Priced Out of Prime NELA Real Estate? There's Still Hope For Something Affordable and Close By

Let's face it: When buying a home, the word "affordable" is relative, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't look at what the numbers say.

The big question plaguing many wannabe homebuyers today is, where can I afford to buy? They say they can’t afford the high sticker price of homes for sale in Mount Washington, Eagle Rock or Highland Park. For many buyers, even homes for sale in Glassell Park - once up-and-coming and affordable - is out of their reach.

Always being mindful that the median price of affordable places like Detroit, Michigan ($36,000), Harlingen, Texas ($84,000) or even nearby Desert Hot Springs ($188,000) is what more people think of as "affordable", there are some communities in Los Angeles, not too far from Eagle Rock, that are a bit more affordable as you can see in the table below.

What? Altadena doesn’t look more affordable at all!

We have to look a little harder at some of these numbers — about one third of all sales in the 91001 zip code are in the $550k to $850k range. That still isn’t close to the truly affordable places, is it? Remember the definition of "median price" — the point at which half the sales are above that price, and half are below.

You might look for places you like that have a lot of sales and focus on the homes under the median price to see if you find something you like. The areas with fewer sales are either a lot more expensive or a lot less desirable which you can figure out by the average sales price. Fun with numbers can be a full-time hobby when it comes to home shopping if you like that sort of thing.