A buyer touring condos in Marina del Rey eventually hits a listing sheet with the words "ground lease" or "land lease" printed near the HOA line, and the reaction is almost always the same: a pause, a mental note to ask the agent later, maybe a quiet decision to cross that unit off the list. It sounds like a marina-wide condition, something baked into buying waterfront property here at all.
It isn't. Nearly all of Marina del Rey's residential ground leases went to apartment developers in the 1960s and 70s, not condo buyers. There is exactly one building in the entire marina where an individual owner can hold condo title on leased county land: Marina City Club. If you are shopping the newer towers, the ground lease question resolves itself before you ever write an offer. If you are shopping Marina City Club specifically, the question does not disappear, but it does get precise, and precision is what makes it manageable.
The Word Attached to Almost No Listings You'll Actually See
Los Angeles County built Marina del Rey on public tidelands, roughly 1,000 acres across eight basins, and leased most of the developable parcels to private builders on terms that typically ran 60 years, according to Behind the Deals. Those parcels became Mariners Village, Marina Harbor, Waves, Dolphin Marina, and more recently the Marriott Hotel and Residences project. Every one of those was structured as rental housing. The county kept the land, the developer built and operated the building, and tenants signed leases with the operator, never touching the underlying ground lease directly.
Marina City Club broke that pattern. It is the only leasehold complex in the marina built to allow condo ownership, according to Los Angeles County, meaning individual buyers hold title to their units while the county continues to own the land beneath the whole three-tower, 600-unit complex under a lease that runs through July 29, 2067, as Los Angeles County’s May 2026 filing states. Everywhere else you are likely to be shown, Azzurra, Cove, Regatta, and the other newer high-rises, sits on fee-simple land. You own the unit and an undivided share of the ground it stands on, full stop.
That distinction is the entire ballgame. If a listing agent tells you a condo has a land lease and it isn't in Marina City Club, ask for the recorded documents before you believe it.
What the County's Own Paperwork Says Right Now
The county doesn't manage these leases passively. Two Board of Supervisors actions from this year show how active the oversight actually is. On May 19, 2026, the board approved an assignment of Marina City Club's underlying lease, Parcel 125I, from Essex Marina City Club LP to a new entity, 4333 Admiralty Owner LLC, with the county collecting a $247,500 net proceeds share deposited into the Marina del Rey Accumulative Capital Outlay fund for infrastructure work. On June 16, 2026, the board approved a separate assignment for the Shores complex at Parcel 100, transferring the lease from Shores LLC to Jackson Square Properties LLC. That lease, originally signed August 1, 1964, is scheduled to expire July 31, 2063, and this transfer alone generated a $1.7 million proceeds share for the county.
Neither filing changes anything for a condo buyer directly, since the Shores is rental housing and Marina City Club's lease terms didn't change with the ownership transfer. What the filings do show is that these ground leases are living instruments, actively assigned, amended, and repriced by a county department that treats them as a real estate portfolio generating close to $58 million a year. Anyone buying into Marina City Club should review the current lease documents and amendments carefully.
The Number That Actually Matters: 2067 Minus Your Mortgage
Here is the part that actually changes a buyer's math. Conventional loans sold to Fannie Mae generally require the ground lease to run beyond the loan's maturity date, often by a cushion of at least five years. Apply that to Marina City Club's July 2067 expiration and you get a rough backstop: a standard 30-year mortgage needs to mature no later than roughly 2062 to clear that cushion comfortably.
Work backward from there. A 30-year loan originated today, in 2026, matures around 2056, well inside the window. A 30-year loan originated in 2032 matures around 2062, right at the edge of the typical cushion. Loans originated after that point start to require either a shorter term or manual underwriting outside standard conventional guidelines, since the remaining lease term no longer comfortably outlasts the mortgage.
None of that is a reason to avoid the building today. It is a reason to ask a very specific question before you write an offer: does my lender treat this project as warrantable under current leasehold guidelines, and does my loan term actually clear the five-year cushion against 2067? A buyer in 2026 has real runway. A buyer shopping the same unit in the mid-2030s will be having a different, tighter conversation with their lender, and the seller at that point will likely be pricing around it.
What a Unit There Actually Costs You Each Month
Ground rent at Marina City Club is billed separately from HOA dues, and recent listings show real variation between units, likely tied to size and original terms rather than a flat per-door fee. Some units carry ground rent alone in the $350 to $500 monthly range, while others run closer to $975, with HOA dues on top ranging from roughly $390 to over $1,580 depending on the unit and tower. Combined monthly carrying costs for land plus HOA have shown up on recent listings anywhere from about $740 to over $2,550, before the mortgage payment itself.
| Fee-simple tower (Azzurra, Cove, Regatta, etc.) | Marina City Club | |
|---|---|---|
| Land ownership | Owner holds undivided interest in the land | County of Los Angeles owns the land through July 2067 |
| Monthly land cost | None | Ground rent billed separately from HOA dues, roughly $350 to $975 on recent listings |
| Financing | Standard conventional programs apply | Ground lease must clear a remaining-term cushion beyond your loan's maturity |
| Appraisal | Valued against nearby fee-simple sales | Fannie Mae requires an appraisal to specifically analyze the leasehold interest |
| Buyer pool at resale | Broadest pool of financing options | Narrower pool, since some lenders decline leaseholds outright |
The lower list prices you'll sometimes see at Marina City Club aren't an accident. They're the market pricing in exactly this narrower buyer pool and financing friction, which is worth knowing before you assume you've found a bargain.
Precedent: What Happens When These Leases Come Due
The county's history with expiring ground leases offers a useful, if imperfect, guide. Villa Venetia, a 224-unit apartment complex on a 6.4-acre parcel, sat on a 60-year lease signed in 1961 that was set to expire in 2021 and revert improvements to the county. In 2011, the leaseholder negotiated a 33-year extension pushing the expiration to 2054, and the property sold shortly after for $44.8 million. Mariners Village followed a similar arc: Urbanize LA reported that its lease was set to expire in March 2023.
Neither of those precedents guarantees how Marina City Club's 2067 lease gets handled decades from now, and condo ownership adds a layer of complexity that rental complexes don't have to navigate, since any renegotiation would need to account for hundreds of individual owners rather than a single corporate lessee. What the record does show is that the county has consistently chosen negotiated extension over letting improvements revert, provided the leaseholder brings capital to the table. That's context worth having, not a guarantee worth banking on.
Where This Leaves You
As of May 2026, Redfin inventory data for the area showed one-bedroom condos listed roughly between $465,000 and $595,000, with many two-bedroom units between about $985,000 and $1.449 million. Redfin's March 2026 ZIP-level data for 90292 showed homes selling about 2 percent below list price and going pending in around 54 days, while Realtor.com's April 2026 summary put median days on market at 50 and characterized the broader market as favoring buyers. In a market already moving at that pace, a Marina City Club seller has real reason to be transparent about lease terms and ground rent early, since a buyer who has to discover the financing friction mid-escrow is a buyer who walks.
If you're shopping fee-simple towers, the ground lease conversation is mostly academic. If Marina City Club is genuinely on your list, treat the lease document itself, not the listing sheet, as the source of truth, and get your lender's written confirmation of eligibility before you remove financing contingencies.
A Short FAQ
Does every condo in Marina del Rey have a ground lease? No. Marina City Club is the only condo-ownership building in the marina built on leased county land. The rest of the residential ground leases in Marina del Rey went to rental apartment complexes, not condos.
Can I still get a standard 30-year mortgage on a Marina City Club unit today? In most cases, yes, since the 2067 lease expiration still clears the typical remaining-term cushion lenders look for. That runway narrows the further out you originate the loan, so confirm the specific numbers with your lender rather than assuming.
What should I ask for during escrow if I'm buying a leasehold unit? Request the full ground lease with all amendments, the current ground rent schedule and any scheduled resets, the HOA's reserve study and recent budgets, and written confirmation from your lender that the project and loan term meet their leasehold guidelines before you remove contingencies.
Financing structure like this is exactly where a background in mortgage lending earns its keep. If you're weighing a leasehold unit against a fee-simple alternative in Marina del Rey, or you just want the numbers run before you write an offer, reach out to Corisandra Downing for a conversation grounded in exactly this kind of detail.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
