Palms Apartments for UCLA Students: Cheaper, With a Commute

Every fall a wave of UCLA students works out the same thing: the rent gap between Westwood and the neighborhoods south of the 10 is large enough to change how you live, and Palms apartments are the most common way students act on it. Palms sits roughly between National Boulevard and Venice Boulevard, east of Sepulveda and west of Culver City, and it is dense with the mid-century two-story buildings that Los Angeles built by the thousand in the 1960s and 1970s: gated entry, a carport underneath, a courtyard in the middle. It is not walkable to campus and no amount of optimism will make it so. What it offers is space, and the chance to spend less on rent than the blocks next to campus ask. This guide lays out what that trade actually costs you in time, and prices it against the current listings on the UCLA off-campus housing page.

Begin your search at Off-Campus Universe, where you can browse current listings near Los Angeles (Westwood), compare bedroom counts and walk times, and message the landlord or leaseholder directly. One thing to be straight about before you read further: every sourced listing on our board today is on the Westwood side, so this article does not put a rent figure on Palms. Any number you see below comes from a specific listing you can open and read. When you find a Palms listing of your own, run it against these Westwood numbers, per person, and you will know immediately whether the commute is buying you anything.

Here is what is currently listed near campus, with per-person math you can hold a Palms listing up against. ARC WESTWOOD is $1,800/month for a 1bd/1ba under five minutes from campus, which is what living alone next to UCLA costs on this board. 601 westholme avenue is $3,999/month for a 2bd/2ba, listed at 13% off $4,600, which is $1,999.50 per person split two ways. 10997 Roebling Ave(3 bedroom/2 bath) is $5,500/month for a 3bd/2ba, or about $1,833.33 per person across three. Line those up and the pattern is clear: a bedroom in a shared three-bedroom near campus comes out roughly $166.17 per person cheaper than a bedroom in the two-bedroom, and within about $33.33 of what the one-bedroom costs a single occupant. Adding roommates in Westwood buys you less than people expect, which is exactly why students look south. The fourth listing needs care. 527 1/2-3 Bedroom 1.5 Bath (2 Showers) is recorded at $5,250/month for a 3bd/1.5ba apartment tagged as a private room. If $5,250 is the whole-unit rent, three people split it to $1,750 each, which would make it the cheapest per-person bedroom of the four. If it is a per-room price, the unit grosses $15,750 a month, which is a different property entirely. Nothing in the listing settles it, so do not budget against either reading until the landlord tells you in writing which one applies, what the 1.5 bathrooms mean for a third roommate, and whether the two showers are shared or split between units.

Palms, Westwood and What Sits Between Them

The geography here is simple once you drive it. Westwood puts you inside the walk-to-class radius, and the listings above show what that proximity costs. Directly south, Rancho Park and Century City are quieter and mostly out of reach for student budgets. Keep going and you cross the 10 into Palms, which borders Mar Vista to the west, Culver City to the south and east, and the Sawtelle and West LA blocks to the north. Palms is where the older stock and the larger floor plans are, and it is the neighborhood UCLA students most often name when they say they moved out to save money. Culver City proper is livelier and generally pricier than Palms; Mar Vista is more residential and tips you into car territory. The realistic commute from Palms to campus is a bus up Sepulveda Boulevard, most often Culver CityBus Line 6 or Big Blue Bus Route 12, and depending on the hour that is anywhere from twenty-five minutes to close to an hour each way. Check current routes and schedules against your own class times before you sign, because a schedule that works at 10 a.m. can fall apart for a 5 p.m. discussion section. Driving is not the escape hatch it looks like: the 10 and the surface routes up Overland, Motor and National are slow in the afternoon, and campus parking is permit-based with waitlists, so budget for a permit or for street parking rules you will need to learn fast.

Palms apartments: What the Commute Really Costs You

Before you sign for one of the Palms apartments, price the commute in hours, not just dollars. Two round trips to campus a day at forty minutes each way is roughly two and a half hours of your day gone, five days a week. Over a ten-week quarter that is more than a hundred hours, and it lands hardest on the things students underestimate: office hours you skip because you are already home, a library session you cut short to catch a bus, a study group that meets at 9 p.m. on campus. The honest version of the trade is that Palms works well if your schedule is compact, with classes stacked into three days and few evening commitments, and works badly if you are on campus at odd hours, in a lab, or in a club that meets late. There is also a money side people forget: a car brings insurance, gas and a parking permit, while transit brings a pass and the occasional late-night ride home, and those costs eat into the rent savings. Calculate the total, not just the lease. If a Palms listing does not come out clearly cheaper per person than the roughly $1,833.33 a bedroom in the Roebling three-bedroom costs, the commute is not paying for itself.

Four Things to Check on Any Palms Listing

• Time the actual commute at the hours you will travel. Test a Tuesday morning and a weeknight return, not a Sunday afternoon, and do it before you commit to the lease.

• Ask what parking comes with the unit and what it costs. Many older Palms buildings include one carport space for a two-bedroom; a second car may mean street parking with permit districts and street-cleaning rules.

• Get the rent basis in writing. Whole unit or per room, what utilities are included, and whether the lease term is twelve months or matches the academic year, since a September-to-June term is uncommon off campus.

• Inspect the building itself. Older Los Angeles stock can mean no central air, single-pane windows facing a busy boulevard, laundry shared between many units, and soft-story carport construction, so ask about heat, noise and any retrofit work.

Ready to find your place? Browse all listings at Off-Campus Universe.

This article is provided by an independent housing resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles.