Information about the house and neighborhood
The single-property house which I have selected is located in Los Angeles at 1274 South Camden Drive. It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms. Its exterior design strongly resembles the Spanish architectural style. This house has a very spacious living room with beamed ceilings and a fireplace. The size of this house is 3,299 square feet. The price of this house is $1,995,000. It should be noted that the district in which this house is located in one of the safest areas in Los Angeles.
It has a very low rate of violent crime per capita, 14. In this case, the term violent crime includes such felonies as homicide, rape, and arson (Los Angeles Police Department, unpaged). This area is also quite suitable for families with children. There are several schools in this area, namely Beverly Vista Elementary School, Canfield Avenue Elementary School, and Good Shepherd Catholic School. Their overall rating is four out of five.
Each of them is located within a mile’s distance from the house (Trulia, unpaged). Furthermore, these neighborhood scores very high in terms of walkability, educational opportunities, and cleanliness. Its overall score is five out of five (Trulia. unpaged). Overall, this house will be more suitable for a very well-to-do customer, whose income level ranges from 100.000 per 150.000 per year. This person will have to pay in advance at least 20 percent of the price which is $ 400.000. Provided that the buyer decides to take a thirty-year mortgage loan, he/she would have to pay $5000 each month. Again, we have to emphasize the point that this house is affordable only for people, whose income is above average.
Reflections about the assignment
Overall, this assignment has been of great help to me since I learned more about buying real estate. This task has demonstrated to me that the assessment of a house has to be based on a great number of criteria such as crime rate in the specific area, school ratings, walkability, and so forth. While writing this paper I became even more convinced that one cannot properly assess real estate without considering some external factors such as the economic situation in the community, environment, or the number of educational institutions within the district. The home buying process has to rely on in-depth research which may take at least several months.
These criteria are often disregarded by the buyers, and as a result, they may be very dissatisfied with the real estate that they purchased. Secondly, a person who intends his/her house must know how its value or price can be estimated. The decision to buy or sell a house cannot be made on the spur of the moment since it can eventually result in great financial losses. This is one of the key lessons that I have learned from this assignment.
In my opinion, this knowledge and skills can greatly benefit almost every individual who intends to purchase a house, condominium, or apartment. In the future, I may use these skills to better choose a house for my family or help my friends. Finally, this assignment has shown to me that real estate agents have to possess a great number of skills. These people must be versed in design, architecture, city planning, statistics, etc. Without this knowledge, they would not be able to work in this field.
Works Cited
Los Angeles Police Department. Violent Crime. Los Angeles Times, 2011. Web.
Trulia. “1278 South Camden Drive #303, Los Angeles CA 90035”. 2011. Web.