Eric Lassiter / LA Weekly

With average rent in Venice reaching more than $2,800 according to one report, it's getting hard to find affordable housing in L.A. that hasn't lost its soul.

Lucky for us there's nearly 500 square miles of space in the city alone, so there's always an up-and-coming community just around the corner. The trick is to catch a rising star without getting caught in the middle of a gang war. We have five somewhat under-the-radar suggestions for your summer apartment hunt:

More »

You wish: A Neutra house in Silver Lake via Neil Fitzpatrick / LA Weekly Flickr pool.

Competition for apartments and rental homes in this town is fierce. At least according to the online rental marketplace Lovely, which crunched the numbers for L.A. recently.

It found that a mix of upscale and hipster neighborhoods made up Los Angeles' most-competitive areas for people seeking to rent. The site used the metric of number of days on the market to come up with the five hottest rental communities in L.A:

More »

Coldwell Banker

Beverly Hills real estate is often overshadowed by pricier digs in Holmby Hills, home to the Playboy Mansion; Bel-Air, which boasts of many 10,000-square-foot-plus abodes; and Pacific Palisades, where Arnold Schwarzenegger and many other celebs live.

But the gilded city is back in its rightful place as king of all that is riche. Well, sort of:

More »

yunguyen666 / Flickr

This economy's got you down, you say? You're still worried about buying that next house, car or even smartphone?

Ah, if you were a rich man ... While the rest of us suffer, the wealthy have just added to their cash piles during the Great Recession and its aftershocks.

Proof that the upper crust feels no pain can be found in a startling new report about million-dollar homes in California:

More »

Courtesy of Blue Eyed Entertainment

Commissioned Officer Diana Zschaschel, Paul Garcia, and their baby

Commissioned U.S. Army Reserve Officer Diana Elizabeth Zschaschel and her family are facing a cold winter eviction set for today in Los Angeles, after they say the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., or Freddie Mac, wrongfully evicted them -- while she was on duty in San Diego.

On May 14, 2011, Zschaschel, an active-duty officer, was part of "Operation Ready Warrior," in San Diego, which helped military personnel with dental needs, a field in which she specializes. While deployed out of town, her husband was trying work out a repayment plan with Bank of America because they were behind on their mortgage in Los Angeles. Instead, she and the family's attorney allege, B of A illegally foreclosed:

More »

Mrs Marissa Lynn / Flickr

Bet you wish you were in on the pre-recession Flip This House phenomenon now.

That's because it turns out that Highland Park, a star of the show, is getting its post-recession due. No, it's not the hippest neighborhood in Los Angeles.

But it does top Redfin's list of American "Real Estate Neighborhoods To Watch In 2013:"

More »

kotramif / Flickr

That thermometer you pass on the way to Las Vegas is an icon for every real-life Hangover and Fear And Loathing adventure ever.

And now you can put it in the trunk of your road-trip convertible and take it home if you so desire.

All you need for the World's Tallest Thermometer a.k.a. the World's Largest Thermometer is a little cash:

More »

By Hillel Aron

Dwell Hell: Silver Lake's not so elegant density.

Call it Not-So-Elegant-Density. On Robinson Street in Silver Lake, a short walk from Dusty's Bistro on Sunset Boulevard, Richard Kaye can stand on his rickety balcony, reach out, and touch the massive, ultra-modern house rising next door.

Literally. "I can't even go home anymore," says Kaye, who owns Koda, a hip little sushi restaurant in Silver Lake. "I'm thinking of renting another house."

The fortress-like home is being built at an angle from Kaye's small, L-shaped house, built circa 1923. At their closest point, the houses are a mere two feet away.

How could this be? According to Kaye's lawyer, whiteout was used to trick the L.A. Department of Building and Safety. And the new neighbor is saying Kaye is the guy at fault.

More »

El Mirador in West Hollywood

West Hollywood City Council members avoided a longtime controversy from blowing up in their faces on Tuesday night, approving a development agreement that would prevent the historic El Mirador building from being torn down.

Without the agreement, El Mirador owner Jerome Nash threatened to demolish the iconic apartment building on Sweetzer and Fountain avenues.

Through the deal, Nash can move forward with a multi-million-dollar renovation, with options to keep El Mirador as an apartment building or turn it into a condominium complex or urban inn.

More »

Energystar.gov

There goes the neighborhood.

See also: Demand Media, eHow Factory in Santa Monica, Already Worth $1.9 Billion: Retarded Web Searches Prevail and A Santa Monica Trailer Park -- and Its Senior Residents -- Face Off With Fancy New Development.

Demand Media--parent to content farm eHow.com and listicle machine Cracked.com--announced a deal to move its headquarters to south Santa Monica yesterday. The company has signed a long-term lease worth $23 million on the 26th Street digs vacated by MTV at the end of last year.

When Demand went public last year the SEO-savvy media empire (built on the backs of articles like "How to pull on a Speedo") was valued at $1.87 billion...more than the New York Times Company.

More »

LASD

Huh.

A warrant has been out for the arrest of Torrance real-estate agent Jong Hwan Huh since late April, when the L.A. County District Attorney's office filed 17 felony counts against him -- including grand theft, forgery, issuing bad checks and "enhancements for aggravated white collar crime."

According to the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, Huh collected $404,000 from seven victims throughout the South Bay while working at Masters Realty Group in Los Angeles, promising to put it toward real-estate leases and purchases.

But Huh, 47, had more glamorous investments in mind:

More »

Movie Shots LA

Home sweet home.

Even the handiest of set designers would be hard-pressed to recreate the years of organic decay that have made Linda Vista Community Hospital into the ultimate film set -- streaks on the walls, peeling paint, broken pipes, the occasional stray syringe. (Mixed in with some Hollywood props, left behind.) It's a real live 19th century-era hospital for railroad workers, and its abandoned halls give an inimitable chill to the hundreds of movies, TV shows and music videos shot there.

But the industry might need to start looking for a new haunted house:

More »

Kamala.

So did she cave in to the Big Banks, or secure a good deal for the people of California?

After holding out for a year, Attorney General Kamala Harris today announced that the Golden State is singing on to the nationwide settlement with the banks over their bungling of its loans to people who couldn't really afford them. (Banks blindly "robo-signed" flimsy loan applications, setting America up for mass foreclosure which, arguably, affected California the most).

Activists wanted the banks to be held criminally liable for the misdeeds that helped plunge the country into its worst economic situation since the Great Depression. This deal ...

More »

Redfin

Casa Trump.

Occupiers, you have no heart.

The 1 percent are suffering through this economy too. Take Donald Trump, who just sold his house overlooking his Trump National Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes for a measly $7.15 million.

Hold on while we wipe the tears from our eyes and play the world's smallest violin, because ...

More »

boobsandbotox.info

Nothing lures the 90210 real-estate sharks like free Botox.

Times are tough -- even for the 1 percent. Apparently, $8.5 million mansions in Beverly Hills aren't exactly going like hotcakes these days.

So when the hopeful seller of one such estate approached real-estate agent Michael Gardner with her dilemma -- "Freshen up my listing," he says she told him -- Gardner decided to give all those other sleazy Westside agents what they really wanted out of another Tuesday-afternoon open house: eternal youth.

Or, to be exact, a $300 giveaway of 27 Botox units. "Enough to deal with the 11s between your eyes," says Gardner --

More »

Redfin

The Vickers estate.

Former Playmate and B-list actress Yvette Vickers' bedroom death last year -- and subsequent mummification, after many months of no one coming to check on her -- was the freakiest, and downright saddest, horror story ever to play out in the spooky outskirts of Beverly Hills.

Making her $499,000 haunts, now on the market, a total find for L.A. noire-o-philes. (And, of course, daring youngins in search of a Boo Radley-style doorbell ditching adventure. Or do they even make kids that cool anymore?)

LA Curbed found a listing on Redfin for Vickers' former place of residence at 10021 Westwanda Drive (shudder), complete with some very familiar details:

More »

Oh, the memories at 1935 Lake Street.

Unsurprisingly, Robert Rizzo, the slimy Bell politician who was (allegedly; LOL) paying himself $800,000 per year with a $1 million pension, didn't think it wise to live among his duped constituents. So he settled for a $1.13 million mansion in Huntington Beach circa June 2007 -- no doubt comped by taxpayers -- where he could float his lardy ratlike corpse in a lavish granite tub and scheme up some more evils on the backs of the citizens. Muahaha...

More »

SavePhonehengeWest.org

Fahey with his masterpiece

[Update: A friend of Fahey's named Cristina Warren tells us that his entire estate was raided today -- his entire extended family allegedly kicked out, their farm animals impounded (turkeys, dogs, cats, the works) and electricity cut off to Phonehenge. Posts on the "Save Phonehenge West" Facebook page confirm. The Associated Press also released a short, confusing piece on the raid, saying Fahey has "been told to start packing" by the L.A. County District Attorney.

The only (unconfirmed) good news: Warren says the org Spaces, which crusades for the preservation of architectural oddities like L.A.'s Watts Towers, has promised her that they're going to take on Fahey's case. We certainly hope so. "If they can protect Kim, he can advocate for a lot of people," says Warren. "A lot of hearts are going to break if his place is affected."]

Originally posted July 11 at 9 a.m.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

In this week's print feature, Mars Melnicoff looks at Los Angeles County's war on desert rats in the Antelope Valley. Here we present a video from photographer Kevin Scanlon to complement her reporting. All interviews by Mars Melnicoff.

More »

MLS / Redfin / Irene Dazzan-Palmer, Coldwell Banker-Malibu ColonyS

Smokin' view.

It's the house that cannabis culture helped to build.

But unfortunately for you fans of Up In Smoke it wasn't built out of actual weed. (If that were the case surfers would have plundered the last stem a long time ago).Cheech Marin's Malibu home is on the market for $5.9 million.

The nearly one-acre property features a four-bedroom main house and three-bedroom guest house, both apparently done in Craftsman-style architecture (which would be modest by 'bu standards).

More »