What we've learned about La Mirada
Grade is the first thing a crew notices here. Half the city sits on gently rising ground, and on the higher streets a house may be four or five steps up from the sidewalk, with a second flight inside to the bedrooms. Split-level plans from the sixties are common: living areas on one platform, bedrooms half a floor above, a short run of stairs joining them. None of that is difficult, but it does change how long a house takes.
The flatter, earlier tracts closer to Alicante Park behave more like the neighboring cities — single-story, three or four bedrooms, straight driveways. Between the two you get a wide spread in the same ZIP code. Around Biola University there is also a steady flow of rental houses and shared student housing, which brings a different kind of booking: move-in and move-out cleans concentrated at the ends of terms.
The housing stock in La Mirada
Homes run larger than the county average for the era: 1,500 to 2,200 square feet, three to five bedrooms, two or three baths, on lots of 6,000 to 9,000 square feet. Construction is 1955 through the early 1970s, with later hillside pockets. Split-levels and two-story plans mean interior stairs in a large share of houses, and exterior steps from street to porch in the raised ones. Flooring is mixed: original hardwood in some, tile and carpet in most.