We’ve seen the summer favor buyers before, but not quite like in June this year. The last time we even got close to a near-universal absorption rate drop like we saw last month was in July 2023. Back then, 10 of our 12 neighborhoods dropped closer to the buyer’s favor. But in June 2024, only […]
Seth Styles
Restaurant Junk Fees May Be Back on the Menu After All
Back in May, we published a blog about the forthcoming death of restaurant service fees. But it looks like we spoke… err, wrote too soon. Normally, we’d just update the original blog to reflect this, but since lawmakers are pushing through a complete “about face” at the 11th hour, we felt this deserved its own […]
One of the Most Treacherous Death Valley Hikes Leads to a Downed CIA Plane
Featured image credit: Dr. Paul Koudounaris For being a literal wasteland, the deserts of California have a lot of unusual sites in them. We’ve covered a few of them on this very blog. Remember the rust-colored steel sculptures of Galleta Meadows in Anza Borrego? What about the Invisible House and the Mirage House? Or the […]
The Oldest McDonald’s in the World is Also the Last Of Its Kind
Featured image credit: Bryan Hong In-N-Out Burger has become so synonymous with California’s fast food culture that it’s hard to remember we launched the mother of all fast food chains. That’s right. The first-ever McDonald’s restaurant started right in the city of San Bernardino. But this isn’t a blog about the first McDonald’s. It’s about […]
The Mojave Phone Booth: The Remote Desert Payphone That Rang for No One and Everyone
Featured image credit: Mwf95 Decades before 2019’s “raid” on Area 51, 2017’s Fyre Festival, 2015’s dress color debate, and let’s not forget this magic moment, one of the first internet phenomena caught the world’s attention with a resounding ring. It posed the question: “If a phone rings in the desert and no one is around […]
California Cult “Mankind United” Promised Utopia… But Took More Than It Gave
In 1934, a strange publication started making the rounds in esoteric circles, casting beams of hope across Great Depression-era California where there had only been shadow. It was called (deep breath) Mankind United: A Challenge to “Mad Ambition” and “The Money-Changers” Accompanied by an Invitation to the World’s “Sane” Men and Women. Try fitting that […]
Is Monrovia’s Allegedly Haunted Aztec Hotel a Ghost Itself?
Featured image credit: Living in Monrovia In the moments when you first lay eyes on the Aztec Hotel in Monrovia, you’ll find it hard to believe that this was a compromised version of architect Robert Stacy-Judd’s original design. He had envisioned what he called a “pre-Columbian cliff dwelling”; a hotel that seemed to be chiseled […]
Mazdaznan: A Footnote in Hollywood Occult History
As a city steeped in occult history, Los Angeles isn’t unique. Yet, LA’s occult history seems much more a part of its character than New York’s, Chicago’s, or San Francisco’s. Maybe it’s the Hollywood dream machine, holding up a magnifying lens to anything that even remotely interests us. Maybe it’s California’s reputation as a harbor […]
Absorption Rate Analysis – May 2024: Relief for Buyers at the Edge of a Heatwave
It’s been an interesting month in the Greater LA housing market as more housing inventory flows into a parched market. We ended April’s absorption rate analysis with a prescient statement: “We did see a higher number of houses for sale in Los Angeles hitting the market in April. If that trend continues, we may see […]
13 JohnHart Agents Earn Coveted Spots on the 2024 RealTrends America’s Best Real Estate Agents List
In a year when so many agents have thrown in the towel, balking at a market unforgiving of even the slightest misstep, a lucky 13 JohnHart real estate agents secured spots on the prestigious RealTrends America’s Best Real Estate Agents list for 2024. As the name suggests, these aren’t just the best real estate agents […]