What the Cranes on Van Nuys Boulevard Actually Mean for the Houses Behind Them

Drive north on Van Nuys Boulevard this summer and you will pass two active construction sites within about a mile of each other. One is a mixed-income apartment building rising at 7050 Van Nuys Boulevard. The other, a few blocks over on Sepulveda, is a six-story project that will eventually hold 405 units. If you are comparing Van Nuys to Sherman Oaks or Encino right now, the instinct is to read those cranes as a warning. More apartments usually gets filed under more competition, more density, softer demand for the single-family house you are actually trying to buy or sell three streets away.

That instinct has the mechanism backwards. The new supply in Van Nuys is not landing on the interior residential streets where the detached homes sit. It is landing almost entirely on the boulevards themselves, on parcels that were already zoned for exactly this kind of building, alongside a transit upgrade that will outlast any one project. Understanding where the construction actually is, and where it is not, matters more than the headline median price if you are trying to figure out what a Van Nuys purchase actually gets you in 2026.

The corridor is absorbing the growth, not the block behind it

Two projects account for most of what is currently rising out of the ground in central Van Nuys. Alliant Strategic is building Ardent on Van Nuys at 7050 Van Nuys Boulevard, a mixed-income project aimed at moderate- and extremely-low-income renters. As of the most recent construction update in December 2025, the building had topped out in wood framing and moved into exterior finishing. A separate 405-unit building from Uncommon Developers is under construction at 6728 Sepulveda Boulevard, just south of Vanowen Street, on a stretch of Sepulveda that has drawn growing interest from mid-rise builders over the past several years.

Both sit on the two commercial spines that already carry Van Nuys's traffic, retail, and zoning capacity for taller buildings. Neither is going up on the interior R1 streets where the neighborhood's single-family housing stock actually lives. That is not incidental. It is what transit-oriented rezoning is supposed to produce: density stacks on the boulevard where the infrastructure and commercial zoning already exist, while the residential blocks a short walk away keep their existing character and lot sizes.

The corridor is also getting a genuine infrastructure upgrade alongside the private construction. As of an April 2026 report, the G Line busway is undergoing an overhaul that will eventually grade-separate the crossings at Sepulveda Boulevard and Van Nuys Boulevard, meaning buses and cross traffic stop competing at street level. Temporary detours during construction were already in effect as of that reporting. A grade-separated transit crossing is the kind of public investment that tends to raise the long-term value of the corridor it serves, not depress the streets around it.

Here is what is actually under construction along the boulevards right now:

• Ardent on Van Nuys, 7050 Van Nuys Boulevard: 332 units of mixed-income housing from Alliant Strategic, topped out in wood framing as of December 2025 and moving into exterior finishing.
• 6728 Sepulveda Boulevard: 405 apartments from Uncommon Developers, a six-story building just south of Vanowen Street.
• G Line busway overhaul: ongoing grade-separation work at the Sepulveda and Van Nuys Boulevard crossings, with temporary detours reported as of April 2026.

None of that touches the lot sizes, zoning, or comparable sales on the interior streets where a single-family buyer is actually shopping.

The median hides four different Van Nuys markets

Van Nuys homes were listed at a median of $869,000 in June 2026, with the typical listing spending about 45 days on the market, roughly six percent faster than the year before. That single number is doing a lot of work to describe a neighborhood that does not actually price as one market.

A home a few blocks from Sherman Oaks and a home a few blocks from Van Nuys Airport can carry meaningfully different price expectations even though both show up under the same neighborhood median on a portal search. If you are cross-shopping by zip code alone, you are comparing pockets that do not behave the same way, and the boulevard construction sits inside only one of those four segments, the core corridor, where competition is already the tightest.

Where the real leverage sits: the lot, not the crane

If proximity to new construction is not what is moving individual sale prices inside Van Nuys, something else is. That something is the accessory dwelling unit math that a lot of buyers are not running until they are already in escrow.

Van Nuys has a higher concentration of larger lots than many comparably priced Los Angeles neighborhoods, with 6,000 to 9,000 square feet common in the northern sections. California's ADU allowances have made those lots genuinely more valuable than the base house-and-yard math would suggest. A permitted ADU, or even a clear, documented conversion path, can add tens of thousands of dollars to what a home commands at sale, and a completed unit can generate real monthly rental income on top of that. For a buyer working in the roughly $800,000 to $900,000 range that Van Nuys still occupies, that cash flow changes the entire financial profile of the purchase in a way that a house three blocks away without the same lot depth simply cannot match.

This is the detail that actually separates a well-positioned Van Nuys listing from one that sits. It has very little to do with how close the house is to the cranes on the boulevard, and a great deal to do with lot depth, existing permits, and whether a seller has already done the work to document ADU potential before listing.

What this means if you are cross-shopping the Valley

Van Nuys still prices well below its immediate neighbors on a per-square-foot basis, and that gap has not closed as fast as the broader rate environment might suggest. Homes are moving at a reasonably steady clip across the neighborhood as a whole, but that pace is not evenly distributed. It is the core corridor pocket, the one sitting closest to the new construction, that tends to require the most precise pricing to keep from sitting.

For a buyer, that combination is worth sitting with rather than reacting to. A visible construction crane on the boulevard a few blocks from a listing is not, by itself, a signal to discount the offer. The more useful question is which of the four pockets the house actually sits in, whether the lot supports an ADU, and whether that potential has already been priced into the number on the listing sheet. For a seller, the same logic runs in reverse. A home with a documented ADU path or an existing permitted unit is doing more to justify its asking price right now than its walk score to the new apartment buildings ever will.

Frequently asked questions

Will the new apartment buildings on Van Nuys Boulevard and Sepulveda Boulevard increase traffic on nearby residential streets? Both projects are built on the commercial corridors themselves, and the G Line busway work is specifically aimed at separating cross traffic at those two intersections rather than routing more of it through adjacent neighborhoods. The interior residential streets are not part of either construction footprint.

Does an unpermitted ADU hurt a home's resale value in Van Nuys? An unpermitted structure typically has to be disclosed and can complicate financing or appraisal, which is different from having no ADU at all. A permitted unit, or a documented conversion plan, is what tends to add measurable value at sale.

Is Van Nuys still a good value compared to Sherman Oaks or Encino in 2026? Based on listing data through June 2026, Van Nuys continues to price meaningfully below both neighbors on a per-square-foot basis, though the four sub-pockets described above do not all carry the same discount, and the gap is narrowest in the pockets bordering Sherman Oaks.

If you are weighing a Van Nuys purchase against a comparable house in Sherman Oaks or Encino, or you own property near the boulevard and want a clear read on what your specific lot and pocket are actually worth right now, Ellie Khani can walk through the comparable sales for your exact street and put together a free home valuation that accounts for ADU potential, not just square footage.