Steve Lopez

The modest South Pasadena house went on the market at just under $1.2 million and sold for a hair above $2.5 million, and when I wrote about it last month, I wasn’t surprised by the reaction.I suggested that with crazy Southern California bidding wars, all-cash transactions and offers well above asking price, there ought to

The three-bedroom, one-bath house was listed at $1.2 million.It sold in a week, at more than double that price.For $2.5 million. In the insane Southern California housing market — in which legions of people are priced out of home ownership while people with boatloads of hard cash are battling it out in epic bidding wars

When it was time for my daughter to learn how to drive, I took her to an empty parking lot on Figueroa Street, across from the Eagle Rock Rec Center.She got the hang of things behind the wheel, but I wondered how that lot could sit vacant for so long, half a block from a