ajGoes

That's not "most buildings", that's one building. However, nobody I know in Santa Monica has ever mentioned apartment management as a major concern. I've never heard anything positive or negative about it; the subject just doesn't come up. I imagine the benign climate leaves management with less room to screw up. There's no snow removal; heating systems are rudimentary; air conditioning usually isn't necessary; leaky roofs are less of a problem because it rarely rains hard.

My grandmother's landlord once yelled at me when I pulled onto the garage ramps next to her apartment. Apparently long-haired hippie types had strained his patience by turning around there. I just looked at him while my grandmother came out and climbed into the VW camper. She wasn't crazy about her landlord, but he kept the place up pretty well. This was admittedly almost fifty years ago and possibly no more representative than the Yelp review.

TWA884

One management company that owns or operates 15 apartment buildings. Still, not necessarily an accurate representation of the apartment rental situation in the entire city.

ajGoes

Good point.

OP, Santa Monica is a funky sort of place where people tend to find a bit of decay charming rather than insupportable. You won't find many people there trading notes on the failings of their building supers. If that kind of conversation is a feature of your life, you'll probably be happier somewhere else.

DELee

Personally, I'd recommend that, prior to moving, you take some time off and spend a few weeks in Southern California (if you can afford the time and expenditure) to see if there's a place/locale/transportation/property management company/etc. that work for you.

David

Dieuwer

Is California not too expensive to reitre?

Error 601

Manhattan Beach, just like practically everywhere else in Los Angeles has a problem with property crimes committed by drug addicts who don't fear the police and have no reason to.

You're not going to find yourself in the middle of a gang war.

ajGoes

That depends entirely on how much money you have. The Los Angeles area is too expensive to live in even for many people who work there. I know a multiple Emmy winner who has fallen on hard times and can't afford an apartment. This person is one of a large community of nearly homeless people who stay where they have roots even though they lack the means for a place to live. This problem wouldn't exist if there weren't so many people there who can pay whatever it takes.

garykung

The problem is Santa Monica is one of the 3 areas in LA county that has a rent control law.

FWIW - when you have the rent control law in place, landlord-tenant relationship is usually worse. For example, we are practically in a recession now due to COVID-19. So in most areas of the LA county, landlords would freeze the rent (or if lucky, lower). But in cities like Santa Monica, the rent is still going to be increased no matter what because of the increase cap. So landlords in Santa Monica will keep increasing the rent as legally allowed.

Also - because of the rent control law, some tenants are lucky enough to have units that way below prevailing rents. So landlords are practically losing money. Hence, landlords would like to push those people out as much as possible as legally allowed.

On a side note - I seriously don't understand why OP has to pick Santa Monica. Sure, OP may have a thing about Santa Monica, which is fine. But Santa Monica isn't exactly the best city in the county to live with. There are handful of LA cities that can serve OP better. I honestly I don't know what OP has to so dug in with Santa Monica.

BTW - Santa Monica is also a college town as well.

Error 601

Unless you appreciate the bohemian vibe found in Santa Monica or Venice, I don't really get the appeal.

Santa Monica is also going to be in for some serious airplane noise in the future when SMO closes and instead of Harrison Ford they get to deal with "Korean 5678 Heavy" directly overhead.

dbuckho

There are several different neighborhoods even in Santa Monica. I live in Sunset Park which many call one of the last Ozzie and Harriet neighborhoods in LA. It is often has a small town feel but on the westside of LA - with easy access to all LA offers and the beach. Moved out here 17 years ago from the east coast and would not want to live anywhere else. There are also many new apartments/condos opening so PM sent to OP - happy to answer questions.

That said there are many great areas in LA. An older colleague who came back from an expat assignment in London and got used to city life there and not having a car ended up selling their house and moving to a condo in Long Beach when they came back - they really loved the downtown LB lifestyle. And Pasadena reminds me a lot of Bethesda, MD where I moved from. I would probably live there or Glendale if my work was on that side of town.

I think anyone moving out here should do something short term, experience the everyday for a while, and find their center - then pick where they want to be based. LA is really more a bunch of neighborhoods strung together than a single city (even though we now have a more useful downtown). But also seems like the OP is familiar with a few areas - and I cannot argue with Santa Monica being a great choice!

if you look at Flightaware the inbound routes from the Pacific and Asia already come overhead. I live by the Santa Monica airport and my kids love planes - we are looking at them all the time and can usually identify with the naked eye (the LAX bound planes). Unless they were to reorient the runways at LAX so there was a direct southern landing approach, not sure Santa Monica airport closing is going to change the LAX approach for Asia/north all that much. They will most likely still come over Santa Monica on their way to downtown before turning back to LAX. Maybe a little lower - but I doubt it - they are still flying over the entire westside of LA's population.

chrisl137

We even get that once in a while where I am above Pasadena. People in the neighborhood thought it sounded way too close and asked about it right away on the neighborhood email list.

More commonly, there's non-stop helicopter traffic - either for patrols or rescues. There's been much less helo traffic during the shutdown with nobody really on the trails.

Error 601

Fair enough.

I miss Southern California horribly, I know what it means to not want to live anywhere else.

As far as the airport goes, it's something an air traffic controller told me, he said when SMO closes there will be an airspace redesign and the good people of Santa Monica will miss Harrison Ford's little bush planes and Bono's Learjet.

dbuckho

Had never really thought about this before. There was a Southern California Metroplex airspace redesign effort about 5 years ago then implemented 2017-2018. It looks like the FAA considered inputs through 2021 in that design plan. As part of that they dropped the inbound for larger jets over Santa Monica from 8000 to 7000 ft -- that is where the wide-bodies are when they fly over my house. Then the Beechcraft type planes on north/south crossing routes over the LA Basin are between 4000 and 5000 ft. There probably will be another redesign effort in a few years that considers the airspace post the Santa Monica airport closing in 2028. Maybe they would drop the larger planes to 5000 and the smaller ones to 3000? Have to look up how many decibels that would increase the noise? But the north/south transition is still coming from/on the way to crossing LAX, so not sure how low that can really go? And then you need spacing between those paths and the larger planes coming in. Will definitely keep an eye on it and if the planes were allowed lower and possibly turning to LAX sooner - before downtown -- it would be a noise issue for the entire westside of LA, not just Santa Monica.

Dieuwer

How about Palm Springs?

Error 601

It was something that came up when <the> FAA was fighting Santa Monica over the airport, the controller simply said that closing SMO would be a pyrrhic victory for anyone who was concerned about airplane noise but any effort to explain the potential airspace implications of SMO closing just resulted in women yelling at him.

Edit: absolutely no politics intended, it was just the time frame.