Franklin Hills · Trading Up
Trading Up to a Luxury Home in Franklin Hills
Buy first or sell first, decided with your numbers, so the sale and the purchase move as one plan.
What does trading up to a luxury home in Franklin Hills look like?
Trading up to a luxury home in Franklin Hills usually means leaving a flatter lot for a hillside one, and often leaving a house with no view for one that looks out over the city. Two transactions have to move as one plan. Your current home sells, and a house on the eastern hill of Los Feliz becomes yours, with the dates lined up so you are never stuck between them. On this site, luxury starts at about $2 million.
Franklin Hills adds a few things to that plan that a flat neighborhood does not. The lot is part of what you are buying, so the inspection period has more to cover. The house may be a recorded landmark, or it may be one of the many homes here with no status at all. The streets climb and turn, so the move itself takes a little more planning than a move onto a level street.
The first decision is the one every move-up buyer faces. Buy first or sell first? The answer comes from your equity, what your lender says you can carry, how many months you could own two homes and how fixed your move date is. Our post on buying first or selling first when trading up walks through the five common options. The rest of this page is about what makes the Franklin Hills side of the move its own case.
What are you trading up into on the eastern hill?
The Los Feliz Neighborhood Council bounds Franklin Hills with Franklin Avenue and Tracy Street on the north and Commonwealth Avenue and Hoover Street on the west. Fountain Avenue is the south edge and Hyperion Avenue is the east edge. The 1926 Shakespeare Bridge carries Franklin Avenue across the ravine at its center, and the neighborhood grew up around it once the bridge gave Franklin Avenue a way onto the undeveloped eastern hill. Rooster Homes describes the result as eclectic hillside homes around a storybook bridge, many with city views.
Eclectic is the useful word for a move-up buyer. Within a few blocks the City's SurveyLA report records a 1953 R.M. Schindler house on Myra Avenue and a 1936 Streamline Moderne house on Franklin Avenue. The City has separately named the Storybook-style Van Pelt Estate on Lyric Avenue and the Paul Lauritz House on Clayton Avenue as Historic-Cultural Monuments. If you are trading up from a tract where every house shares a decade, this hill is the opposite. A house here can be a period piece or a mid-century original, and the next lot over can be something else entirely.
What Franklin Hills does not have matters too. There is no Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, no National Register district and no SurveyLA district. There is no owners association reviewing your plans. If you are trading up with a remodel in mind, the rules you answer to are the City's. Monument rules apply only when the address itself is designated.
How does Rooster Homes run the sale and the purchase together?
Rooster Homes plans both sides of a trade-up as one move. Rooster Homes is a Los Feliz, Los Angeles real estate team led by Brandon and Sarah Arlington (DRE #02051216). One team watches both escrows so the closing dates stay in step.
On the purchase, Franklin Hills asks for extra care in two places. The Ready pillar comes first: a lender's pre-approval and a written buyer representation agreement with us before the first showing, because your lender's answer about carrying two homes sets the order of everything else. Then the inspection period. Brandon typically writes 7 to 10 days, and on a hillside lot that window covers the slope, the retaining walls and the drainage as well as the house. We also confirm with the City whether the address holds monument status and ask for any Mills Act contract.
On the sale of your current home, the Campaign pillar keeps the timing visible. Escrow and disclosures start moving within hours of signing. You get a real, specific update after every showing, and a weekly progress update through closing. Because you know where the sale stands each week, the offer you write on the Franklin Hills house can be timed with confidence. Rooster Homes owns its own Matterport camera, and the 3D tour of your current home is part of the listing from day one.
Steps for a trade-up into Franklin Hills
- Talk with your lender first. Ask what you can buy before your current home sells and after it sells. Ask what two payments would look like for a few months.
- Estimate your equity as a range. Comparable sales for your current home, less what you owe and your expected costs of sale.
- Set your carrying limit and your move window. Name the ideal move date and the latest date that still works.
- Choose the sequence and a backup. Sell first or buy first. A contingent offer or closings timed together. A rent-back if the sale closes before the purchase.
- Sign your buyer representation agreement. We go through it line by line before the first showing.
- Learn the eastern hill. The four edges, the bridge and the recorded landmarks. Decide whether a designated house or an unrestricted one fits your plans.
- Tour with the lot in mind. Slope, access, parking and the view from the rooms you will use most.
- Write the offer to fit your sequence. Your chosen contingency or rent-back terms go into the contract, along with an inspection period Brandon typically writes at 7 to 10 days.
- Use the inspection period on the lot and the record. Hillside permits, City status for the address and any Mills Act contract.
- Coordinate both escrows to closing. Purchases in Los Angeles close through escrow and title companies. The initial deposit of about 3% of the price is held by the escrow company.
This page explains how the process works. It is not tax, legal or lending advice. For your own situation, talk with your lender and your CPA or attorney as well.
Ready to plan a move up to Franklin Hills?
The trading up to a Los Feliz luxury home page covers the sequence question and the financing questions in full. The Franklin Hills neighborhood page has the landmarks, the bridge and the setting. If you are buying here without a sale attached, buying a luxury home in Franklin Hills is the shorter path. To compare this move with one onto the hill below Griffith Park, see trading up to a luxury home in The Oaks.
When you want to talk through your equity and your dates, tell us about the move or call (323) 201-2724 and let us know what works best for you. We will coordinate our schedule around yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
What changes when I move from a flat lot to a Franklin Hills hillside lot?
The inspection period has more to cover. Retaining walls and drainage, decks and any additions on the slope should each have a permit. We pull what the City has during that window. We also look at how the house sits on the slope and where you park. Brandon typically writes 7 to 10 days, and the exact number is set in each offer.
Where does Franklin Hills sit compared with The Oaks and Laughlin Park?
Franklin Hills is the eastern hill of Los Feliz, running to the Silver Lake line at Hyperion Avenue. The Oaks sits immediately below Griffith Park on the far side of Los Feliz. Laughlin Park is a gated enclave between Los Feliz Boulevard and Franklin Avenue. All three are hillside, and the differences are in the streets and how you arrive.
Does a landmark house in Franklin Hills change how I write a trade-up offer?
It changes what the inspection period covers. A house that is a City Historic-Cultural Monument carries rules for exterior changes, and any Mills Act contract passes to the new owner. Franklin Hills has no historic district, so most houses here carry no such status. We confirm the address with the City before you write the offer.
Franklin Hills
What trading up looks like in Franklin Hills
Eclectic hillside homes on the eastern hill of Los Feliz, gathered around the 1926 Shakespeare Bridge, many with city views.
Franklin Hills is the eastern hill of Los Feliz. It rises between Franklin Avenue and Fountain Avenue and runs east to the Silver Lake line at Hyperion Avenue.
- The homes
- Eclectic hillside homes around the Shakespeare Bridge, many with city views. Landmarked examples range from Storybook to Streamline Moderne to midcentury work by Schindler, Soriano and Lautner.
- Nearby
- Speranza and Hyperion Public restaurants. Silver Lake begins across Hyperion Avenue, the eastern edge of the neighborhood.
- The trade-off
- The homes sit on a hill above a 35-foot ravine, so views come with slopes. No HPOZ or historic district covers the area, so landmark protection sits on individual monuments.
The method
How we do it in Franklin Hills
Trading Up: keep exploring
Ready to make your move with Rooster Homes?