Expert: Steve Summers - 6/4/2008

Question
My girlfriend and I are moving to the L.A. area. She wants to become an actress so we need to be relatively close to Hollywood, and L.A. But we don't know which areas are going to fit our budget. Which cities that is. And which areas are safe and clean. basically we just don't want the ghetto, but we won't have the montly income to live in a higher income area. We're probably looking for places, again close to hollywood, that are 700-1000 a month for rent. I think we'd be able to do that price range. Do you have any advice? Thank you so much for your time and effort. We really appreciate this!
Spencer

Answer
Spencer, I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but it's time for a reality check. I'll do this in the nicest way I can.

I see this EVERY day in the travel forums that I frequent: Everyone wants to come here to become an actor/writer/whatever, and is looking for “cheap/affordable and safe". However, such a place just doesn’t exist; the two terms are mutually exclusive. It's all about supply and demand: If it's in SoCal, then it's not going to be cheap to begin with. If it's a safe area, then it's more expensive. If you need good schools, add a couple hundred bucks a month on top of it.

If you want to live here and enjoy the weather, then you have to pay for it. You put up with the smog and the traffic, enjoy the weather and pay your rent or mortgage. My advice is to start checking out craigslist, rent.com, and apartments.com if you are looking to rent. You’ll quickly see that the minimum rent for a non-war zone is about $1,200 per month for a 1BR. Really nice areas (like the West LA area) easily run $3,000 or more. Want to live near the beach? Expect to pay a premium. It's not about what you want. It's about the hard financial realities of Los Angeles. If you only have $700, you are either going to have to share an apartment with someone else, or go ghetto.

Shoot, even Ed McMahon is going through foreclosure. Wazzup with that?!

"LA" is such a big place, there are so many neighborhoods/cities where you can live. Of course, even within a city or neighborhood, there are safer sections and less-safe sections.

In Los Angeles, some nice sections are West LA, Brentwood, Westwood, Marina Del Rey, Playa Del Rey, Los Feliz, Silverlake, Eagle Rock, Encino, Tarzana, Studio City, Toluca Lake, Granada Hills, Woodland Hills, Sherman Oaks, West Hills, Chatsworth.

To the east: South Pasadena, parts of Pasadena, Altadena, Arcadia, Monrovia, Glendora, San Dimas.


This is not an all-inclusive list, but it's a start.