Downtown is the one part of Los Angeles that is sold as a neighborhood and bought as a building. Everywhere else the street and the school district do most of the work. Here, two addresses three minutes apart can be a 1920s bank tower converted to lofts and a glass high-rise finished the year before the crash, and almost nothing about owning one tells you anything about owning the other.
The reason so much of the housing is old office space is a single piece of city policy. The Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, passed in 1999, let buildings put up before 1974 be converted to housing without meeting the parking, density and yard rules that apply to new construction. The first project under it was the Old Bank District in 2000 — the 1903 Hellman, the 1904 Continental and the 1907 San Fernando — and more than twelve thousand units have followed.
So the questions here are about the association and the structure, not the block. What the dues are and what they cover. Whether the reserves are funded or the roof is coming out of a special assessment. Whether the board allows leases, and how many. Whether a lender writes loans in the building at all. Whether the parking space is deeded to the unit, assigned by the association, rented monthly, or simply not there.
Mario has been licensed in California since 1993 and works out of the Coldwell Banker Envision office at 448 South Hill Street, in the Historic Core rather than out on the Westside looking in.
Ask Mario about Downtown L.A.What to check in Downtown L.A.
- The HOA budget, the reserve study and any special assessment history.
- Whether the building is currently approved for FHA or VA lending — it decides who can buy it from you later, not just what you can borrow now.
- The rental cap, if you might ever lease it out.
- Parking: deeded, assigned, rented monthly, or none. Older conversions are the likeliest to have none.
- Which way the unit faces, what is across from it, and what the ground floor is let to.
Questions about Downtown L.A.
What is the difference between a loft and a condo downtown?
Legally, usually nothing — most downtown lofts are condominiums. In practice there are two kinds of building. One is an older office, bank or warehouse floor converted to housing, generally under the 1999 Adaptive Reuse Ordinance: concrete, tall windows, high ceilings, irregular shapes, often no interior bedroom walls. The other is a purpose-built tower using the word for an open plan. They live differently and they resell to different buyers.
Why are downtown HOA dues so high?
In a full-service building they buy a great deal: a twenty-four hour desk, elevators, a pool or gym, common-area utilities, insurance on the structure, and the reserve fund that pays for the roof and the elevators when their time comes. Compare two units by adding the dues to the mortgage and the tax and looking at one number. A low figure is not automatically the better building — sometimes it means the reserves are not being funded.
Can I buy downtown with an FHA or VA loan?
In some buildings. The building itself has to be on the approved list, which is a decision about the whole association rather than about you, and buildings go on and off it. Worth checking before you set your heart on somewhere.
Downtown is not one market. It is a few hundred buildings, and the building decides nearly everything — what the dues are, what they actually cover, whether a lender will write a loan in it at all, whether the parking space is yours or the building's, whether the "loft" is a 1920s office floor with twelve-foot windows or a 2008 tower with a pool deck. Two units a block apart with the same square footage and the same price can be completely different purchases. I would rather spend the first conversation on the building than on the tour.
Licensed in California since 1993, in a market that has to be read one building at a time.
Mario Cabello, REALTOR® · CA DRE #01163184
