Hollywood Riviera & South Bay Real Estate Blog

A good way to figure out what direction we’re headed is to look back.  This time last year – Jan 1, 2007 – Feb 27, 2007 there were 11 homes sold in the Hollywood Riviera.  The average sale price was $1,069K.  Of the 11 sold properties the lowest priced sale was $828K and the highest priced sale was $1,400K.   The average Days on Market was 42 days and average dollar per square foot was $586. 

What’s interesting is to see what the same amount of time – 58 days – both of a first quarter (not typically the “hottest” quarter of the year) held in 2008.   10 homes sold in the 1st 58 days of 2008 with an average price of $1,147K – that is a 6.8% increase – yes – increase in average price.  This is interesting though – the lowest price home to sell in this time period 2008 was $605K and the highest was $2,130K – now there is a spread for you.  The average $ per square foot was similar to last year – $569K, a tiny bit less than last year.  The Days on Market was essentially the same as well, 43 compared to 42.  Of the ten sold, half were under a million and half were over a million dollars.  In 2007, 6 were over a million and 5 were under a million dollars – things haven’t changed much is what I’m seeing here. 

What’s going to happen as we move forward – I don’t have a crystal ball but…if things stay the same like they have so far - the month of March 2007 went like this:  10 homes sold last year in the month of March – 31 days.  (The same amount of homes that sold in 58 days.)   March is when things start to heat up – a good time of year for sellers usually.  The average price was $1.172K  – interesting that the average price doesn’t change much although the parameters to get there sure do – March last year had 10 sales and the lowest was $1 million and the highest was $1.3K – very tight price range.  Average DOM was 44, similar to what we’ve been seeing, so no news there.    If we do this in March 08 – we currently have 24 homes for sale – so almost half of them would be sold by April 1st.  We all know there will be new inventory though…sure hope so – what’s on now sure is getting stale.   We’ve had 22 homes on the market for a while – there were just 2 new listings to hit the market within the last week – one today that looks amazing and one that is pretty decent from last week.  Curious to see what happens…can’t wait to make the report!

We are working moms of the South Bay.  Dinner is usually a hurried – even stressful event.  Just the thought of the question – “What’s for dinner?” or “What shall we do for dinner tonight?” can make me cringe.  Let me tell you what I’ve discovered in the South Bay that makes dinner time a whole lot easier and even exciting!  Dream Dinners opened their doors in South Torrance about a year ago and what an impact it’s had on my life and several of my friends’ lives.  Their food is delicious and so easy to prepare.

How does it work you ask?  You make a reservation – online which makes it soo easy!  You pick your location – the one in the South Bay is on Palos Verdes Blvd at Sepulveda (across from Cooking Stuff…..everyone knows where that is.)  Then you go to their current menu and pick out the meals you’d like to prepare.  You pick a time and then show up that day.  When you get there you are greeted by super nice people that genuinely seem to want to help you.  You wash your hands, don an apron and get your tickets w/ your selections.  February – I just had their Carribbean Pork Roast – oh my gosh – can you say “Delicious!”  It was outstanding – so good in fact that I have to go by and make another one.  I am off tract, back to how it works:  There is a 36 meal minimum – which may sound like a lot of food, but it’s not really.  Each meal comes in 3 or 6 person servings.  There are stations set up w/ the menus and the “recipes” on how to assemble each meal.  You are essentially making “ready to prepare at a later date” meals.  Most meals go into a Ziploc baggy (some into aluminum pans – all provided by Dream Dinners.)  It’s quite fun while you are there…can be very social (they even do parties for groups if you want to do a Dream Dinner party.)  You come home and stuff your freezer with plenty of ready to pop in the oven meals. 

Leaving for work in the morning – take out  a Dream Dinner from your freezer – thaw it out while you’re at work – come home that night and all the “prep” work is done (and the “thought” work.)  Pop it in the oven and voila – dinner is ready.  Welcome to family dinner time again!

We will see a “spring bounce” in 2008?  Typically the best time of year in real estate is spring.  Spring is not far away – March 21st is the first day of spring and that is only a few weeks away.  From my experience this is when sellers start preparing their homes for sale and buyers start getting ready to find their new homes. 

So far this year I know of several sellers that are getting ready as we speak/blog to put their homes on the market.  And open houses have been trafficked well lately!  These are both signs that the typical spring cycle is heading toward full bloom!   Right now here in the Hollywood Riviera – there is very little inventory – only 22 single family homes for sale.  Typically we will see a larger number as we move into spring, but the buyers are usually buying them so the numbers will remain constant.  There are 5 SFR homes in escrow right now.  This is not bad for a “winter” market.

I have spoken to several agents lately that have told me that they lost out on offers for their buyers due to multiple offers – yes, I said multiple offers.  I personally lost a deal a couple weeks ago because their were multiple offers and so did Laura.    The one I lost out on was a REO – the bank priced a townhouse well below its market value and there were 8 offers according to the listing agent.  The one Laura missed out on was also an REO and the listing agent on that deal told her there were 20 offers.  That house had been on the market forever too – then they reduced the price to something well below market value and boom – multiple offers.  It makes one wonder if this isn’t a great strategy for pricing?  Can you “underprice” a house?  It would appear not.

Back to our spring bounce – real estate is cyclical and hopefully 2008 won’t be any different.  So far, I feel it is going just as usual – my phone has been ringing more than ususal – but typical for spring!  This is good news!

The Hollywood Riviera is a bit like an obtuse ”triangle.”  It is surrounded by the ocean on one side, Valmonte – a great Palos Verdes Estates neighborhood, and South Redondo Beach on the other.  The eastern tip is located in South Torrance (the whole neighborhood is in South Torrance technically.)  It is a really cool area that many people don’t even know exists – even people in the “beach cities” – this is what we summarize Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beach as. 
Hollywood Riviera has an interesting feature – it has 2 addresses; Torrance & Redondo Beach.  The entire Hollywood Riviera is in the city of Torrance (South Torrance – 90505) but part of the Riviera has a Redondo Beach P.O. Box (90277.)  See the map to figure out which is where. 

It’s the middle of February - so the big question is “What’s happening in the Hollywood Riviera’s real estate market?”

There are currently 22 homes actively for sale in the Riviera.  The average price is $1,306,650 with the highest price being $2,499,000 and the lowest being $650,000.  How could there be such a huge difference you ask?  For one, there are two city addresses in the Hollywood Riviera……Redondo Beach and Torrance.  The entire Hollywood Riviera is situated in the city of Torrance, but a good portion of it has a Redondo Beach P.O. Box.  The Redondo Beach addresses (9 homes) have an average price of $1,642,099 and the Torrance addresses (13 homes) have an average price of $1,074,492.    Typically the Redondo Beach homes are closer to the ocean and then there is the perception that an address with the word “beach” in is worth more – and the statistics show it is worth more.
Now the house for $2,499,000 is quite gorgeous - brand new construction for our area (it’s still not finished yet) and has amazing views of city, ocean, mountains.  The $650,000 house is older, on the Torrance side, and doesn’t look so great –   The inside isn’t much different.

There are quite a few wonderful homes in the middle somewhere – the median (home in the middle) is listed for $1,230,000 (they just reduced the price today actually from $1,244,000) and it is a very nice home – on the Torrance side – very close to the Riviera Elementary School and Rocketship Park and on a very quiet street.  It has been remodeled throughout and well and has 1553 sq ft w/ 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms (one is a master bath).  It’s quite  nice house actually –  The Hollywood Riviera is such a wonderful place to live – it fared well in 2007: actually seeing a 2.5% increase in average price over 2006 and more units sold – 2007 had 90 homes sell and 2006 had 88 homes sell. 

People often ask me about “As Is.”  What does it mean?  Is there something wrong with the property when part of the description says “as is?”  Frankly, I often tell them, all properties are sold AS IS per contract.  Adding the words “as is” to a property description is just emphasizing to a buyer that a seller is unwilling to do any work after the property is purchased.  If you refer to the CAR Purchase Agreement – paragraph 7A (i) - it states “Unless otherwise agreed property is sold in its PRESENT physical condition as of the date of Acceptance.”  If you read further within that same paragraph it also notes that the buyer has the right to inspect the property and is urged to do so, and that they are then allowed to either cancel the agreement or request repairs from the seller based on what they discover.  
     After an inspection a buyer often prepares a “request for repairs” and asks a seller to either repair certain items or credit the buyer for repairing those items themselves.   Basically, a whole new round of negotiations.  A seller has every right to say “we’re doing nothing.”  And the buyer has every right to “walk away.”  Bottomline, like every negotiation, both parties need to come to terms with each other and agree to agree.
     As you can see, AS IS, means nothing and everything at the same time.  Sellers need to disclose what they know could be a material defect to the property and Buyers need to investigate everything they think could effect the property. 

I have a client right now who just put his home up for lease.  After just one day we got a prospective tenant who wants to lease the home, but they have dogs.  This particular home is about ten years old and has the original carpet so it is pretty beat.  There is a very small backyard with a small bit of sod and some annuals around the edges.  The homeowner is concerned that the dogs might damage the backyard and/or the carpet.  Well the carpet is already beat so that is a non-issue.  The tenants would be putting down $5800 as a security deposit plus $500 as an additional pet deposit.  The homeowner decided to turn them down and wait to see if a family without pets wants to lease it.  The dog-owning tenants were ready to pay him 3K  month immediately.  By turning away these folks he could potentially loose 3K a month as it sits vacant, not leased.  Is the homeowner missing the point?  3K immediately in the pocket would more than make up for  any damage by the pets… (but really how much could it cost to put down new sod and annuals in a backyard not much bigger than a postage stamp?)  The monthly loss by keeping your home vacant needs to be considered when you are a landlord.

     What is churning and burning a listing?  It’s a little “tactic” some realtors use to make a listing appear “new” in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service.)  It is actually against our code of ethics as per our Palos Verdes Board of Realtors.  People do it anyway – all the time actually.  The Board came up with a new category in our MLS called “CDOM” (cumulative days on market) vs. the other category “DOM” (days on market.)  Typically we realtors see the DOM and then we look at the CDOM and know how many days a listing has really been on the market.  Even then it is not always accurate as there are some other “tricks/loopholes” some realtors have found to make their listing appear “fresh.” 
     Honestly, a good realtor should really always check the “History” of a listing to find out the real story of how long a particular property has been on the market.  History will show any and all transactions in the MLS for a certain address. 
     Why would someone do this anyway you ask?  There is a strong correlation between DOM and sales price.  The longer a house has been on the market the less they usually get to list price.  List price to sales price are usually closer to each other the shorter a house has been on the market.  Here is a graph showing the correlation for the Hollywood Riviera, CA.

   Realtors all have different opinions on this of course.  There are the realtors that do it and the realtors that don’t.  For example, Elaine Carlson, of Re/Max Palos Verde,s Realty in her recent post “Resetting DOM, Fair or Foul” mentions that it is a great marketing ploy, but wrong.  Lynne Pope - also of Re/Max Palos Verdes Realty, recently writes in her blog that she feels these people are “cheaters.”

First off, our Multiple Listing Service(MLS)  has strict rules about resetting DOM.  If you cancel a listing and re-list, you are required to send in a brand new listing agreement.  However, lets get real here… they only bust you if someone else sends in an email complaining about it, then you get the dreaded call from your board of realtors asking for a new contract.  As the market has slowed, more and more agents want to reset, as homes languish for 6 months and longer.    With the new CDOM(continual days on market)  function, even if you reset, you can still see the CDOM unless you take if off the market entirely for 2 months.  So the benefit has really been removed of resetting.  There are a few tech tricks that some Realtors have discovered which reprograms the system and resets both numbers back to 0 DOM and CDOM.  So just to be sure… always check the History if you are unsure if the home has been on the market recently.

 The South Bay of Los Angeles works to be a leader in recycling Household Hazardous Wastes.   There are two main drop off centers – one is the Hyperion Treatment Plant  (El Segundo, CA ) and the Gaffey Street S.A.F.E Collection Center (San Pedro, CA.)  The Hyperion Treatment Plant is open every Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM and the Gaffey Street S.A.F.E Collection Center is open every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.  These are permanent sights.

What is Household Hazardous Waste?

Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) is any product labeled: toxic, poison, corrosive, flammable, combustible or irritant. The health and safety of our community is endangered when these products are discarded in household garbage, sinks or storm drains. The amount of products from a single home may seem insignificant. However, when millions of homes across Los Angeles County use similar products, the combined effect becomes a major problem. The following are examples of HHW products that may be found in and around your home: