Bus Bench Ad

Coming soon to Adam Janeiro and City Living Realty: bus bench advertising! Bearing my likeness (with a filled-in hairline), and business-inducing mantras like: "Everything I touch turns to...Sold!" Or, "List with me today. Tomorrow--start packing!"

Yes siree, I'm going big-time. First bus benches. Then bus enclosures!

No matter the average bus rider can scarcely afford a Westside apartment. It's a rite of the profession. It conveys status. Shall I pose with my cell phone flipped open? Or studying my watch? Dressed in business casual, or in a dashiki? Maybe in a poncho. After all I'm Latin and I covet a piece of the "ethnic market".

Coming soon to Adam Janeiro and City Living Realty: bus bench advertising! Bearing my poncho-clad likeness, with English and Kangi script, posed with Armenian flag, Rolex watch, new model Mercedes, and Ethiopian female assistant toting gleaming new PDA.

I'll be choking in cash! Ok, really I'm just hoping to cover my property tax bill.

The New Paradigm

What happens when people decide they no longer want to buy houses? Seriously? What happens when decent earners get comfy in their two-bedroom, no frills walk-ups, preferring instead to spend money on long vacations, mango chicken, and slip rentals? When water cooler talk reverts to: riding mowers, elections, and Academy awards.

Los Angeles and San Francisco will soon be like New York City, where it isn't necessarily the case that people of middle-class loin strive to own. Where people live the whole of their lives, adolescence to seniority, without property ownership, without expectation and without stigma.

We're past the point of commiseration-less candor: 'Oh I'm sorry Mr. Entitlement can't scoop up a boy's pad in the Marina'. This isn't just about narrow comfort zones anymore (how I wish it were--this is more than a surrender to rhetoric). There ain't much of an entry level market left, and a lot of borderline buyers are beginning to back away.

What happens when the whole notion of ownership becomes removed and inaccessible, like pony polo or the fox hunt, obscure pastimes of the wealthy elite.

But this is America. What am I worried about? There's plenty of room for development in pleasing sun-belt destinations like Midland and Odessa, Las Cruces and Laughlin. They'll always be cheap four bedroom houses somewhere, and so long as there are, we'll never have to look at our model, at the ungainly pressures and policies of growth and decentralization. Shoot, who wants to bother with this analysis when there's shopping to be done at the cross-town mall.

The Vacation Home

More Americans own second homes than ever before. More Americans own third homes than ever before. Yet another sign of the ever-widening gap between rich and poor? Class polarization 101? Tsunami economics?

Among the nation's entire existing housing stock of 115.9 million homes, 6.6 million are vacation homes (according to the National Association of Realtors). In 2005, vacation homes accounted for 13% of total sales volume. It's not just the Martha's Vineyards and the Vail Colorados attracting the second sect either. The majority of vacation homes, according to researchers, are within a two and a half hour drive of an owner's principal residence.

The typical vacation home buyer is reportedly 55 years old, and earns $71K a year. Seventy-one K a year, that ain't exactly Rockerfeller or Snoop Doggy Dogg dinero! So what's fueling this thing?

The trendsmiths attribute portfolio diversification, low interest rates, post 9-11 jitters, and the increase in telecommuting (citing the average three-day stay).

I think it has something to do with the costliness of urban real estate.
Moving up the neighborhood ladder takes more than a little stretch nowadays, it takes downright financial contortionism. Forsaking monster mortgages, and swollen property tax bills, buyers are reaching out. In Los Angeles they're reaching towards the desert, or to the mountain ski communities (like Big Bear). In the Bay Area, buyers look to the wine country or Tahoe. In D.C. they target the Virginia countryside, and in New York City they go every which way (the Jersey shore, the Hudson River Valley, the Hamptons, etc).

As downtown L.A. continues its Phoenician rise, as the breadth and sophistication of apartment homes (condos) grow, I believe this trend will take deeper root, with middle-agers downsizing into culture-close, low maintainance flats. City centers will be front and center, as many buyers move from suburb to city, rather than vice versa.

The European model in full effect.

Is it Safe?

Is it safe there?


I'm asked that about some of the neighborhoods in which I practice. (Yeah, I know it reads like a William Goldman line, but...) It's what happens when you're off the cognitive map, on an unsoiled page in an otherwise unspooled Thomas Guide.

West Adams, formerly South Los Angeles, formerly South Central Los Angeles, formerly "the Ghetto", once a haven for the super-wealthy, now a destination for those with good credit, tolerance, and an urban disposition. Viewed by many non-residents as a gang addled district, site of civil unrest, smoking ruins, and lots of good Bar B-que joints.

I decided to take my camera to the streets, to points of shadowy congregation, and houses of ill repute, the hot spots, problem corners, and rough patches--in search of.....the unvarnished truth!

(Top image)
In Victoria Park: blinding hot lights. Some sort of gang inquisition or parking lot beat-down, perhaps?! Nope, just a low-budget film and a couple of par lights. Wonder if I can cadge some craft service?

(See picture second from the top)
Here's a frequent gathering place for youth, a possible spot for gang incubation--er, it's a public library?! A rather handsome one at that. Well no wonder there's always people loitering here. Ok, so it's on the up-and-up, let's take our eagle eye elsewhere.

(Bottom image)
A particularly desolete spot near Washington Blvd. Tall weeds, corrugated fences, barking dogs. It's close to dusk and hoodlums should begin amassing like storm clouds about now. Only, there's just a guy working on his transmission. He's listening to either Billy Paul or the Intruders. Gee, I kind of like those TSOP bands....

Hey nobody's pretending there isn't crime here--it's Los Angeles: the nation's second-largest city. Do you leave your car door unlocked? Do you leave your front door open when you go out? Some of my neighbors do but they're Canadian.

Is there more crime in South Los Angeles than in the Palisades for example? The statistics suggest there is. Still, if you're afraid to drive down Crenshaw Boulevard, or stop for gas on Arlington without a Kevlar vest, pepper spray and numchucks--you probably aren't cut out for city living, or Bar B-que.

Four Square

American Four Square

Not to be confused with Box Ball or King's Corner, American Four Squares (or Four-squares) are more likely to be the recreation of 47 year-olds than 7 year-olds.

A housing style which emerged as part of a new era of post-Victorian vernacular architectural styles, with details that range from ornate neoclassical to proto-Prairie. Typically two stories in height, the four walls of the house are roughly of equal dimension, thus creating a square. The fenestration is generally balanced and symmetrical, with full-length porches, and pyramidal or near-pyramidal hipped roofs with a single, centered, dormer.

The Emard House, despite the atypical partial-width porch, showcases these features, including details associated with the Craftsman style such as decorative rafter tails and beam ends. Most of Los Angeles' Four-squares were built between 1899 - 1919 (the Emard House dates from 1904).

Rain Brain

I'm not necessarily in the debunking business; but man, do I catch a lot of wild lines, mostly from other agents who don't seem to know what they're selling, or much about the place they're selling it in. While not necessarily related to real estate, there's no refrain that bugs me more than: 'Los Angeles is a desert'.

Los Angeles is not a desert, never was a desert, no matter the taunts of cackling San Franciscans apparently oblivious to the climate differences between las playas and Las Vegas. In point of fact, Los Angeles is a coastal plain with a climate categorized as 'Mediterranean'. The traditional geographer's definition of a desert is a place wherein the annual rainfall is no greater than 25 cms. While precipitation totals in Los Angeles are highly variable, the downtown average is nonetheless closer to 38 cms. a year (15" inches).

Early photographs of the terrain seem to show scrub and plant life more commonly associated with the chaparral biome, wildflowers and fields of clover. Not exactly, towering sand dunes and Socorro Cactus.

Still, the desert mythology persists, with doomsdayers prophesing sandy reclamation. As if, in the absence, of political pilfer and Owens Valley elutriation, a withered, evaporation-scarred top surface would displace the black, loamy soil, denuded by vengeful Santa Ana winds.

Listen to the early So-Cal boosters who promised a fertile, edenic, Shangri-la. Ok, that may be artistic excess; still, Yuma we ain't!

One Way to Loosen this Market Up

What isn't about supply and demand? In the case of a little thing like shelter, people want to own, only there's very little to buy; ergo, it sets you back a few semolians.

There's no drawbridge to pull up either, "Ok, enough folks in Southern California, would the rest of youse please go repopulate a rust belt city?"

What are we to do, torpedo our local economy? Start ugly online rumors about the Golden State? Taunt the tectonic gods? Nah, we need to create more housing inventory, and I'm not one of these go-go development types, willing to put the Mojave desert under blacktop.

But how else to do it? Here's an idea:

Liberalize commercial lending. Sure we've got these mixed-use ordinances, and there is protocol to convert commercial to residential. Only thing is, you've got to qualify for a commercial loan first--easier said than done. Buyers that would qualify for hefty residential purchase loans are oftentimes ineligible for commercial loans altogether. Most commercial deals require a down payment starting at 30% (which given the cost of things now days, means you're walking around with a lot of jack. Which begs the Q: If you've got that kind of jack why bid on a dumpy nail salon?) Did I mention that commercial closing costs are higher as well? Let's just shed the mid-century underwriting model.

In Los Angeles there are commercial corridors that look like backgrounds in "Fort Apache The Bronx", sometimes laced through otherwise resplendent residential neighborhoods. Would I mind, if disused commercial got swallowed up by single hipsters and artist live/work types? Would I mind if important neighborhood services were eclipsed by surging residential demand? What, you mean a little competition for the 99 cent stores, the storefront churches, and the recycling yards? Puh-leeeze!

If that were to happen maybe we'd get true mixed-use impetus, developers would embrace the model, freed from financial disincentives and fities ideology, crusty grass rooters would recognize its balanced, restorative contribution; moreover, the added density might entice better services to underserved areas.

Every new commercial project in Los Angeles should have a residential component.
We can't exhaust increasingly limited infill possibilities with retail-only projects like, for example, Hollywood & Highland. Consider how desirable condos might've been there? With ground floor retail, sitting atop a red line station, in a flourishing entertainment district, with immediate proximity to the 101 freeway? (This isn't to suggest that developers are wholly responsible for the state of things; in part, that which they do is a reaction to systemic impediments, building requirements, and leadership forces.)

Still, it'd be pretty cool to call mom and say, "I have a view, it's of an elephant."

Mansionification of Jefferson Park

"I've got good news and bad news", I told my J-Park clients, of the recent past and not so recent past. "Mansionification is here!"

McMansions: that's when you know you've made it as a neighborhood, when the scale and rhythm of the street is shot to hell. When pleasing conformity is compromised by big house big shots. When the redevelopment potential outstrips collective values and historical import.

But hey, Jefferson Park is in a category now with all the best Westside neighborhoods: North of Montana, Ocean Park, Brentwood, you name it. The neo-cons pump their fists in testosterone-heavy delight, "Yeahhh, Palmdale's coming to the city baby. I'm gonna build me one of them O.C. style Mediterranean pleasure palaces with an extra large berth for my H3".

It wasn't so long ago, that we lived in a single room, with livestock, and a shared bed, in teepees, igloos and thatched huts. I don't know when single men decided they couldn't be happy without 3600 square feet, a drink refrigerator, and jet-ski storage, some time in the 1980s I guess, maybe earlier. Hey if you can afford it--have at it consumptionists; but, do you really need to tear down, to alter beyond recognition, and to impact that which is around you as surely as the unmuffled growl of a Harley chopper?

Is a fourth bath with his-and-her changing areas really that important?

Five Questions with Jane Powell

Jane Powell is the proprietor of House Dressing, a business dedicated to renovating and preserving old homes, particularly bungalows. She is a frequent lecturer and consultant, and is the author of Bungalow Kitchens, Bungalow Bathrooms, Linoleum, Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts & Crafts Home, and Bungalow Details: Exterior.

I spoke with Jane on Thursday.

1. Adam: What's new?

Jane: We're getting ready to release Bungalow Details: Interior, in June. It's the biggest thing I've ever written, 95,000 words.

Adam: Are you still threatening to make this book your last?

Jane: It will be my last book--in 2006.

2. Adam: How many bungalows have you owned?

Jane: Nine, altogether I've owned eleven Arts & Crafts houses. My current home, "The Sunset House", is going to be featured in an upcoming issue of American Bungalow magazine. The article is titled, "Embrace the Darkness."

Adam: Nowadays everybody wants everything awash in light. But I don't mind having a room or two--so long as the sightline isn't restricted--that are dark.

Jane: Or a whole house [laughs].

Adam: Why Arts & Crafts architecture?

Jane: I bought a bungalow first. If I'd bought a Spanish revival, who knows?

3. Adam: What would you like to do, that you haven't--yet.

Jane: A television show that spotlights true restoration. Not what passes for it on these bad old house makeover shows.

Adam: The ones that feature the so-called "sensitive" additions: kitchen or "great rooms" that are twice the size of the original house.

Jane: Exactly.

4. Adam: What ticks you off?

Jane: Replacement windows, but that's too easy. The term "smart growth". It's urban renewal in sheep's clothing. There's nothing smart about infill that isn't built to scale. There's nothing "smart" or "green" about demolition.

5. Adam: The Craftsman/Arts & Crafts style is so enduring, what do you think of these nuevo Craftsmans?

Jane: Three knee braces and a gable does not a Craftsman make. The majority of them get it wrong, whether it's the two car garage on the facade or the textured sheet rock inside. The window proportions are almost always wrong as well.

Adam: If you don't understand the philosophy, you'll screw up the aesthetics.

Jane: Yes, a cathedral ceiling in a Craftsman for example translates to: a lot of wasted space, poor efficacy. The opposite of what the movement was trying to advocate.

Adam: Thank you Jane, I'm looking forward to the new release.

Jane: You're welcome.

What's Really Going On

There's a lot of noise out there.


A lot of competing viewpoints, optimists and pessimists, critics of the lending industry, champions of the real estate industry, greedy speculators, the disenchanted.

Would-be buyers are paralyzed. The market they're told, is going down, is going to go down, might already be down. Last year they were told: it's going up, it's still going up. Many buyers have lost a sense of urgency, flummoxed by these rivalrous declarations.

I can't tell you what's going to happen tomorrow, but I can tell you this: the market is still going up, steeply in some places. Ask anyone in the Kinney Heights/Western Heights grapevine, where a million dollar price tag is still the exception but no longer unheard of. In the Jefferson Park neighborhood, where the $600K barrier was shattered and is now ubiquitous. Talk to the diehards in Boyle Heights, where Four-fifty used to deliver something special.

So we're in a slow groove? Perhaps, but does it matter? The numbers are so friggin' huge, like the snowball that becomes an avalanche. Five percent appreciation on a $600,000.00 house is 30 grand! Seven percent is 42 grand!

The idea that you can time a real estate purchase is likely fallacious. Who really knows when they're buying at the bottom, or buying at the top? When rates are at their lowest? Or at their highest? Statistically speaking, nearly everyone buys or sells somewhere in between.

Ultimately, every client has a particular and unique circumstance. My job is to help clients figure out what THEY want, absent from industry jangle, and pop media babble. Does it make more sense to spend $18,000/year on rent, or $22,000/year on a mortgage payment with a tax write off? Is paying $400,000 at 6.25% equivalent to $370,000 at 7.25%? What does it mean to any one of them to own a home? Investment? Short term? Long term? Goal fulfillment? Artistic canvas? Housing payment stabilization? The answers are different for each. If I can't know all the answers, I'll start by trying to know most of the questions.

Inflation Infuriation

Do I think housing prices are inflated? I think a lot of things are inflated. I'm not well qualified to sling macro perspectives and geopolitical hash around; but, when I read about milk wars stemming the rise of inflation, I want to know whose tether is really getting yanked.

This core index stuff that strips out the so-called "volatile costs" like energy and food and housing, doesn't seem like a terribly relevant measure. I mean even if you're a latte drinker, with a two-year old, and a late night cookie habit, how much can you spend on the dairy? 35 bucks a month?! Who cares, the car ain't running on the white stuff, and the housing payment is still close to three bills.

Inflation running at 2 to 3 percent? Bah, I think it's probably closer to 8 or 9.
Shoot though, let's go make some milkshakes while we still afford 'em.