About the Building
Wilshire Ocean Terrace is a genuine for-sale condominium and the county record settles both its scale and an important piece of its history. The Los Angeles County Assessor carries forty-three separately assessed parcels on recorded condominium Tract 30965, Lot 1, running consecutively from assessment number 4292021024 to 4292021066 as condominium units 1 through 43. Every one of them is coded 010E, and the fourth digit of that code is the assessor's designator for a condominium conversion rather than a purpose-built condominium. The recorded year built is 1982; the condominium parcels were created on 1 March 1989. Both dates matter, and they answer different questions about the building.
That seven-year gap is worth understanding rather than glossing over. The building went up in 1982 as rental housing and was mapped and sold as condominiums in 1989, in the middle of the window when Santa Monica's Tenant Ownership Rights Charter Amendment, the measure the city's voters passed in 1984, was the operative route for converting rent-controlled buildings to ownership. The assessor establishes the date; the recorded documents and the escrow file will establish the mechanism for this property. Either way, the structure you are buying is a 1982 building, not a 1989 one.
The building reads clearly from the numbering. Homes are addressed 101 to 103, then 201 to 208, 301 to 308, 401 to 408, 501 to 508 and 601 to 608. That is three homes on the ground level and eight on each of the five levels above, forty-three in total, which is consistent with a ground floor mostly given to entry, plant, amenity space and parking with a small number of homes at the rear or side. The internal condominium unit numbers run 1 to 43 in the same order, so the recorded designation and the door number differ; read both on the title report.
The homes are large. The assessor records unit 101 at 1,941 square feet with two bedrooms and three bathrooms, unit 404 at 1,667 square feet, unit 606 at 1,585 and unit 202 at 1,480, the last three all with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. This is worth flagging: a published condominium directory gives the range as 1,375 to 1,667 square feet, which understates the top of the building by more than a quarter. The county record shows homes here reaching close to two thousand square feet, and any pricing argument built on the directory range starts from the wrong number.
The published amenity set is broad for forty-three homes: a pool, a spa, a sauna, a fitness room, a clubhouse with banquet facilities, controlled access with card entry, camera surveillance and secure resident parking. These come from condominium directories rather than from the association, and owners are described as paying electricity, cable, sewer, gas, water and internet, a longer owner-borne list than is usual and worth testing directly. Confirm the working amenity set, the staffing pattern, and anything out of service with management before you rely on any of it.
Amenities & Services
The Residences
The assessor carries forty-three consecutive parcels on Tract 30965, from assessment number 4292021024 to 4292021066, recorded as condominium units 1 through 43 with nothing before the first and nothing after the last. That is a hard figure from the public record and it agrees with the published directories on count, if not on size. Forty-three homes gives the association enough members to carry the fixed cost of a pool, a spa, a sauna, a fitness room and lift service without the per-home burden that a twenty-unit building with the same specification would face. Scale is a genuine financial advantage in an amenity-heavy building.
The door numbering runs 101 to 103 on the first level and then 201 to 208, 301 to 308, 401 to 408, 501 to 508 and 601 to 608. Three homes at grade and eight on each of five levels above indicates a ground floor mostly occupied by entry, amenity space, plant and parking, with a small number of homes tucked at the rear. Interestingly the largest sampled home in the building, unit 101 at 1,941 square feet, is one of those three, which suggests the ground-level plans are unusual rather than compromised.
Sampled areas are 1,941 square feet at unit 101, 1,667 at unit 404, 1,585 at unit 606 and 1,480 at unit 202. Bedroom counts are recorded as two throughout, with three bathrooms in the largest and two in the others. A two-bedroom home of 1,600 to 1,900 square feet is an unusually generous plan by any Los Angeles measure and reflects the early-1980s convention of large formal rooms rather than a higher bedroom count. Assessor areas and recorded plan areas are measured on different conventions and rarely agree exactly, so confirm the specific figure from the recorded condominium plan before pricing per square foot.
A condominium directory gives the range as 1,375 to 1,667 square feet. The county record shows a home at 1,941. The directory figure may reflect only the units that have most recently traded rather than the full spread across the building, which is a common artefact of aggregator data assembled from listing history rather than from the roll. The practical point for a buyer is that the largest homes here are materially larger than the published material suggests, and that gap is a pricing argument available to a well-prepared purchaser and a risk to a seller who has not checked the record.
A six-storey residential building of 1982 in Santa Monica will normally be a concrete or steel frame over subterranean parking, designed to the code cycle that followed the revisions prompted by the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. Whatever the frame, everything mechanical, electrical and envelope-related dates from 1982 unless it has since been replaced. A conversion map recorded in 1989 changes the tenure, not the building. Direct your inspection at the age and condition of the systems, at the state of the envelope and the balconies, and at the association's capital record, rather than at the date on the map.
The assessor records three bathrooms in the 1,941 square foot home and two in the smaller sampled homes, against a consistent two-bedroom count throughout. In a plan of that size a third bathroom usually signals a powder room off the entry rather than a third bedroom suite, which fits an early-1980s formal layout with an entry hall, a separate dining room and a large living room. Buyers wanting a third bedroom should assume it comes out of the formal dining space, and should price both the construction and the association's review process before assuming it can be done at all.
Due Diligence
This is a true condominium. Forty-three separately assessed parcels sit on recorded condominium Tract 30965, each coded 010E, the classification for a condominium conversion. You take fee title to a unit and a share of the common area and finance it conventionally. There is no ground lease and no co-operative structure in the record. Your lender will want the association's questionnaire, budget, insurance certificate and reserve study, so request the package at the start rather than late in escrow.
Condominium parcels were created on 1 March 1989 for a building completed in 1982. Seven years of rental operation preceded the conversion, which is a shorter gap than most Santa Monica conversions and means the building was relatively young when it was mapped. Even so, ask what was renewed at conversion and what was not, and read the original public report and the conversion-era disclosures if the association still holds them. They frequently record what was inspected and what was excluded.
Santa Monica's mandatory retrofit programme, adopted in March 2017 under Chapter 8.72 of the municipal code, covers five categories of building. The wood-frame soft-storey category reaches buildings built under codes enacted before 10 November 1980, and the non-ductile concrete category reaches an older generation of concrete construction. A building completed in 1982 sits on the far side of the soft-storey cutoff, but permits are often pulled two years before completion. Ask the city and the association directly rather than assuming.
Secure resident parking is described but the allocation is not published. In conversions, spaces are frequently assigned as exclusive-use common area rather than conveyed by deed, and the difference matters on transfer and in any dispute with the board. On a site of 30,006 square feet supporting forty-three large homes, parking is necessarily below grade. Confirm from the title report and the recorded plan how many spaces, of what type, and any storage that transfers with your specific home.
Neither dues nor inclusions are published by the association. A directory states that owners pay electricity, cable, sewer, gas, water and internet, which is a longer owner-borne list than is usual and should be tested, because water and sewer are commonly master-metered and carried by the association in buildings of this configuration. Expect the assessment to cover common-area maintenance, lifts, pool and spa plant, the fitness room, landscaping, refuse and master insurance. Obtain the budget and two years of financials.
Civil Code section 5550 requires a reserve study with visual inspection at least every three years, reviewed annually. On a six-storey 1982 building the dominant items are lift modernisation, roof and deck waterproofing, exterior sealants and painting, the subterranean garage slab and drainage, plumbing risers and pool plant. Buildings of this vintage are now in the window where original plumbing and lifts come due together. Ask for the study, the percentage funded and the board's funding plan.
The association publishes no leasing rule. California Civil Code section 4741 prevents an association setting a rental cap below twenty-five per cent of units while permitting a prohibition on tenancies of thirty days or fewer. Santa Monica's own home-sharing ordinance is among the strictest in the state and effectively bars whole-unit short-term letting, permitting only licensed hosted home-sharing. Assume holiday letting is not available here and read the city rules alongside the CC&Rs.
No architectural standard is published. Expect board review of anything touching structure, plumbing risers or the envelope, an acoustic underlayment requirement beneath hard flooring, restrictions on slab penetrations, and no unilateral change to windows, doors or balcony surfaces, which are ordinarily exclusive-use common area. In Santa Monica, work of any scale also engages the city's own permit and inspection regime. Ask for the guidelines and the approval history of recent renovations in the building.
Everything above is drawn from public records, city permit data and published sources. The association’s statutory disclosure package is the only authoritative answer on dues, rules, reserves, insurance and litigation — Ben will request it and read it with you before you remove contingencies.
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