Digging into the Loftway Report 2020

Every year we publish The Loftway Report which features Condo and Loft sales in Downtown LA and compares them to the previous year. The report is compiled using data from the CLAW MLS and features the majority of sales and the majority of buildings in DTLA. A few buildings are left out on purpose and do not affect the report.

Making sense of the report can be difficult as the numbers can be affected by many factors. On this blog post, I am going to dig into the numbers and help make sense of them. You can get a copy of the report HERE.

At first, let’s look at the macro numbers. The number of total sales decreased from 294 in 2018 to 245 in 2019 even though I added Metropolis tower II to the report this year, so they should have been even higher.

940 E 2nd had a double-digit appreciation of 28.12% but there were only two sales there in 2019 and the only one in 2018 so one sale can make a huge difference. It’s also a small building so that’s why.

The Alta Lofts also had double-digit gains, in my opinion, that building was very underpriced, but still an affordable option.

As for the Biscuit Co it had a double-digit decline probably due to the fact that four  Penthouses sold in 2018 and they usually sell for much more than regular units. For some reason, there were also lots of sales then with twenty lofts trading hands compared to only three in 2019.

As a rule with a few exceptions like the Toy Factory Lofts, the buildings with fewer sales are the ones with the highest appreciation which makes sense since supply and demand is one of the most important factors controlling price.

We can also notice that the Flower and Grand Lofts are really underpriced for South park and are great buys. The Grand Lofts prices are probably going to climb a bit since now they can use the amenities at AVEN and the lack of amenities and high HOA’s are probably the cause for Flower low prices.

Overall the market still moving well, but slower and the number of sales has been declining year over year. I don’t think speaks against Downtown, there are a lot of apartment buildings that are getting filled with new residents and more and more people are moving there. Overall the buyer behavior has changed over the years and people start families later in life and prefer to be more mobile which means renting over buying.

 

 

 

 

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