I just moved out of L.A. after living there since 1988. I'm 58 now. My husband, age 70, and I just couldn't stand living in L.A. any longer. Since the pandemic everything has gone way down hill in L.A. The homeless problem, especially in the areas you are thinking of moving to, is out of control. Even after they built the tiny home villages for the homeless in NoHo, things improved for a bit but now they are worse then ever. The laws regarding the homeless suck for everyday citizens as the cops have their hands tied and really can't do anything. If enough people complain about a particular encampment that is covering the sidewalks and oozing into the driving lanes, the sanitation dept will come and move them out but they are back in a few days, usually larger than ever. I honestly don't know what the solution to the homeless problem is. L.A. is throwing a ton of money at it and it's only getting worse. The main issue IMO is that many of the homeless population don't want help since they are hooked on drugs and know they'd need to give that up if they accept the help from the city.
Driving around L.A. is like living in a Mad Max movie. People don't obey traffic laws. Tons of racing on the roads at all times of the day and night, people turning left from the right hand lane. It's a mess. Not to mention the traffic. My job was 13 miles from my home and on a good day it took me an hour each way. I'm lucky that my job is letting me work from home full time in my new location and I feel extremely thankful for that.
Interestingly, we moved from North Hollywood. We lived in a safe pocket of NoHo across from an elementary school but there are many sketchy areas of NoHo. But close to where we lived they did just build a nice multi use property with apartments, a trader joes, other stores, restaurants, a movie theater and L.A. Fitness. This definitely helped our property value and I'm grateful they made the investment on this new property. It's called NoHo West so check it out when you arrive.
I'm sure you know already but real estate in L.A., both homes and apartments, are very expensive. We're fortunate that we've owned a house in L.A. since the early 90s so we were able to build a ton of equity over the years as we moved houses. We lived in the house in NoHo for just shy of 20 years. It was a great house, old Spanish style built in 1928 which we made major improvements to over the years while keeping it's classic Spanish charm. We knew it was a special house and our sales process proved it. We were under contract in under a week of going on the market and had 8 offers and a bidding war. The house was around 1800 square feet and we were able to move into a much grander 2500 square foot house in Rancho Mirage for the same price we sold our house in NoHo for.
So, IMO, if you are younger, it will be easier to deal with all the issues L.A. has because it does offer a lot of positives, like entertainment options, awesome restaurants, great diversity, etc. But as we grow older we just wanted to move away from the issues as we prepare for our retirement in peace and quiet.
I hope it works out for you whatever you decide to do.
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