Venice Beach, CA now heads the pack in housing price per square foot. Trulia is now quoting Venice Beach median square foot value at $1,440, Beverly Hills median square foot value at $1,049 and Bel Air median square foot value at $778. True, Venice Beach homes average 3,000 square feet rather than Beverly Hills/Bel Air’s more often 20,000 square feet but still…square foot values are still square foot values.
It wasn’t long ago that Venice Beach was considered a sleepy, little, boho village next to Santa Monica’s more upscale beach town. Obviously, all of that has changed. Since 2012, the median one bedroom home in Venice has increased by 54%. Silicon Beach, which includes Venice, Playa Vista and Marina del Rey, is a growing concentration of technology and media companies and communities that call Venice home is fueling this market.
Kim Gordon, a local designer and builder who has built eight homes in the area within the last three years said, “Venice was once just tiny lots with little cottages…Tech people (who buy these lots, tear down existing houses, and build new homes)…want larger homes where they can live and work and do everything…” Gordon’s latest client commissioned her to design and build a 3,500 square foot compound that cost just over the $1,428 square foot price. That home sold for $5M.
Venice prices are spilling over into Playa Vista, home to Yahoo, You Tube and soon Google, and into Marina del Rey. Newly completed neighborhoods in Playa Vista include what is called the Jewel collection, 4,500 square foot homes that sell for $3M to $5M. Another recently completed neighborhood, Collection, the first of its kind in LA, is a series of tech-centric homes that offers Apple HomeKit technologies as a standard in all of its residences.
“…this main hub of Silicon Beach…is one of the most desired areas to buy in all of LA,” said Justin Alexander, director of sales with Halton, Parde and Partners. Prices in Venice Beach, in Silicon Beach as a whole, will likely continue to increase. Who doesn’t want to live and work near one of LA’s primary attractions…the beach?
