West Athens, California.
Typical home $736,537 (+0.3% in a year), asking rent $1,695 . Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,902 (+97%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,352 +0%
- $734,185$736,537 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $72,197 +11%
- $664,340$736,537 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- West Athens$3,866
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 34 years.
Typical home values in West Athens, CA rose 0.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in West Athens, Los Angeles County, California
West Athens, in Los Angeles County, had 9,393 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $67,201 a year and half less, against $90,112 across Los Angeles County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 55% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 45% are rented. Unemployment in Los Angeles County was 4.5% in September 2026, and the county had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. West Athens is a small community in Los Angeles County, home to a younger population than many places. Incomes here run below the county's, and more households live below the poverty line than a place with a stronger local economy might expect. More homes are lived in by their owners than by renters, and the typical home value and rent here are high compared with much of the country.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and transport, warehouses and utilities. Within West Athens itself, Los Angeles Southwest College, SHIELDS for Families and Food 4 Less FoodsCo are among the largest workplaces. Commutes are of moderate length, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. SoFi Stadium sits in or beside town, and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and BMO Stadium are each a short drive away for games and events. For a longer outing, the La Brea Tar Pits is a museum a longer drive away, and Disneyland is an amusement park farther off as well. Winters are mild and cool rather than cold, summers are warm, and rain is light through the year.
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- 2,797households
- 24%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Los Angeles County had 4,525,460 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 66° and lows near 49°; warmest in August, with highs near 79° and lows near 65°. About 12 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Hawthorne Municipal Airport weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in West Athens
- Los Angeles Southwest CollegeTwo-year college371
- SHIELDS for Families - Administration OfficeSocial service centers, multipurpose120
- Food 4 Less FoodsCoSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores91
- Animo Legacy Charter Middle DistrictSchool district81FTE
- Stella High Charter Academy DistrictSchool district63FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 211 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in West Athens’ census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
West Athens home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- West Athens$736,537
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- West Athens10
Zip codes with a West Athens address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls West Athens — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.