Is Highland Park the New Echo Park? Great for Investors, Perfect for First Time Home Buyers-It’s the Next Hipster’s Haven!

Highland Park, California. I bet some of you are wondering, where the heck is Highland Park? It’s actually one of the oldest settled areas in Los Angeles. Surrounded by Pasadena, Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, Mount Washington, Montecito Heights and Monterey Hills and being off the 110 Freeway it’s quite easy to get to.

Highland Park is becoming an investor’s paradise. I just sealed the deal for my buyers at 1213 N. Ave 57 in the 90042 zip (blog and pics to come soon). My client is an investor looking to flip this home. I’ll go into the details more in the next post but I wanted to give you a little schooling on this area first.

Highland Park is quickly become the next ‘hipster’s’ haven. The demographic of HP is quickly changing and evolving. Properties are getting swooped up and flipped at a exponentially quick rate but the market for these fixers is very competitive. You can purchase a 3 bedroom 2 bath home completely remodeled for under $450,000. The LA Times recently published a front page article on the activity. I’ll recap:

Due to the high number of foreclosures and low interest rates renovators are giving distressed properties makeovers and reselling them as standard sales. Most of these investors come in at all cash, get amazing deals, throw some money into the property, update electrical systems and plumbing, and put the homes back on the market within a 6 month time period and do it all over again. This is causing a great deal of buzz around Highland Park. The prices are steadily rising, demographics are changing (from Latinos to hipsters and young professionals) and it’s causing the area to be more aesthetically pleasing.

The market is tough, I won’t say it’s not. There are so many all cash buyers but the good news, they mainly stick to the fixers so if you’re searching for a completely remodeled, move-in ready home your chances of being outbid by an all cash offer greatly decline.

The number of properties flipped in this area is almost doubled as compared to the overall flips in Los Angeles County. Highland Park’s price per square foot also rose 12% in the 4th quarter of 2011 from the same time a year earlier however, I can tell you from experience the prices are slightly higher than that now. Furthermore, the prices of these revamped homes are still less than the median for LA county and significantly less than it’s surrounding neighbors Pasadena, Eagle Rock & Glassell Park.

The mom and pop shops are also experiencing a spike in sales as more venders and businesses move into the area catered around fitness, healthy living and art.

Fun Facts about Highland Park:

– Forever 21 was founded and has it’s first location still located at 5637 N. Figueroa and bears the original name of the company, Fashion 21.

-York Blvd, the main strip, has tons of trendy shopping, restaurants and cafes.

-From the late 1950s until around the early 1980s, Highland Park and neighboring Eagle Rock were known as a haven for Hot Rod builders.

-One of the oldest settled areas of Los Angeles

-There are 11 elementary schools in Highland Park

-Some of the movies filmed here include, Reservoir Dogs, Cutter’s Way, La Bamba, The Lincoln Lawyer, Tuff Turf, Up in Smoke, Yes Man, Cyrus & Karate Kid III.

-There are large sprawling parks in the area, including the Arroya Seco Park and the Ernest E. Debs Regional Park.

-The Southwest Museum, with one of the largest and most significant collections of Native American artifacts in the country, is located in adjacent Mt. Washington.

If you want more information on investment properties in the Highland Park area, Renovated Homes or just have general real estate questions, feel free to call me at 310.956.9385 or visit my website.