"$100 million sale of the Playboy Mansion Cements Holmby Hills' Claim To Being One The Most Expensive Places To Live"

[Sarah Bullion]

Los Angeles enters a new era as a global city, with home demand and prices to match

John Chimon Photography

It's August, and as Cole Porter once mentioned in a song, “It's Too Darn Hot!” And along with the thermometer, real estate values in the City of Angels continue to stay high, despite the typical late summer slowdown we're experiencing.

Check out more Location Scouts reports on housing-market conditions...

Housing inventories are close to historic lows, and prices are at historic highs, so the hot conversation this month is: When will the market take a dive? There are differing opinions on when or if that will happen. Here's my take on it.

Ever since I moved to Los Angeles in 1988, the folks in the know have been saying that L.A. would be the "next big thing". Meaning globally. We have a setting of incredible natural beauty, a vibrant art and culture scene, a strong business community and of course the best weather in the world. But somehow the city has lacked a unified identity and vision; residents have thought of themselves more as being from Culver City or Encino or Beverly HIlls or Burbank or Santa Monica or Venice or West Hollywood, than of being from Los Angeles. A collection of suburbs in search of a city.

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