Podcast: Don & Noah on Building for the LA Buyer
Don sits down with developer Noah Katz for an hour on unit mix, spec finishes, and why LA still under-builds the mid-tier.
Episode 12 of the DHG Podcast. Don and Noah go deep on the LA new-development pipeline — what's selling, what's stalling, and why the $2M-$4M condo is still the market's most under-supplied product.
Listen on Spotify, Apple, or via the embed on donhellergroup.com.
What's in this episode
Don Heller and developer Noah Katz break down the Los Angeles new-development pipeline in 2026: why the $2M–$4M condo remains the most under-supplied product in the city, how unit mix decisions made in entitlement set the ceiling on absorption, and where spec finish budgets actually move a buyer. They close on the practical sequencing of a ground-up sales program — pricing sheet, floorplate library, and broker preview — and what a developer should have ready twelve months before first close.
Full transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
- Don Heller
- Every developer asks me the same question first: what price do we hit? It's the wrong first question. The first question is what unit mix the site can carry, because the mix sets your absorption and absorption sets your price.
- Noah Katz
- We learned that on the Wilshire Corridor. We penciled larger three-bedrooms because the pro forma liked the per-foot number, and the depth of buyer at that size in that submarket just wasn't there.
- Don Heller
- Right. In Los Angeles the deepest pool in new construction is still the $2M to $4M condo — a well-planned two-bedroom with real outdoor space and full service. That's the buyer who has sold a house on the Westside and doesn't want a lawn anymore, and there is nowhere near enough product for them.
- Noah Katz
- Where do you spend the finish budget, then?
- Don Heller
- Kitchen, primary bath, windows, and sound isolation between units. Buyers at this level forgive a modest closet. They do not forgive hearing a neighbor. Almost everything else is replaceable after close, and they know it.
- Noah Katz
- And timing on the sales program?
- Don Heller
- Start twelve months before first close. You want the sponsor pricing sheet, the full floorplate library, and a broker preview sequence ready before anything goes public. The projects that stall are almost never priced wrong at launch — they launched without the materials to answer a serious buyer's second question.
- Noah Katz
- That matches what we're seeing. The deals that move are the ones where the answer to 'what's next' is already written down.