Road a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house on a 7,405 sq ft lot sold for $1,069,000 in February 2008. It was resold for $985,000 in September 2009. Over the past eighteen months, as the meltdown in the financial markets brought the world to its feet, the price of this little piece of Los Feliz fell only 8%.