8 ms·
Many popular houses in 1920s L.A. were part of a scam
- wicktron 3y ago"Today the average price of an original (but modernized) E. P. Janes home is around $1 million, even with only one bathroom due to the small footprint." $1M 1-bathroom home? Just another day that ends in Y in CA.
- pauldenton 3y agoAt the peak of construction, Levitt was building one house every 16 minutes. Each house cost around $8,000, a price that was reduced to about $400 with GI bill benefits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown Soldiers coming back after WW2 could get a house for 400$. And it had 2 bathrooms
- defrost 3y agoNot all soldiers: African American GIs, who served with honor in World War II, could work on Levittown construction crews but could not join the hordes of people pressing into Levittown rental and sales offices. This was very much the root of one of the great economic divisons in modern US times .. the post WWII boom and generational multiplying effects were segregated. https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/installation-images-4/item/3855 https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/installati...
- asdff 3y agoThose homes are half a million today per zillow. Much better appreciation than the Altadena homes, 7 fold thereabouts.
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoMy grandfather was a WWII, Korea, and Vietnam vet with the GI Bill. In 1968, there was no housing discount, only low interest loans. Their house cost $10k then and sold for $2.1m in 2018. I have the original copies of the deeds and of their loan.
- ghaff 3y agoMultiple bathrooms in houses is a relatively modern thing. And it's the sort of thing that's often hard to retrofit. So houses that are otherwise desirable may otherwise be short of bathrooms by modern standards.
- almost_usual 3y agoWell Griffith Park and Observatory are named after someone who shot his wife in the face and spent less than two years in San Quentin. LA was the wild west not that long ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith_J._Griffith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith_J._Griffith
- jjtheblunt 3y agoLA named it Griffith Park years before the shooting, which was from his wife and him donating the land. but curiously it seems the theater and observatory were named for him years after the shooting. Strange world
- Rebelgecko 3y agoIIRC, they refused when he was alive. But his will left a good chunk of his fortune to the city under the condition they build on the land in his name. The construction also lined up with Griffith's son becoming president of the city's parks commission. Not sure what kind of relationship he had with his parents.
- asdff 3y agoThe Griffith family also went on to sue the city when they violated their land deals building the Toyon landfill.
- eloisant 3y agoThat's why you don't name places after living people.
- WalterBright 3y agoIt seems he latched onto a great business opportunity, and if he'd been able to resist scamming people, he could have become very wealthy.
- leoedin 3y agoIt's kind of amazing isn't it. The guy clearly was very entrepreneurial and capable of talking investors into giving him money. If he'd just followed the rules he probably would have been really successful. Or at least not had to run away every time things failed.
- lazide 3y agoSounds like a number of recent disasters too, no?
- gwern 3y agoIt's a common story. If he had succeeded, because he had gotten somewhat further with the public infrastructure and avoiding bad luck like the rains, it would simply be some 'colorful anecdotes' in his biography. Success redeems all, while if you fail, everyone knew all along that it was 'obvious'.
- peterebailey 3y agoAltadena still doesn't have sidewalks. Now I know how the pattern started!
- djabatt 3y agoI live in Altadena and I see those homes. They don't seem all that bad. By the way, Altadena has nice mountain cold air at night, accompanied by the sound of owls hooting. The night time views of Downtown LA are awesome. So, Altadena gives you country living, and within a 20-minute drive, you can be in Silver Lake, DTLA, or Los Feliz to check out a band or a dinner.
- olivermuty 3y agoI refuse to believe anything in LA is within a 20 minute drive unless you’re going at 4am. That place has the wildest traffic!
- sgt 3y agoIt's funny how LA traffic in the movies (especially from the 80s and 90s) always looks pretty good. Driving fast through those hills and canyons.
- bugglebeetle 3y agoA lot of it is like that if you stay outside downtown.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bluejekyll 3y agoKind of like all the car commercials today, they never show people stuck in traffic.
- silvestrov 3y agoThat home in the last picture is a lot prettier than the McMansions that gets built these days. If only all modern houses in US were designed as well as this.
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoBe thankful: most homes in Texas have all of the architectural design sense of Microsoft c. 1985. The core issue is the permitting processes are missing design and aesthetics reviews and approvals. Instead, they're intent on keeping people like Bill Maher from using solar power.
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoHonestly, I don't see the appeal. Most Eichlers have a more serene feel to them. Interestingly, there are many more Eichlers (and lookalikes) than listed on the Wikipedia page. For example, there's a development in Woodland, CA (NorCal).
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoI was expecting these to be shoddily built (like the Sudden Valley show home on Arrested Development) but not so: > “Well built but not overbuilt” is how former resident Zac Matthews describes them. “Janes actually used good materials like oversized redwood rafters,”
- fnord77 3y ago> steep Coldswold-inspired roofs Cotswold
- caseysoftware 3y agoFTA: > “‘Nothing Down’ Plan Proves Undoing of Landowner,” read one headline in The Honolulu Advertiser. Turns out those who couldn’t afford a down payment couldn’t keep up with monthly ones either. Imagine that.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoYet the federal US government subsidizes 0% down mortgages: https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/single-family-housing-programs/single-family-housing-guaranteed-loan-program https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/single-family-hous... >The Section 502 Guaranteed Loan Program assists approved lenders in providing low- and moderate-income households the opportunity to own adequate, modest, decent, safe and sanitary dwellings as their primary residence in eligible rural areas. Eligible applicants may purchase, build, rehabilitate, improve or relocate a dwelling in an eligible rural area with 100% financing. The program provides a 90% loan note guarantee to approved lenders in order to reduce the risk of extending 100% loans to eligible rural homebuyers – so no money down for those who qualify! https://www.va.gov/housing-assistance/home-loans/ https://www.va.gov/housing-assistance/home-loans/ >For example, nearly 90% of VA-backed loans are made with no down payment. Not far off are 3.5% down payment mortgages: https://www.hud.gov/buying/loans https://www.hud.gov/buying/loans
- empath-nirvana 3y agoThe VA-backed loans are a benefit for joining the military. It's not exactly charity, but they certainly aren't doing it because it's a good financial investment. It's actually quite hard to get a low/no money down mortgage, even with those programs, there are limits to the total price of the house, for example.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoNone of it is charity to (newer) homeowners. If it was, they would just give people cash. It is a subsidy to people who already own property, by creating a greater supply of buyers who can pay more.
- coding123 3y agoDamn, building homes fast and loose like that would probably solve our housing crisis, unfortunately no politician would allow for that
- infotainment 3y agoWhat’s really needed is an end to zoning. It’s absurd that bunch of houses built when LA had a fraction of its current population are still standing, when the free market should have replaced them with higher density housing decades ago.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]