Venice Homes for Sale

Los Angeles, CA

Why People Move to Venice

The beach is the neighborhood, not a drive to one. Venice sits between Santa Monica and Marina del Rey, with Lincoln Boulevard inland and the ocean on the west, and from much of it you are either on the sand or there in a few minutes by food.
No road traffic at your front door. On the canals and the walk streets the houses have their own walking paths that usually sit away from the roads and meander through small communities of bungalows or homes.
No dominant architectural style. Small lots and narrow streets have produced a century of invention, so a 1920s bungalow and an architect-signed modern house sit on the same block.
A creative neighborhood that stayed one. The Beat poets in the 1950s, the Z-Boys and modern skateboarding in the 1970s, and an arts community that is still here.

Abbot Kinney opened Venice of America in 1905 on coastal marshland, dredged a canal network out of the wetlands and brought gondoliers over from Italy to work it. The town was annexed to Los Angeles in 1925 and most of the canals were filled in for roads in 1929. The six that survived were drained and rebuilt in the early 1990s, reopened in 1993, and the district is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Living in Venice

Abbot Kinney Boulevard: the restaurants, galleries, coffee and independent shops that made Venice a destination before other parts of the area we're built up. Some of the most walkable area in Los Angeles
Ocean Front Walk: Muscle Beach, the skatepark built into the sand, the handball and paddle tennis courts, and the drum circle on a Sunday. The Venice Breakwater is the local surf break too.
The Marvin Braude bike trail: it runs the whole beach from the Palisades down to Torrance, and from Venice you can ride north into Santa Monica or south around the marina without touching a road.
Rose Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard: the groceries, the hardware store and the dry cleaner. Rose has quietly become its own restaurant row.
The Friday farmers market on Venice Boulevard, 7 to 11 in the morning, every week of the year. The Abbot Kinney Marketplace takes a stretch of the boulevard on the second and third Saturday of the month.

Venice children attend Los Angeles Unified schools, which is a change the moment you cross north into Sunset Park and the rest of Santa Monica, where the city runs a different district of its own. Confirm the assignment for the actual address, because Venice is served by several elementary schools and the boundaries do not follow the obvious streets.

Neighborhoods in Venice: the Canals, the Walk Streets and Oakwood

Venice is not one neighborhood. Its own neighborhood council divides it into ten districts. A canal walkway and a boardwalk block sit ten minutes apart on foot and have completely different life styles and amenities.

The Canals: no cars reach the houses at all. You park on the street and walk in over an arched footbridge over water, with surrounding gardens, and small boats or kayaks pulled up on the bank. Four canals run east to west, Carroll, Linnie, Howland and Sherman, with the Grand and the Eastern closing the grid north to south, and Dell Avenue crossing all of them on humpbacked bridges. If you're curious about the difference and which one to buy, check out our article here.
The walk streets: Similar lifestyle to the canals. Pedestrian lanes run toward the beach with front gardens where driveways would have been, and the garages open onto an alley at the back. Children play in the walking lanes safely and you tend to know most of your neighbors.
Windward Circle and the Abbot Kinney blocks: the most walkable part of Venice and the most social. Go out on foot for coffee, dinner and groceries.
Ocean Front: living on the boardwalk itself, with the bike path, the skaters and the sand on the other side of your gate. The most public area in Venice, and the one people either want badly or not at all as you sacrifice a little privacy for some of the best views in LA.
Oakwood, Milwood and President's Row: the oldest residential heart of Venice, inland of Abbot Kinney. Bungalow streets and front porches, and the part of Venice that feels least like a destination.
East Venice, across Lincoln: the quietest side, and the most conventional. Driveways, garages, back yards and the Penmar golf course, on lower-density blocks.
Oxford Triangle and the Peninsula: the southern end, running down between the beach and the marina channel. Denser, with more condominiums and apartments than houses, and close enough to Marina del Rey that locals often see them as the same area.

Homes for Sale in Venice

1920s beach bungalows, the original stock, on small lots and narrow frontages. Many have been taken back to the studs and rebuilt behind the original face.
Architect-designed houses. Because this area has developed fast over the years, many of the properties have been remodeled, often designed by some of LA's most reputable architects.
Canal cottages. Small houses on small lots where the water frontage is the asset, which is why the smallest lots carry the highest price per square foot.
Walk-street cottages, with no road at the front and a garden instead.
Live-work lofts in converted commercial buildings east of Abbot Kinney. Open plans and high ceilings, in buildings that were never built as housing.
Duplexes and small apartment buildings. Common in the older blocks, and the easiest way into the area.

Canal frontage carries a clear premium per square foot over the rest of Venice, and the canals are a thin market: only a handful of homes change hands in any quarter, so a reported median can swing hard on one or two sales. Away from the water, lot sizes stay small and the streets stay narrow, which is exactly why the architecture is as inventive as it is. Most buyers here are choosing design and character over square footage, and what comes to market is almost always a one off.

Buying in Venice with a Westside Real Estate Agent

A canal frontage, a walk-street cottage, a loft east of Abbot Kinney and a duplex on a numbered avenue are four different purchases, and each one answers to a different set of rules. Reach out to Shen Realty and we will tell you which ones apply to the block you are standing on. We have been selling on this coastline for almost 30 years, out of Sotheby's International Realty.

Common Questions About Venice

Do the canal homes flood?

The canals are tidal and sit at sea level, so flood insurance belongs in the math from the start, priced in the way property taxes are. The district got new sea walls and tide gates when it was rebuilt, and canal homes have traded at a premium ever since. It is a known, insurable line item rather than a hidden trap.

Who approves a remodel in Venice?

The City of Los Angeles, but under a second rulebook. The Venice Coastal Zone Specific Plan sits on top of normal city zoning with its own height limits, setbacks and parking rules, and they change street by street. Most of Venice also falls inside the California Coastal Zone, so a project can need a coastal permit as well as a city one. Find out which rules cover your parcel before you pay anyone to draw plans.

Do I need a car in Venice?

It depends which part. In the canals, on the walk streets and around Abbot Kinney you can do most of a normal week on foot and a bike. East of Lincoln you will drive for groceries like anywhere else in Los Angeles. Work out which of the two you are buying into before you give up a parking space.

Is a duplex here rent controlled?

Often, yes. Los Angeles rent stabilization covers rental property first built on or before 1 October 1978, and most of Venice's older multifamily stock predates that. The build date decides it, so pull the record before you write an offer on anything with more than one unit. This is the City of Los Angeles rule, not Santa Monica's, which works differently a few blocks north.