What Does It Actually Cost to Buy in Westwood Hills in 2026?

What does it actually cost to buy a house in Westwood Hills in 2026?

Verified 2026 closings inside Westwood Hills ran roughly $3.4 million to $4.4 million for four and five bedroom houses between 2,200 and 3,250 square feet. That is more than double the "Westwood" median you will see on most portals, because the portal number is a Wilshire Corridor condo average and Westwood Hills has no condos in it at all. The tract is 605 single-family homes on curving streets west of UCLA, and it carries a 90049 ZIP code rather than 90024.

By Paul Blair | September 10, 2026

If you have been searching Westwood on Zillow or Redfin and wondering why nothing looks like the pictures you saw of the hills west of campus, the answer is that you are probably filtering the wrong ZIP code.

Westwood Hills sits inside the Westwood community plan area and inside the Westwood Neighborhood Council boundary, but its mail comes addressed 90049, the same ZIP as Brentwood. Every verified recent sale in the tract carries that ZIP. If your saved search is set to 90024, the entire neighborhood is invisible to you.

That single quirk explains most of the confusion buyers have about this pocket, and it distorts the price picture badly. So start with the geography.

The boundaries, and why they matter to your comps

The Westwood Neighborhood Council defines Westwood Hills as a specific internal area: the south side of Sunset Boulevard on the north, the west side of Veteran Avenue on the east, the east side of Sepulveda Boulevard on the west, and the Veterans Cemetery on the south.

Four hard edges. A boulevard, a freeway corridor, a north-south arterial, and a national cemetery. Nothing about that boundary is going to move, which is a genuinely unusual thing to be able to say about a Los Angeles neighborhood in 2026.

The practical effect is that the tract has a finite, fixed supply of houses. The Westwood Hills Property Owners Association, formed in 1958, counts 605 single-family homes inside those lines. No condo towers, no apartment blocks, no room to add any of the above by expanding outward.

The streets you will be shown are Tavistock, Dalkeith, Bronwood, Cashmere, Tilden, South Glenroy, Barlock, Denslow, and South Bentley, running up and over the rise between Sunset and the cemetery.

The architecture is the other reason the tract holds value. The land was subdivided in 1928 by the Janss Investment Company, the same firm that laid out Westwood Village and donated the UCLA campus site, and it was marketed as the "Streets of Old Monterey" with a Spanish and Monterey Colonial theme.

The City of Los Angeles documented all of this in its SurveyLA historic resources survey of the Westwood community plan area. The survey found that construction began in 1929, that most of the growth actually happened in the late 1930s, and that the area was eventually marketed by Janss under the name University Crest. SurveyLA identified a University Crest Residential Historic District of 432 properties between Sunset Boulevard and Montana Avenue, calling it an excellent example of early automobile-era suburban planning. Architects credited in the survey include Wallace Neff, Rudolph Schindler, Allen Siple, J. R. Davidson, H. Roy Kelley, and Rolf Sklarek.

That district status matters when you renovate. Ask early, because the answer changes your permit path.

The price bands, and the number that misleads people

Here is the split that catches buyers off guard.

Zillow's home value index for the Westwood neighborhood sits around $1.35 million for all housing types as of July 2026. The same index, filtered to single-family homes only, sits near $3.16 million. Redfin's Westwood market page reported a July 2026 median sale price of $1,187,095 across all property types, down 2.7 percent year over year, at roughly $744 per square foot with a 67 day median time on market.

None of those aggregate numbers describe a house in Westwood Hills. They describe the Wilshire Corridor.

For the 90049 ZIP that actually contains the tract, Redfin's own market data for single-family homes in the three months ending May 31, 2026 showed a median sale price of $3,902,750, down 7.0 percent year over year, at about $1,285 per square foot, with a 67 day median time on market and an average sale-to-list ratio of 95.6 percent across 66 closings.

That last figure is the one to sit with. Homes in this band are closing at roughly four to five percent under asking, and taking better than two months to do it. This is not a market where you need to write over list to compete.

Four recorded 2026 sales inside the tract, per Redfin's public records:

For a sense of what condition does to price here, 216 Tavistock Avenue traded twice inside ten months. It sold for $2,260,000 in January 2024 and again for $3,926,000 in November 2024, a 1936 house of roughly 2,457 square feet on a 7,360 square foot lot. Renovation arbitrage is alive in this tract, which also means a share of what you tour has been finished for resale rather than lived in.

Ready to see what your Westwood Hills house would bring in this market? Request a confidential valuation.

Three things changed around this tract in 2026

This is the part most neighborhood write-ups will not tell you, and it is the part that actually belongs in your decision.

The fire map is being redrawn. Westwood Hills is not inside the City of Los Angeles adopted Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone today. But on March 24, 2025, CAL FIRE issued new recommended Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps for the City, and as LAFD states plainly, state law does not allow a local agency to decrease the hazard level the state recommends. Portions of the higher, western streets in this tract appear inside recommended High and Very High zones on the 2025 map, while the flatter southeastern edge toward Veteran does not. Check your specific parcel on CAL FIRE's comparison viewer before you write an offer, because the answer drives your insurance quote, your defensible space obligations, and what has to be disclosed at sale.

The state upzoned this street, and then the City un-upzoned it. California SB 79 took effect July 1, 2026 and makes dense housing an allowed use on residentially zoned land near qualifying transit stops, including certain planned stops, with no carve-out for single-family zoning. Los Angeles responded one day ahead of it. On June 30, 2026 the City enacted Ordinance 188968 alongside a companion Low-Rise ordinance, using the temporary exclusion provisions the statute allows, and the City's position is that essentially all LA parcels are temporarily excluded. That exclusion is not permanent, it runs until roughly a year after LA adopts its next housing element, and the state Department of Housing and Community Development still reviews local ordinances for compliance. If you are buying a long hold here, this is the open question to watch, not a settled one.

A subway station is coming to the southern edge. Metro's D Line extension reaches Westwood, with the Westwood and VA Hospital station in the final section targeted for 2027. Separately, on January 22, 2026 the Metro Board selected a fully underground heavy rail subway as the preferred alternative for the Sepulveda Transit Corridor, running from Van Nuys to the E Line with a UCLA connection. That project is still in design and environmental review.

Two more items on the same borders. The VA West Los Angeles campus directly south is building out veteran housing, with the VA issuing an RFP in May 2026 for roughly 220 additional units on the north campus. And Caltrans is running a $143.7 million pavement rehabilitation of the I-405 through the Sepulveda Pass from Victory Boulevard to Wilshire, scheduled into winter 2029, with periodic extended-weekend lane reductions along the tract's western edge.

What a sale here costs you

Westwood Hills is inside Los Angeles city limits, so Measure ULA applies in full. Per the LA Office of Finance, for transactions closing after June 30, 2026 the thresholds are $5,400,000 and $10,900,000, taxed at 4 percent and 5.5 percent respectively, on top of the base documentary transfer tax of $2.25 per $500.

Most of the tract still sells below that first threshold, which is exactly why it matters. All four verified 2026 closings above came in under $5.4 million. A well-renovated 4,000 square foot house on a good lot is close enough to trip it that pricing strategy at the top of this market is a real conversation. At $5.4 million, ULA alone is roughly $216,000. I walk sellers through how that threshold reshapes a pricing decision before we set a number.

How it compares to what is next door

North of Sunset you are in Brentwood proper, including tracts like Crestwood Hills, where the architecture skews mid-century modern rather than Spanish and Monterey revival. East of Veteran you are in Westwood proper, where the Wilshire Corridor condo stock drags the median down by more than half and the single-family pockets like Little Holmby and Comstock Hills price higher than Westwood Hills does.

Westwood Hills sits between those two in both style and price. You are buying a 1930s house on a curving hillside street, a two mile drive to campus, and a fixed boundary on all four sides.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Westwood Hills in ZIP code 90024 or 90049?

90049. The tract is part of the Westwood community plan area and the Westwood Neighborhood Council, but its postal ZIP is 90049, shared with Brentwood. If you are running a portal search or pulling comps by ZIP, use 90049 or you will miss the neighborhood entirely.

Why is the Westwood median price so much lower than what houses in Westwood Hills sell for?

Because the Westwood aggregate includes the Wilshire Corridor's high-rise condominium stock, which trades in a completely different band. Zillow's July 2026 index for Westwood is roughly $1.35 million for all housing types but roughly $3.16 million for single-family homes only. Westwood Hills contains no condos, so only the single-family figure is relevant to it.

Does SB 79 mean an apartment building can go up next door to me in Westwood Hills?

Not right now. The City of Los Angeles enacted Ordinance 188968 effective June 30, 2026, one day before SB 79 became operative, and took the position that essentially all city parcels fall under the statute's temporary exclusion provisions. That exclusion is time-limited and subject to state review, so treat it as a live issue rather than a closed one if you are buying a long hold.

Is Westwood Hills in a very high fire hazard severity zone?

Not under the City's currently adopted map. CAL FIRE's 2025 recommended maps for Los Angeles do place portions of the tract, generally the higher western and northern streets, in High or Very High recommended zones, and state law does not permit the City to adopt a lower hazard level than the state recommends. Check your specific parcel before writing an offer, since it affects insurance, defensible space requirements, and disclosure.

Should I use an agent who works Westwood Hills specifically, or is any Westside agent fine?

What actually matters is whether the agent can pull the right comparable sales and read the code overlays on your parcel. In this tract that means knowing the 90049 ZIP quirk so the comp set is not polluted with Wilshire Corridor condos, knowing whether a given address sits inside the SurveyLA University Crest historic district, and knowing where the 2025 recommended fire zone line falls. I am Paul Blair, broker at Grey Square, with 22 years in the business and work across Westwood, Brentwood, and the Hollywood Hills. If you want a straight read on a specific Westwood Hills address, start a conversation.

Where to go from here

Westwood Hills is a fixed-supply tract of 605 houses with a recognizable architectural identity, a single-family median well above what the neighborhood aggregate suggests, and three separate regulatory or infrastructure changes moving around it this year. Any one of them can change what a specific address is worth.

If you are weighing a purchase or a sale here, the useful next step is a parcel-level read: the comp set filtered correctly, the fire zone status, the historic district question, and where you land relative to the ULA threshold. Schedule a private consultation about Westwood Hills, or see what your home could sell for. You can also browse current Los Angeles listings.

I have spent enough time on the streets between Sunset and the cemetery to know that the difference between a Tavistock listing and a Cashmere listing is not a rounding error, and that most of the pricing mistakes made here start with the wrong ZIP code in the search bar.

About Paul Blair

Paul Blair is the founder and broker of Grey Square, a virtual real estate brokerage representing buyers and sellers across Dallas and Los Angeles. With 22 years in the business and more than $200 million in closed transactions, Paul works the full range of the market, from luxury homes in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow to estates in the Hollywood Hills and across the Westside. Connect with Paul and the Grey Square team at greysq.com. TX TREC #9011505 · CA DRE #01792671.