The Bird Streets: What LA's Most Famous Hillside Neighborhood Really Costs
Nineteen streets named for birds, and a wide gap between what’s asked and what sells.
Oct 27, 20265 min read
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Nineteen streets named for birds, and a wide gap between what's asked and what sells.
What are the Bird Streets? They are a small grid of hillside streets above the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, named for birds: Oriole, Tanager, Thrasher, Nightingale, Blue Jay and more. At the top, homes here have traded in the $20 million to $60 million range, while the biggest new hilltop estates have been listed in the $57 million to $82 million range.
The gap between those two numbers is the most useful thing to know about the neighborhood. In the four top sales we tracked, homes traded for roughly $1,700 to $2,250 per square foot, and every one sold below its first asking price. One estate sold for half of what it was originally listed at.
Here is where the Bird Streets are, what has actually sold, what drives the price, and what it costs to sell one.
Where the Bird Streets are
The Bird Streets sit in the hills just north of Sunset Boulevard, above the western end of the Sunset Strip, near the Beverly Hills line. According to Los Angeles magazine, the streets began appearing in 1924 and kept being added into the 1960s, and there are 19 of them. They include Oriole Drive, Tanager Way, Thrasher Avenue, Skylark Lane, Nightingale Drive, Robin Drive, Bluebird Avenue, Vireo Drive, Mockingbird Place, Warbler Way, Flicker Way and Blue Jay Way.
The appeal is the topography. The streets climb a ridge that looks out over the whole basin, and the best lots get an unbroken view across the city to downtown on one side and the ocean on the other. Lots are steep, roads are narrow, and the flat, buildable part of a parcel is often much smaller than its acreage suggests.
The most famous street may be Blue Jay Way. In August 1967, George Harrison rented a house there and, jet-lagged and waiting for friends delayed by fog on the hillside roads, wrote the song that took the street's name. It appeared on the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, released at the end of that year.
Los Angeles, not West Hollywood
Agents and listing sites often give Bird Streets homes a West Hollywood address, because they share the 90069 ZIP code. But the neighborhood sits in the City of Los Angeles, in the Hollywood Hills West area, and that is not a technicality. It means Bird Streets sales pay Los Angeles' Measure ULA transfer tax. When a newly built Bird Streets home on Tanager Way sold in 2023, about two months after Measure ULA took effect, The Real Deal covered it as a sign that top-end deals were still closing under the new tax. More on what it costs below.
Bird Streets home prices: what has actually sold
These are sales The Real Deal reported as Bird Streets trades. Price per square foot is the sale price divided by the reported size.
Address | Sold | Size | Per sq ft | First asking price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
$62.8M (2024) | 28,000 sq ft | $2,243 | $78M | |
$25M (2023) | 14,000 sq ft | $1,786 | About $30M | |
$24M (2025) | 14,000 sq ft | $1,714 | $48M | |
$21M (2024) | 10,914 sq ft | $1,924 | $24.5M |
The $62.8 million sale on Rising Glen Road was a 28,000-square-foot spec home, and it was briefly the most expensive home sale of 2024 in Los Angeles County. Every one of the four sold below its first asking price. The smallest discount was about 14%, on Nightingale. The largest was Mockingbird Place, a 14,000-square-foot estate on about 1.5 acres that was first listed at $48 million and sold for $24 million, exactly half.
The top asking prices
Asking prices at the top of the neighborhood have moved well past what has traded.
Listing | Asking price | Size | Asking per sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
$82M | 15,200 sq ft | About $5,395 | |
$68M | Not disclosed | Not disclosed | |
$57M, cut from $63M | 13,870 sq ft | About $4,110 |
The Thrasher Avenue home, completed in 2023 and designed by architect Paul McClean, was listed at about $5,395 per square foot. Its listing agent's site now shows it leased, at $110,000 a month. The Nightingale Drive home has spent well over a year on the market and has been cut to $57 million. The highest price per square foot among the sales above is $2,243.
That does not mean these homes cannot sell near their asks. Newer, larger, better-sited homes do command more. It does mean the asking price is the least reliable number in this neighborhood, and the sales record is where to start.
The seller of the $68 million palace on our site has said it will accept cryptocurrency.
What sets the price
Three things separate a $20 million Bird Streets home from a $60 million one.
The view. A front-row lot on the ridge, with an unbroken line to both downtown and the ocean, is the premium position, and it is the first thing the top listings sell. Forbes described the Nightingale Drive listing as sitting on a front-row hilltop site with city, skyline and ocean views.
The land. Lot size varies widely on the hill. Mockingbird Place sat on about 1.5 acres, and a Flicker Way listing on nearly an acre was asking $69 million in 2024, according to The Real Deal, while the Thrasher and Nightingale homes sit on 0.42 and 0.52 acres. On a slope, how much of that land is flat and usable, for a pool, a lawn or a motor court, matters as much as the total.
The age of the house. The top asks are mostly recent construction. A 1930s house on Warbler Way, on more than half an acre, was listed at just under $10 million in 2024, according to The Real Deal. On the same hill, the newest builds have been listed at roughly six to eight times that.
What it costs to sell one
Because the Bird Streets are in the City of Los Angeles, every sale of $10.9 million or more pays Measure ULA at 5.5% of the full price, plus the city's base 0.45% and the county's 0.11%. That is 6.06% in total.
On the $62.8 million Rising Glen Road sale, today's rates would come to about $3.8 million in transfer taxes. On the $68 million palace, if it sold at asking, the bill would be about $4.1 million. On a $21 million sale like Nightingale's, about $1.27 million. Our guide to the LA mansion tax explains how the tax works and why a few streets away, in Beverly Hills, the same sale would pay almost none of it.
Staying in the Bird Streets
For a stay rather than a purchase, our Bird Streets villa is a four-bedroom home above the Sunset Strip, and the one way into the neighborhood that does not involve an eight-figure offer.
For the rest of the city's top end, see the most expensive homes for sale in Los Angeles.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where are the Bird Streets in Los Angeles?
The Bird Streets are a hillside neighborhood just north of Sunset Boulevard, above the western end of the Sunset Strip and near the Beverly Hills city line. They sit in the City of Los Angeles, in the Hollywood Hills West area, though listings often use a West Hollywood mailing address because the area shares the 90069 ZIP code.
Why are they called the Bird Streets?
The streets are named for birds, including Oriole Drive, Tanager Way, Thrasher Avenue, Nightingale Drive, Robin Drive, Bluebird Avenue and Blue Jay Way. According to Los Angeles magazine, there are 19 bird-named streets, laid out starting in 1924 and added into the 1960s.
How much do homes in the Bird Streets cost?
Recent top sales have run from about $21 million to $62.8 million, or roughly $1,700 to $2,250 per square foot. The $62.8 million sale of a 28,000-square-foot spec home on Rising Glen Road in 2024 was briefly the most expensive home sale in Los Angeles County that year. Asking prices at the top run higher: one new hilltop home was listed at $82 million, about $5,395 per square foot.
Are the Bird Streets in West Hollywood or Los Angeles?
Los Angeles. The Bird Streets share the 90069 ZIP code with West Hollywood, so many listings use a West Hollywood address, but the neighborhood is inside the City of Los Angeles. That matters at sale: Bird Streets sales of $10.9 million or more pay Los Angeles' Measure ULA transfer tax of 5.5% on the full price.
Is Blue Jay Way in the Bird Streets?
Yes. Blue Jay Way is one of the Bird Streets, and it gave its name to the Beatles song. George Harrison wrote it in August 1967 while staying in a rented house on the street, waiting for friends who were delayed by fog on the hillside roads. It appeared on Magical Mystery Tour later that year.
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