Living in Fairfax — Neighborhood Guide

About Fairfax

Fairfax and adjacent Beverly Grove are LA City neighborhoods bordering Hancock Park and West Hollywood. Known for the Grove / Farmers Market, CBS Television City, and concentrated Orthodox Jewish community.

Where Fairfax begins and ends

The Beverly-Fairfax district runs 3.2 square miles, bounded by Willoughby Avenue on the north, Wilshire Boulevard on the south, La Brea Avenue on the east and La Cienega Boulevard on the west. The Los Angeles Times Mapping L.A. project draws a much tighter version — 1.23 square miles, east of Fairfax Avenue. The gap between those two is not academic: the western half runs up against the West Hollywood city line, and West Hollywood is a separate municipality with its own rent control. A building a few blocks west of another can answer to an entirely different set of rules, which is the first thing to settle about any address near this edge. West Hollywood is a separate city with its own rent stabilization and no Measure ULA — which city actually governs your building sets out the difference.

Size, density and who rents

A City of Los Angeles neighborhood, not a separate city — LA City rules, LA City taxes, LA City enforcement, and Los Angeles rent stabilization on any building whose certificate of occupancy predates 1 October 1978. Almost all of the apartment stock here does. The 2000 census counted 12,490 residents in the tighter district.

Who lives in Fairfax

Diverse demographic with significant Orthodox Jewish community (historically the center of LA's Jewish community since the 1930s-40s), LGBTQ+ residents at the West Hollywood boundary, and newer gentrification-era residents drawn to the Grove and Television City proximity.

The apartment stock in Fairfax

Small buildings, and the per-unit figures on the closings page spread more widely here than in any other submarket in this record — by a factor of more than three from one end to the other. Two things drive that. Size: the smallest buildings, at three and four units, carry the highest per-door figures, because at that size a buyer is partly buying land and optionality rather than income. And geography: the blocks toward the West Hollywood line and the blocks toward La Brea are different markets wearing one name. Any valuation that averages across the whole district will be wrong at both ends.

For what that looks like in practice: the 5 Fairfax apartment buildings in our own closed record run from 3 to 13 units, with a median of 4. See every one of them →

What the buildings actually are

This is one of the few submarkets in this record where the historic designation is about the apartment buildings themselves rather than the houses. The stock is 1920s and 1930s low-rise multifamily — courtyard buildings, Spanish Colonial and period walk-ups, built at a density that would not be permitted today — infilled later with postwar boxes. The 1966 demolition of Fairfax High's original buildings on seismic grounds is a useful marker: unreinforced masonry and soft-story construction from this era is exactly what Los Angeles has since required owners to retrofit, and the retrofit status of a pre-war building here is a diligence item rather than a footnote.

Buildings worth knowing by name

Historic districts and what they restrict

The Beverly-Fairfax Historic District was designated in 2019 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and unusually for this record its subject is the district's 1920s apartment buildings rather than its single-family houses. For an owner that is the most consequential fact on this page: designation constrains what can be done to a building's exterior, and it applies to exactly the product that trades here. Boundaries are parcel-specific. Confirm any address against the city's own records before the diligence conversation rather than after it.

Who works here

CBS Television City (redevelopment planned), The Grove retail, Farmers Market. Professional services and retail along Beverly, Third, and Fairfax.

Getting around

Bus service. Metro D Line (Purple) extension stations along Wilshire.

Rail, and what it does to a site

No rail station serves the district today. Bus service runs along Fairfax, Beverly, Third and Wilshire. The nearest rail is on the Wilshire corridor to the south. For an owner that means the tenant pool here is drawn by walkability within the neighborhood itself — to Fairfax Avenue, to the Farmers Market, to the synagogues and schools — rather than by a commute, which is a more durable draw than a station but a narrower one.

Schools and colleges

LAUSD. Multiple Orthodox Jewish yeshivas and day schools serve the resident community.

The schools by name

Fairfax High School, founded in 1924, is the district's LAUSD secondary school. A number of yeshivas and Jewish day schools operate throughout the neighborhood, and for a significant share of the tenant base the ability to walk to a synagogue and a school is not a preference but a requirement — which makes location within the district unusually sticky and turnover lower than the per-door figures alone would suggest.

Landmarks and public spaces

The Grove, Farmers Market, CBS Television City, Pan Pacific Park, Sunset Strip (adjacent).

Parks and recreation

Pan Pacific Park, Poinsettia Recreation Center, the Original Farmers Market complex, La Brea Tar Pits (adjacent).

Dining, culture, and character

Canter's Deli (historic Jewish delicatessen, open since 1931). Fairfax Avenue's restaurant mix spans decades — longstanding Jewish establishments alongside newer independents. Melrose Avenue dining. The Grove and Farmers Market concentrate retail-and-dining.

Local events and traditions

The Farmers Market has operated since 1934 and remains one of LA's defining open-air markets. Television City and the Grove programming.

Notable associations

The Fairfax neighborhood has been the center of LA's Jewish community for generations. CBS Television City (1952) anchored the neighborhood's role in American television production for over half a century.

A bit of history

Developed 1920s-40s. The Orthodox Jewish community concentrated here starting in the 1950s. The Grove opened in 2002, reshaping retail economics.

What buildings here have actually sold for

Every figure below is computed from the Sterman Multifamily Group’s own closed record in Fairfax — not from a market report. Price per door falls as buildings get bigger, which is why this is banded by size rather than given as one number: comparing a six-unit building to a forty-unit building on price per unit compares two different products. Across all 5 closings the median is $425,000 per unit.

The largest closing in the Fairfax record is 925 South Sherbourne Avenue at $3,300,000 (13 units); the smallest is 630 N Genesee at $1,700,000 (4 units). The record here runs from 2013 to 2022, and the busiest single year was 2022 with 2 closings.

How these figures are calculated, and what we do not claim →

Fairfax against the other 25

These are the 26 Los Angeles submarkets where the group has closed the most buildings, on our own record rather than a published index. The spread is the reason a citywide per-unit figure is close to useless for pricing a specific building.

Common questions about the neighborhood