Mar Vista, Los Angeles: Ten Popular Beliefs About the Neighborhood, Each Given a Verdict From 344 Sales and the Public Record

Written by Antonio Vaziri, Realtor, Epique Realty, DRE #01927866 · Last updated October 2026

Mar Vista has a reputation that moves faster than its records. It gets described as a corner of Venice, as a street grid of identical bungalows, as a place where every house goes over asking by Monday. I took ten of those ideas and set each one beside the evidence: 344 closed home sales and 329 closed leases from the MLS, city planning and permit files, state school records and the newest five-year Census Bureau survey.

286house sales, median $2,200,000
57condominium, co-op and townhome sales, median $800,000
99.4%median house price as a share of the original list price
329closed leases, median $3,950 a month

CRMLS Matrix residential and residential lease searches limited to the City of Los Angeles map of the Mar Vista Neighborhood Council, closings from October 19, 2025 through October 19, 2026, pulled October 19, 2026. Data as of October 2026. The 344 sales also include one 17-bedroom multi-unit building that sold for $2,200,000, which is left out of the house and condominium figures.

Holds upPartly trueDoes not hold up

Belief one: Mar Vista is just the inland edge of Venice

Does not hold up

The City of Los Angeles maps Mar Vista as its own neighborhood council area, one of 99 in the city's system. The council's bylaws trace the line in detail: the 10 Freeway and National Boulevard across the top, the 405 Freeway, Overland Avenue, Regent Street and Tuller Avenue on the east, Charnock Road, Sepulveda Boulevard and the Culver City border on the south, Walgrove Avenue and Centinela Avenue on the west, and the Santa Monica city border along part of the north. Culver City and Santa Monica are separate cities that sit outside that line.

Venice and Mar Vista do touch. The bylaws treat four campuses, Venice High, Mark Twain Middle, Walgrove Elementary and Beethoven Elementary, as an overlap area shared with the Venice Neighborhood Council, and two more, Charnock Road Elementary and Palms Middle, as shared with Palms. The bylaws name no other overlap areas.

The name has its own history. The city's 2012 historic resources survey of the area records that more than 500 acres in four tracts were subdivided in 1904, that the Ocean Park Heights tract later took Mar Vista, its Spanish equivalent, as its name, and that a March 1927 vote brought the area into the City of Los Angeles. The Council District 11 office dates the annexation to March 10, 1927.

One practical note for anyone searching listings: of the 286 house sales on this page, 254 were filed under MLS area C13 and 32 under the MLS's West Los Angeles area. A search by MLS area alone would miss part of the neighborhood, which is why every figure here comes from the council's map instead.

Belief two: the housing stock is all 1940s bungalows

Partly true

The 1940s really did leave the biggest mark on this year's sales. Of the 279 houses with a year built in the MLS, 102 date from that decade and 31 more from before 1940. But 75 were built in 2000 or later, and those sold for far more.

House sales by decade built, Mar Vista Neighborhood Council map, closings October 19, 2025 through October 19, 2026. CRMLS Matrix, pulled October 19, 2026.
Built Sales Median price Median size Median price vs. original list
Before 1940 31 $2,085,000 1,571 sq ft 100.0%
1940 to 1949 102 $1,950,000 1,647 sq ft 99.5%
1950 to 1959 62 $2,192,600 1,673.5 sq ft 100.4%
1960 to 1999 9 $2,850,000 2,832 sq ft 100.2%
2000 to 2019 24 $3,785,000 3,631.5 sq ft 98.3%
2020 or later 51 $3,575,000 3,410 sq ft 98.0%

Seven house sales had no year built in the MLS and are not in this table.

Houses are also only part of the picture. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2020 to 2024 counts 27,045 housing units in ZIP Code Tabulation Area 90066, which covers much of Mar Vista but not all of it and also reaches beyond it. Of those units, 10,651 are detached single-family homes and 13,940 are in buildings with five or more units. The survey puts the median year built for all units in that ZIP area at 1967.

Belief three: most residents own their homes

Does not hold up

In the same census release, ZIP Code Tabulation Area 90066 has 25,279 occupied units: 9,680 occupied by owners and 15,599 by renters. That makes renters about 61.7 percent of households there. The MLS shows a rental market almost as active as the sales market inside the council map, with 329 closed leases over the same twelve months.

Closed leases inside the Mar Vista Neighborhood Council map, October 19, 2025 through October 19, 2026. CRMLS Matrix, pulled October 19, 2026.
Rental Leases Median monthly rent
Apartment, condominium or townhome, 1 bedroom 94 $2,747.50
Apartment, condominium or townhome, 2 bedrooms 77 $3,975
Apartment, condominium or townhome, 3 bedrooms 15 $5,300
House, 2 bedrooms 16 $4,997.50
House, 3 bedrooms 47 $7,250
House, 4 bedrooms 27 $11,500
House, 5 or more bedrooms 12 $17,612.50

All 107 house leases had a median of $7,900 and all 222 other leases a median of $3,197. Thirty-six of those other leases listed no bedroom count, and five house leases had one bedroom or none listed; they are counted in the totals but not in the rows above. The overall median was 37 days on the market.

Belief four: nothing with a yard sells for under two million

Partly true

The middle house sale was $2,200,000, so a buyer with a budget below $2 million is shopping in the lower half of the market. That half is not empty, though. In the last year, 112 houses closed below $2 million, and 43 of them closed below $1.5 million.

House sales by closing price, same map, period and source.
Closing price Sales Median price Median size Median lot Median days on market
Under $1,500,000 43 $1,355,000 1,249 sq ft 5,208 sq ft 25.5
$1,500,000 to $1,999,999 69 $1,700,000 1,553 sq ft 5,634 sq ft 38
$2,000,000 to $2,499,999 62 $2,200,000 1,789 sq ft 5,967 sq ft 35.5
$2,500,000 to $2,999,999 32 $2,710,000 2,447.5 sq ft 6,232.5 sq ft 34.5
$3,000,000 to $3,999,999 44 $3,437,500 3,151.5 sq ft 6,036.5 sq ft 38
$4,000,000 and up 36 $4,502,250 4,099.5 sq ft 7,085.5 sq ft 53

The yard is the catch in the lower price rows. Sixteen of the houses that sold under $2 million were built in 2020 or later on small lots with a median of 1,006 square feet, including ten on Verona Court that sold from $1,380,000 to $1,505,000. They are detached, but their lots are a fraction of the 5,978-square-foot median lot for houses built before 2000.

Condominiums, co-ops and townhomes are the other route in. The 57 attached sales had a median of $800,000, from $400,000 to $1,340,000: nine one-bedroom units at a median of $475,000, 39 two-bedroom units at $800,000 and nine with three bedrooms at $1,080,000. They also took longer, a median of 56 days, and closed at a median of 97.1 percent of the original list price.

Belief five: every house sells over the asking price

Does not hold up

Measured against the original list price, 110 houses sold above it, 30 sold at it and 146 sold below it. The median house closed at 99.4 percent of its first asking price after a median of 36.5 days on the market. The picture depends heavily on size.

House sales by bedroom count, compared with each home's original list price. CRMLS Matrix, closings October 19, 2025 through October 19, 2026, pulled October 19, 2026.
Bedrooms Sales Median price Median vs. original list Sold above original list Median days on market
2 28 $1,600,000 104.0% 19 22
3 101 $1,883,500 100.0% 49 31
4 94 $2,402,500 98.9% 26 38.5
5 or more 63 $3,900,000 97.6% 16 50.5

The smaller and older the house, the more likely it closed above its original list price. Houses with five or more bedrooms more often closed under the first price and took a median of 50.5 days.

Belief six: every new two-story house costs four million

Partly true

The 35 houses built in 2020 or later on lots of at least 4,000 square feet sold for a median of $3,900,000, at a median of 3,723 square feet, and they took a median of 56 days and closed at 97.1 percent of their original list price. The 16 new homes on small lots sold for a median of $1,457,500. Among this year's sales, no new house on a lot of 4,000 square feet or more closed below $1,610,000, and the full-lot median was more than double the small-lot median.

Three houses changed hands twice within the twelve months. A Coolidge Avenue house sold for $1,286,000 in January 2026 and for $2,003,929 in October 2026, when the MLS listed 2,062 square feet against 1,219 the first time. A Purdue Avenue house went from $1,725,000 in October 2025 to $2,349,000 in July 2026, and a Westgate Avenue house from $850,000 in February 2026 to $1,250,000 in October 2026.

New construction is also a large share of what is for sale now. On October 19, 2026, 25 of the 74 houses listed as active or coming soon were built in 2020 or later.

Belief seven: an Ain house can be remodeled like any other

Does not hold up

The Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract is a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone of 52 parcels, built in 1948 to designs by architect Gregory Ain with landscape architect Garrett Eckbo and adopted by the City Council in 2003. City Planning describes it as the city's first post-World War II HPOZ. The city's survey describes it as roughly bounded by Palms Boulevard, Meier Street, Marco Place and Beethoven Street.

City Planning's guidance for these zones says all exterior alterations require HPOZ approval, and that some work needing no building permit, such as painting, concrete alterations and most landscaping, still needs that approval. Projects go through one of the city's review paths, a Certificate of Appropriateness, a Certificate of Compatibility or Conforming Work review. If you are weighing a purchase inside the tract, read the preservation plan before you plan the project, and consult an attorney about your situation; for coverage questions on an older house, check with your insurance agent.

Belief eight: you cannot get to a train from here

Does not hold up

Metro opened the Expo Line extension to Santa Monica on May 20, 2016, with new stations at Expo/Sepulveda and Expo/Bundy. The line now runs as the E Line between East Los Angeles and Santa Monica, and both stations sit just north of the 10 Freeway, which forms Mar Vista's northern edge between Centinela Avenue and the 405.

Buses fill in the rest. Metro Line 33 runs on Venice Boulevard, where the 2023 project added a 24-hour bus lane; Big Blue Bus Route 14 runs along Bundy Drive and Centinela Avenue, and Culver CityBus Line 6 and Rapid 6 travel Sepulveda Boulevard between UCLA and the LAX/Metro Transit Center, connecting with the E Line at Expo/Sepulveda.

Belief nine: the Venice Boulevard lane changes were rolled back

Does not hold up

In 2017, the city's Great Streets pilot removed one travel lane in each direction along about 0.8 miles of Venice Boulevard between Beethoven Street and Inglewood Boulevard and added protected bike lanes and mid-block crossings. In December 2018, Streetsblog Los Angeles reported that the project would remain in place, citing one year of collision data showing severe injury crashes on the segment falling from two to zero and collisions at Venice and Centinela down 75 percent, with new left-turn signals and longer right-turn pockets on Centinela Avenue planned.

East of that segment, Metro and the city finished a separate project in June 2023 that added parking-protected bike lanes and a 24-hour bus lane on Venice Boulevard between Inglewood Boulevard and National Boulevard.

Belief ten: the airport next door is permanent

Does not hold up

Santa Monica Airport lies across the Santa Monica city line from Mar Vista. The council's bylaws describe one of its zones as south of the airport and run the western line along Centinela Avenue from Airport Avenue to the 10 Freeway. In September 2025, the City of Santa Monica reaffirmed that it will permanently close the airport at midnight on December 31, 2028, as required under a 2017 federal consent decree with the Federal Aviation Administration. On October 13, 2026, the Santa Monica City Council directed staff to study a nonprofit conservancy for a park on the site, with a study session expected in spring 2027, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press. The closure date is set; the park design is not final.

Building permits and proposals on file right now

I checked each project below in the City Planning case records and the city's building permit and inspection data on October 19, 2026, unless another source and date are shown. Every address falls within the council area. Entitlements can expire, be revised or sit unbuilt for years, and a proposal can change or be withdrawn before anything is decided.

  • Under construction12124 W. Pacific Avenue. Planning approved a six-story, 87-unit building on January 23, 2026; the issued building permit is still written for 74 units, and foundation and masonry inspections were logged through October 8, 2026.
  • Under construction12442 W. Pacific Avenue. A 41-unit building with all units affordable, approved May 21, 2025. The building permit was issued August 19, 2026, and grading inspections began September 14, 2026.
  • Under construction3608 Centinela Avenue. A five-story, 49-unit building with 48 affordable units and a manager's unit. The building permit was issued July 24, 2026, and demolition of the old fourplex was finaled October 5, 2026.
  • Under construction3990 S. Wade Street. Five stories and 21 units, all affordable. Permit issued January 21, 2026; framing inspections through October 8, 2026.
  • Under construction12032 to 12038 Washington Place. Two four-story buildings of four units each, with inspections logged from September into mid-October 2026 and no certificate of occupancy yet.
  • Approved11848 to 11860 W. Venice Boulevard. Five stories and 81 units, all affordable, approved July 23, 2026. No construction permit had been issued.
  • Approved3671 Inglewood Boulevard. Seven lots for seven homes, approved June 2, 2026 under the state's starter home laws, SB 684 and SB 1123. The old house has been demolished; no new building permit yet.
  • Approved3252 S. Barrington Avenue. A five-lot small-lot subdivision, approved July 29, 2026.
  • Approved12761 W. Caswell Avenue. Six stories and 16 units, approved October 3, 2025, with no building permit on file.
  • Approved12701 W. Washington Place. A five-story mixed-use building with 34 units, approved January 18, 2024, with no building permit on file.
  • Proposed12508 to 12512 W. Pacific Avenue. Seven stories and 60 units, all affordable. The application was filed September 14, 2026 and shows as on hold, not yet accepted for review (city case record; Yo! Venice, September 28, 2026).
  • Open12767 Mitchell Avenue. A 27-unit apartment building that received its certificate of occupancy on November 18, 2025.
  • ProposedWestside Community Plans Update. The Palms - Mar Vista - Del Rey Community Plan was last updated in 1997. The city issued a notice of preparation for an environmental impact report on the Westside update on February 19, 2026; no draft report had been posted as of October 19, 2026 (CEQAnet; City Planning).
  • ApprovedSpeed cameras on National Boulevard. The stretch from Butler Avenue to the 405 is one of the Council District 11 corridors chosen for the city's speed camera program. The first cameras were scheduled to switch on October 26, 2026, with a 60-day warning period before fines (Westside Current, October 12, 2026).
  • OpenThe Arepa Stand, 12906 Venice Boulevard. The business opened its first storefront with a soft opening (Westside Current, September 7, 2026).

Public school campuses inside the council boundary

These ten active public schools have street addresses inside the Mar Vista Neighborhood Council map, according to the California Department of Education School Directory. Every name opens that school's page on the California School Dashboard.

Several schools with 90066 addresses or with Mar Vista in their names sit outside the council map, so a school's name or ZIP code tells you little about which campus serves a home. Attendance follows the exact address: enter it in the LAUSD Resident School Identifier and confirm with the district.

Listings you can open today

On October 19, 2026, the MLS showed 119 residential listings inside the council map: 1 coming soon, 95 active, 9 under contract and 14 pending. The 74 houses listed as active or coming soon asked from $799,000 to $5,195,000, with a middle ask of $2,500,000. The 21 active condominiums, co-ops and townhomes asked from $475,000 to $1,399,000, with a middle ask of $750,000.

Both buttons open the site's home search drawn to the same Mar Vista outline. Listings change every day, so the totals there will differ from the counts above.

Mar Vista homes for sale Mar Vista homes for rent

My own record in Mar Vista

My transaction records show no sale or lease of mine inside the Mar Vista council boundary, so nothing on this page comes from my own files. Every number comes from the MLS and public records, and I would apply the same method to your street: the closings, the leases and the permits that matter for your property type.

Selling a Mar Vista house? Start with the right comparisons

A 1940s two-bedroom, a four-bedroom and a new five-bedroom each sold on very different terms this year, and the gap between them is wider than any neighborhood average shows. Ask for a home value report and I will compare your home with the closest sales by age, size and lot. If a conversation should come first, 818-381-9977 reaches my cell by call or text.

More on the Westside: the Venice homes for sale page, the Culver City homes for sale page, Ocean Park, Sunset Park, Mid-City Santa Monica, Century City, Westwood Village and the Wilshire Corridor, and every guide on the neighborhood guides page.

Every record behind the verdicts

The information on this page was compiled from public MLS records and other public sources and is current only as of October 2026. It is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed, and it is not a representation or warranty of any kind. Prices, rents, rent rules, association dues and rules, zoning, development plans, transit service, school assignments and neighborhood boundaries change over time and can change without notice. Do not rely on this page for any purchase, sale, lease or financing decision; verify everything that matters to you through your own inspections, the disclosure package, the association documents, the preliminary title report, the county tax records, the City of Los Angeles, your insurance agent and your lender. Nothing here is legal, tax, financial, insurance or lending advice. All real estate advertised is subject to the federal Fair Housing Act and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act; we do not discriminate and do not support discrimination against any protected class.

Antonio Vaziri, Realtor · Epique Realty · DRE #01927866 · buyandsellcaliforniahomes.com