Apartment buildings in 90020, Koreatown, Los Angeles

What the buildings in 90020 Koreatown look like.

90020 Koreatown leans toward larger buildings. 506 of the 578 parcels hold five units or more, which puts them in commercial lending and commercial pricing rather than the residential market.

The average parcel here holds 27.5 units. 86 parcels hold 50 units or more. The largest ones are listed further down this page, each with its own public record.

How old they are.

Half the apartment parcels in 90020 Koreatown were built in 1958 or earlier. 497 of 578, about 86%, went up in 1978 or before.

Across the 255 ZIP codes on this site that share is 89%, so 90020 Koreatown has a smaller share of older buildings than the average. Older buildings tend to carry the questions a buyer will ask about, like plumbing, electrical, the roof and whether the building needs a seismic retrofit.

Rent control in 90020 Koreatown.

577 of the 578 parcels in 90020 sit inside the City of Los Angeles by the city's zoning map. 496 of those were built in 1978 or earlier, and those are the buildings most likely to fall under the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance.

That figure is worked out from the build year and the city line. It is not the Housing Department's own list, so check a single building on the LAHD lookup before you rely on it. Buildings in the city that the ordinance does not cover are often still under the state cap in AB 1482.

The other 1 parcel in this ZIP is outside the city or have no zoning record here, so the city ordinance does not reach them. Unincorporated county areas have their own rent stabilization rules.

15 parcels here have an open soft-story retrofit permit on file with the city. That means a permit was pulled and the work had not been signed off when the city's data was read. It is not a list of every building that got an order.

How long owners hold.

The median Prop 13 base year for apartment parcels in 90020 Koreatown is 2006. A base year resets when a building sells, so an old one usually means the same owner or the same family has held it a long time.

112 parcels, 19%, still carry a base year of 1995 or earlier. The figure for all 255 ZIP codes here is 28%, so owners in 90020 Koreatown have held for less time than the average.

Long-held buildings often pay property tax on a value set decades ago. When they sell, the new owner is taxed on the price, which is part of why rents and expenses on these buildings need a close look before anyone sets a price.

How often buildings sell.

By last recorded transfer, 42 apartment parcels in 90020 Koreatown changed hands in 2022, 21 in 2023 and 28 in 2024.

That is 4.8% of the parcels here, against 7.3% across all 255 ZIP codes, so buildings here turned over less often than the average.

A building that sold twice in those years shows up once, in its later year, and a transfer is not always a sale at market. A move into a trust or between family members is recorded too.

Inside the City of Los Angeles the Measure ULA transfer tax has applied to sales over about $5 million since April 2023. My study of how it changed sales is linked below.

LA apartment sales over $5 million fell by half after Measure ULA