Living in Reseda — Neighborhood Guide

About Reseda

Reseda is an LA City neighborhood in the western San Fernando Valley, between Northridge and Tarzana. Residential-dominated submarket with neighborhood retail along Reseda Boulevard.

Where Reseda begins and ends

Roscoe Boulevard on the north, White Oak Avenue on the east, Victory Boulevard on the south and Corbin Avenue on the west — with Northridge above, Lake Balboa east, Tarzana and Encino below, and Winnetka to the west.

Size, density and who rents

A City of Los Angeles neighborhood in the western San Fernando Valley; the 91335 ZIP counted about 74,400 residents at the 2010 census, with a median household income around $53,800 — a working, tenanted submarket rather than a luxury one.

Who lives in Reseda

Working-class and middle-class West Valley demographic — Latino majority, substantial Armenian-American and Filipino-American communities, long-established multi-generational working-family base.

The apartment stock in Reseda

Reseda holds larger buildings than its neighbors. The ten Reseda buildings in the group’s own closed record carry 600 units between them — an average of sixty apartments per building, well above the Valley norm, and the reason the submarket attracts yield buyers rather than small local operators. The stock is overwhelmingly postwar: 1950s through 1970s garden and courtyard product, almost all of it pre-1978 and therefore under LA City RSO.

For what that looks like in practice: the 8 Reseda apartment buildings in our own closed record run from 10 to 138 units, with a median of 66. See every one of them →

What the buildings actually are

Postwar Valley multifamily at scale — two- and three-story stucco garden courts and walk-ups, many with tuck-under parking, built out through the 1950s and 1960s as the Valley filled in. That building type matters more here than almost anywhere: **the 1994 Northridge earthquake’s epicenter was inside Reseda**, between Arminta and Ingomar streets just west of Reseda Boulevard. Tuck-under parking is what creates a soft story — a ground floor with too few shear walls to brace the floors above — and it is the reason Los Angeles adopted Ordinance 183893 in January 2015, under which the city identified roughly 13,500 buildings needing seismic retrofit. What the retrofit ordinance means when you sell →

Buildings worth knowing by name

Historic districts and what they restrict

Los Angeles adopted its Historic Preservation Overlay Zone ordinance in 1979 and had designated 35 HPOZ neighborhoods by 2023. Inside one, all exterior work goes through additional review by an HPOZ board working from a published preservation plan, which constrains what a buyer can do with a building. Boundaries are parcel-specific; confirm any address against the city’s own map before assuming either way. Reseda has no HPOZ. The San Fernando Valley’s three designated districts are Van Nuys, Balboa Highlands and Stonehurst.

Who works here

Neighborhood-serving retail and professional services. Residential-heavy submarket for CSUN-area workers, Warner Center commuters, and regional Valley employment.

Getting around

Bus service along Reseda, Sherman Way, and Victory. Primary freeway access via the 101 and the 405 to the east.

Rail, and what it does to a site

No Metro rail. Bus service runs along Reseda Boulevard, Sherman Way and Victory, with freeway access via the 101 to the south and the 405 to the east. Reseda Boulevard is a designated corridor and the neighborhood sits on the historic Pacific Electric alignment along Sherman Way, but with no rail station the Transit Oriented Communities incentives that reshape Hollywood and Koreatown sites generally do not apply here.

Schools and colleges

LAUSD. Reseda High School and Reseda Elementary serve the submarket.

The schools by name

Reseda High School, Grover Cleveland High School and John R. Wooden High School serve the area, with James Jordan Middle School and Cantara Street, Blythe Street, Melvin Avenue, Reseda, Newcastle, Shirley Avenue and Bertrand Avenue elementaries. Magnolia Science Academy operates two campuses here.

Landmarks and public spaces

Reseda Boulevard commercial corridor, Reseda Theatre (historic), Lake Balboa (adjacent).

Parks and recreation

Reseda Park, Mason Recreation Center, Lake Balboa (adjacent), the Sepulveda Basin (adjacent), the LA River bike path.

Dining, culture, and character

Reseda Boulevard and Sherman Way host diverse restaurants reflecting the neighborhood's immigrant communities. The Reseda Theatre (historic) sits along Sherman Way.

Local events and traditions

Reseda Community events coordinated through the Reseda Neighborhood Council.

Notable associations

Reseda is referenced in Tom Petty's song 'Free Fallin'.' The 1994 Northridge earthquake's epicenter was near Reseda and reshaped the neighborhood's housing stock through subsequent retrofit and rebuilding.

Who represents it

Represented by the Reseda Neighborhood Council.

A bit of history

Founded in 1912 as Marian and renamed Reseda in 1921, after a Southern Pacific siding of that name. Developed heavily in post-WWII decades. The 1994 Northridge earthquake affected portions of Reseda and prompted subsequent retrofit work on multifamily stock.

What buildings here have actually sold for

Every figure below is computed from the Sterman Multifamily Group’s own closed record in Reseda — 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 8 closings the median is $156,639 per unit.

The largest closing in the Reseda record is 6425 Reseda Blvd at $23,950,000 (100 units); the smallest is 7254 Canby Ave at $1,355,000 (10 units). The record here runs from 2013 to 2021, and the busiest single year was 2019 with 2 closings.

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

The same building, sold twice

These are Reseda buildings the group closed, and then closed again for the next owner. The change between the two prices is what that specific building did over that specific hold — not a market average, and not a claim about what any other building will do. A short hold and a long hold are different transactions, so the period is shown alongside the number.

The streets we keep coming back to

Repeat presence on one street is worth more to a Reseda owner than a citywide total: it means the buyer pool, the rents and the quirks of that block are already known here. These are the Reseda streets where the Sterman Multifamily Group has closed more than one building — 2 buildings across 1 street.

The full Reseda closing record →

Reseda 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