Echo Park runs up the hills northwest of Downtown, and for a buyer who wants an actual house rather than a unit in a building it is the closest thing to Downtown that offers one. Most of the housing is pre-war — bungalows, duplexes and small apartment buildings on narrow, steep streets, several of which are reached on foot by the neighborhood's public staircases.
The lake the neighborhood is named for started as Reservoir No. 4, formed in 1868 by the Los Angeles Canal and Reservoir Co.; thirty-three acres around it were given to the city in 1891 and landscaped as a park. Angelus Temple, the 5,400-seat church Aimee Semple McPherson opened on the lake in 1923, still sits on its northern edge.
Buying on a slope is a different transaction from buying on the flat, and it is the part people skip. The lot, the retaining walls, the drainage, the foundation and the permit history all matter more here than the square footage does, and several of them are only answerable with the right inspection.
Ask Mario about Echo ParkWhat to check in Echo Park
- On a hillside lot: the retaining walls, the drainage and the foundation, with an inspector who does slopes.
- The permit history. A lot of this housing has been added to over a century, and not all of it on paper.
- Where you will actually park, and whether the house is reached by a staircase rather than a driveway.
- Whether a duplex is legally two units, which changes both the financing and what you can do with it.
Questions about Echo Park
Can I find a house rather than a condo near Downtown?
Echo Park is where most people end up looking. It is a few minutes from the Historic Core and the housing is mainly pre-war houses and duplexes rather than towers. Expect a smaller lot and a steeper street than the same money buys further out.
What is different about buying on a hillside?
The lot does more of the work than the house does. Retaining walls, drainage, the foundation and any unpermitted additions are where the money is, and a general inspection will not always get to all of them. It is worth the specialist before you remove contingencies, not after.
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
