The shape of Santa Monica
Santa Monica is really several housing markets stacked inside eight square miles. North of Montana is large pre-war and post-war houses on deep lots. Sunset Park is 1940s and 1950s bungalows with detached garages off the alley. Ocean Park and Wilshire-Montana are dense with apartment buildings, a very large share of them built before 1979 and covered by the city rent control law. We clean in all three, and they are not the same job.
The rented stock changes the rhythm of the week. A lot of our Santa Monica work is one and two bedroom units, either on a maintenance schedule or as a move-out clean when a long-held apartment finally turns over. The owner-occupied side, especially the streets running up from Palisades Park, looks more like what we do in the South Bay: bigger houses, hardwood throughout, every other week.
Inside a typical Santa Monica home
Two extremes here, and not much in between. The apartment stock is mostly 1920s through 1970s one and two bedroom units: small kitchens, original bathroom tile, painted casement windows, wall heaters and a shared laundry room. The single-family side, particularly North of Montana and older Sunset Park, runs 2,000 to 4,000 square feet with oak floors, coved plaster and a detached garage. Beach sand reaches both, further inland than people expect.