Why Chrishelle Stause Was Right About This Los Angeles Suburb
Moving to the suburbs of Los Angeles from downtown San Francisco was the result of a series of pre-pandemic events, including my husband being laid off and myself starting a business out of our living room. My mother volunteered a spare bedroom in suburban LA while we figured out our next steps, including buying our first home. We packed up our cat and four square feet of stuff and drove south down the 5 freeway to become boomerang-kids in LA’s San Fernando Valley, where I grew up, exploring open houses across LA’s northwest neighborhoods on the weekends.
We knew we wanted a home with space and more greenery, a kitchen with a real oven, and a table just for dining (no more multi-functional dining tables of apartments-past), and some privacy. So we optimistically searched for an affordable-ish fixer-upper in Malibu and Malibu-adjacent areas, going so far as to appear in bankruptcy court trying to bid against an all-cash buyer for a mountaintop home going for a song—spoiler: The cash offer won. While we loved the idea of the rustic luxury of these areas, my mother and Zillow kept trying to push the San Fernando Valley on us. In this case, mom and the algorithm proved to be right.
The Valley is the perennially uncool suburban region of Los Angeles which viewers of Selling Sunset might recognize as the area that Chrishell Stause commits to focus on, to the horror of the other agents. Where the tonier northwestern LA neighborhoods of Malibu and Calabasas have views from the Santa Monica Mountains to the sea, with notable restaurants and as-seen-on-TV dermatology clinics, the Valley has views of the Santa Monica Mountains, a diverse set of delicious immigrant-owned restaurants and affordable med spas who offer Groupons on Botox. As far as homes go, in between the mcmansions that Chrishell is selling are well-preserved and charming midcentury ranch homes. As newlyweds in our mid-30s, a cute ranch home with a view ended up being just what we needed. Eventually, we had an offer accepted on a home with everything we wanted in the valley hamlet of Tarzana: views, patios, pool, kitchen (with enough room for a dining-only table), and privacy.
After more than two years of DIY projects, family gatherings, and quiet nights in, I can confidently say that living with more square footage twenty-five minutes from town hasn’t felt cheesy or bland or any of those other things I feared the suburbs would feel like. Yes, there is a mall (that I don’t go to) 15-minutes away, and yes there are more Starbucks drive-throughs than there should be, but there are also small businesses, uncrowded hiking trails, and free parking that just don’t appear on the fancy side of the Santa Monica Mountains. While my perspective may be colored by the commute-free glasses of a remote worker, getting to cook in a kitchen the size of my old New York City apartment and watch the sunset over the horizon is worth driving a little more when I want to visit friends in town.
This compromise certainly isn’t for everyone, but I feel like we got as much of a bang for buck as we could in a crazy housing market, and checked every box of what we were looking for in a home. I’ve enjoyed it so much more than I anticipated and wholeheartedly endorse a similar move to anyone who is suburb-curious but afraid of making such a change. From home-office bobcat sightings to the best uncovered hiking trails in LA, it’s been a glorious surprise for a mortgage payment less than my tiny-apartment rent in San Francisco.
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