Lisa Boone

Nicole Fitzgerald was 25 when she and husband Rick Steil bought a 1926 bungalow in Pacific Palisades on a tree-lined street graced with similarly romantic Spanish Colonial single-family homes.In what they now describe as a leap of faith, the young couple from the Midwest purchased the fixer-upper for $430,000 — an unimaginable purchase price in

When Hannah Coleman and husband Alvaro Vela bought a century-old home in Culver City eight years ago, the first-time home buyers were charmed by the home’s Craftsman details — sweeping front porch, clapboard siding, corbel-accented roofline and arched windows — as well as an expansive backyard filled with mature fruit trees.Shortly after purchasing the home,