Hollywood Riviera & South Bay Real Estate Blog

There is a neat little neighborhood here in South Torrance called the Seaside Ranchos.  It has a couple other AKA’s - Sleepy Hollow and the Christmas Lite Section.  The second name is highly warranted since everyone within a 50 mile radius must know that everyone in the Seaside Ranchos has a mission at Christmas time to out-do the rest of us hanging as many Christmas lites & decorations as possible.  They go way overboard and each resident must have some sort of mandate on seeing how many Christmas decorations they can put out in the front lawns.  Just a few days after Thanksgiving, the entire neighborhood becomes a “destination” for the rest of us.  Seaside Ranchos sets up detour signs to direct the traffic that now descends for an entire 6 week period - for anyone referring to it as the Sleepy Hollow - it wakes up this time of year! 
Anyone from out of the area moving to the Seaside Ranchos has to have this information disclosed to them of course.  Can you imagine moving to this quaint quiet neighborhood in May completely unaware of the Holiday Hullabaloo that will overtake the rest of one’s lives in December!  This neighborhood is known for its neighborly quality and it can be pretty exciting to see all your neighbors out on the street that time of year all decorating and getting ready for the Holidays!!  Makes for a very cohesive group. 

There is a great little section in the South part of South Redondo called,
The Avenues.  The name is based on the fact that the streets are all part of the alphabet, such as Ave. A, Ave. B etc..   The best part of this neighborhood is the easy access to the beach.  These homes also have a short stroll to the Riviera Village.  Check out the Avenues… it is a great place to live!

Wow….A $150 billion economic stimulus plan being negotiated by the Bush administration and congressional leaders could include a temporary boost in the $417,000 conforming loan limit on mortgages eligible for purchase or guarantee by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 
     This dramatically effects our market here - by raising the conforming loan limit to $625,000 and possibly $730,000 in our California market would be exactly what home buyers would need to push them off the fence in this area.  With the average home price here in the Hollywood Riviera currently above $1.1 million dollars, almost every buyer would need what is currently a “jumbo loan.”  The current “conforming loan limit” is $417,000.  The only buyers that use those kind of loans in our market are either people with a lot of cash to put down or someone buying a small condo or something in the $500K - $600K price range (which does not get you a lot of home here in the South Bay.)  I, for one, could certainly see this being a huge boost for buyers and sellers here in our market!
     The higher cap, to be effective until the end of December, would breathe life into housing markets in New York, California and other pricey areas because lenders would feel more comfortable knowing Fannie and Freddie can buy and package the loans into securities that investors consider to be relatively safe.  NAR aka The National Association of Realtors maintains that raising the conforming loan limit to $625,000 would prevent 140,000 to 210,000 foreclosures, bolster home prices by 2 to 3 percentage points, and increase economic activity by $42 billion.
     This is certainly something to stay tuned in for!

As most of you have read, the Fed jumped in with an unexpected intersession 3/4 of a point rate cut to the federal funds rate Tuesday, January 22nd and will most likely be infusing another ”anticipated” half point cut coming up January 30th.   That brings the federal funds rate to 3.50% currently and on January 30th we could be looking at 3%. In addition to cutting the funds rate, the Fed said it was reducing its discount rate, the interest it charges to make direct loans to banks, by a similar three-quarters of a percentage point, pushing this rate down to 4 percent.
How does this effect mortgage rates is what we ask in the real estate business?  It has a direct effect on short term/adjustable rates which means if you have a HELOC, an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) or credit card debt.  For example - chances are you have a credit card whose interest rate is tied to the prime rate -which is simply 3 points above the Federal Funds Rate - in this case it just went from 4.25% to 3.5% (and most likely will head to 3% in a week.)  This means the interest rate your credit card charges you just went down.  If you have a Home Equity Line of Credit - then your minimum payment just went down as well as it is also tied to the prime rate.
What about those 30 year fixed mortgages - wouldn’t those go down as well?  Not exactly - Fixed mortgage rates are tied to long-term bond yields that move based on the outlook for the economy and inflation.  And guess what? The long-term outlook for the economy isn’t exactly rosy right now.
What does this mean to you?  Now is a great time to refinance, as many mortgage brokers see the 30 year mortgage rates going up and not down.  Currently, the 30 year fixed is at it’s lowest rate since 2005.  If you are waiting for long-term mortgage rates to fall further from here, don’t count on it. Your best chance to lock in the lowest mortgage rates since 2005 is now. Getting your application in process will allow you to capture a rate near all time lows and, with many experts predicting home values could continue to decline, waiting could kill your chance to capture a great rate if your home doesn’t appraise. 

There is some “blogging” going on around here lately!  Kelly and Laura started their blog at the end of 2007!  We have been working with a company called Domus Consulting Group to help us get our blog up and running.  There are some other great real estate agents working on their blogs as well, namely - Elaine Carlson, Marion Duffy and Mary Thomas.  It has been a great month so far of exercising our brains to write again!   Most of us in the group haven’t had “blogs” before but soon we will all be up and running with our own personalized “Blog Sites.”  This is a great way to build our businesses and get our personalities out there into the world.  This makes it easy for potential clients to check out certain geographical areas of the country and get to know a real estate agent that they may end up working with.  Look for our up and coming blog site soon!

Over the years, you see some pretty crazy things while holding open houses.  Several years ago, a young family came in and asked to use the powder room for the little boy.  Apparently there was no toilet paper so the boy used some of the hand towels for this purpose.  When he flushed, of course there was a clog and the toilet overflowed.  The boy was so embarrassed that he did not tell anyone.  A few minutes later, we found that the water had come out of the bathroom and ruined much of the hardwood flooring in the living room.  Needless to say, the open house had to be shut down.

We (Laura and I are sisters) have lived in the Hollywood Riviera since 1999 as adults.  We both went to South High School - the public school right down the street.  We lived in the neighborhood adjacent to the Riviera then, often called the Seaside Ranchos; so we are pretty local.  Our favorite part of living here is the way of life that the Hollywood Riviera affords you.  The Riviera surrounds one of the finest beaches in Southern California - it is clean, open, aboundeded by cliffs and offers a wonderful bike path that you could ride all the way up to Santa Monica on….the end of the bike path is here at Torrance Beach.  We have the Riviera Village at our doorstep offering fine restaurants, quaint shopping, spa experiences, art dealers, Trader Joes and plenty of coffee shops.  We have an excellent elementary school, Riviera Elementary which has a 920 API Score.  (We both feel proud to send our children there.)  The people - this is the most important aspect of our wonderful neighborhood.  The people here are so friendly and happy to be here.  You see people out taking walks and they are often with their neighbors.  We see people helping other people and volunteering at the schools.  A lot of the people that live here are “original owners.”  They moved here in the 1950’s when this neighborhood was just getting off its feet.  Nowhere better to go once you’ve lived here. 
The Views here are amazing…about 60% of the homes here have some sort of view - ranging from panoramic (city, ocean/beaches, mountains, to just some city or just ocean - believe me, none of it’s bad.)  It’s really a wonderful place to call HOME!

With all the media attention on the “declining” real estate market I decided to do a little digging into what has happened in my own neighborhood, the Hollywood Riviera.  Hollywood Riviera is a small section of South Torrance (a lot of it has a Redondo Beach P.O. Box - thus many of us say we live in Redondo Beach.  That is another story.)  Homes in the Hollywood Riviera had an average price in the year 2000 of $648,000.  In 2006 that price almost doubled and averaged $1,115,486.  That is a 72% gain in 6 years - not bad!  Since 2007 just ended, we show the average price of a home in the Hollywood Riviera actually increased 2.5% to $1,143,959.   Now the interesting part also has to do with the number of units sold.  Back in 2000, 143 houses were sold in the Riviera - that’s a lot.  There are about 3100 homes in the entire area.  In 2006, that number dropped to 88 homes sold.  Yet in 2007, 90 homes sold - so at least there was more activity.  The last quarter of 2007 showed 8 homes in escrow - that is a lot of activity for that slower time of year.  As those sales post to the SOLD category, we will be off to a good start in 2008! 

To “Stage” or not to “Stage?”  This has become a more recognized question these days in real estate.  It wasn’t that long ago that people here in the South Bay didn’t even know what “Staging” meant.   Laura and I became “ASP” (Accredited Staging Professionals) back in 2002 before anyone knew what it meant.  I’d say most Realtors do some sort of “staging” of their clients’ homes prior to putting them on the market, but real “staging” is a whole other ball game.  It can be a very hard discussion with some sellers who really love the way their home looks.  Maybe they did the “remodel” in the 70’s and are still fond of every choice they made - completely unaware of the fact that their “remodel” is now a “gut job.”   We typically “stage” most of the houses we put on the market, but sometimes when it is really hard to get the client to understand what it really means to stage their home…..it can still go awry.  This is when it’s a good idea to bring in a “professional stager.”  They can be the “bad guy.”  We have a great “stager” and she just makes it look so easy.  The name of her company is “Staged Right”.   She really knows how to “Stage” a home to get it SOLD!  Ideally we like to get her to do the job, but sometimes we take it upon ourselves to do the “staging.”  An example of having it go awry - told a client that we wanted him to put “mulch” in the front where there was a lot of dirt.  He said he wanted to do it himself and we let him.  Oh what a mistake that was…..we show up the next day and he’s put in mulch alright…but it was “gro-mulch” which is enhanced by manure.  Exactly what not to - lay fresh manure the week the house goes on the market.   Can you imagine?  We had a good laugh anyway!

The Hollwood Riviera is in the City of Torrance but has both Redondo Beach and Torrance mailing addresses.  A fun little bit of trivia is that the addresses with 3 digits all have Redondo Beach (90277) addresses and the addresses with 4 digits all have Torrance (90505) addresses.  The True trivia buff will know the two streets that are exceptions to that rule.  Do you know?  Calle de Felipe has three digits but has a Torrance address and Paseo De Arena has three digits but also has a Torrance address.   A long time ago, the City of Torrance annexed about half of the Hollywood Riviera to the Redondo Beach post office because it was much closer to the RB post office and Torrance is such a large city.  All of the Hollywood Riviera falls under the city of Torrance though for schools, services and building restrictions.