Hollywood Riviera & South Bay Real Estate Blog

What are some of the requirements to getting your home SOLD in today’s market?
Lights, Camera, Staged – SOLD!

Lights – a seller always wants to make a home feel light and bright.  Open all blinds and turn on all lights during all showings.  Part of this includes cleaning out those dust and bug filled light fixtures.  Light makes everything shine.  Another important showing aspect would be to add music…something soft.  Think about going shopping at Nordstrom’s -the lights are on and often strategically placed and there is always nice music.  Create the right atmosphere!

Camera – Digital Photography is a big part of today’s home sales.  A big part.    We use a great ”real estate camera” the Kodak v570 which has a nice wide angle lens and takes great real estate pictures.  Rooms can look quite a bit larger on film than a regular camera and it doesn’t make that weird “fish eye look.”   We’ve come up with some great Panoramic shots with it as a matter of fact!   Sometimes hiring a professional photographer can be the best thing to do, but whatever it takes – get great photos!  MLS, marketing brochures, & virtual tours are based on these still photos, and any other good marketing pieces.  Over 80% of people begin their search online and many savvy buyers use the internet to base their choices on what homes to go see.

Staged – It is critical today to be the house on the market that shows the best.  You’ve got to stand out in the crowd today.  Not only price, but Look Great!  90% of buyers don’t have the imaginatin to see past clutter or unstylish furnishings.  Nor do they have the ability to see how they would place their furniture in a vacant home, especially if there is a room that may be a bit awkward.   Prospective buyers make a decision on your home within the first few minutes of walking through the front door.  Staging creates a series of good first impressions that will make potential buyers want to linger and move in not move on.

It’s a combination of marketing efforts of course, but we’ve found that Lights, Camera, Staged usually lead to SOLD!

Click, Click on through in the world of “Blogging” there sure are some great spots to visit.  Of course, depending on your passions, this list can be quite different.  I’ve found a few here that have interest to me.  I am a South Bay real estate agent and finding anything related to the South Bay is of high importance.  There is a local title rep, Christian Steffereud, who works for Orange Coast Title with his business partner, Debbie Rodriguez.  They have come up with a cool blogging site entitled South Bay Marketplace.  First of all, I like the name a lot!  Second of all – they have some pretty cool articles and “sound bites” that would be interesting to most everyone.  Third of all, there is a list of South Bay City links that are quite useful….here they are:

South Bay City Links
Carson
El Segundo
Hawthorne
Hermosa Beach
Inglewood
Lawndale
Lomita
Manhattan Beach
Palos Verdes Estates
Rancho Palos Verdes
Redondo Beach
Rolling Hills
Rolling Hills Estates
San Pedro
Torrance

Next, I love Sunset Magazine – today I was checking out a new blog they mentioned entitled: “HouseMartin -Inspired House & Floral” .    So, I had to click on and see what interesting things I could find.  They sure have some gorgeous inspirational floral pics…..check this one out…  Helleborus – I’ve never heard of that flower before, but I’ll remember it from now on.  This is in a pot on her porch mixed with some other “most likely ordinary” but don’t look ordinary anymore plants.  When visitng her blog of course, one click leads to another….and I’m off to a Daily Wedding Inspiration blog (where was this when I was planning all that?) with the cutest name Snippet & Ink.   Talk about some gorgeous photos…wow!  She comes up with these gorgeous “Inspiration Boards” for brides to peruse and get ideas – they are works of art in and of themselves…

Well – one could spend hours just clicking through “blog sites” and there are so many out there.  My prediction though is that we will see many more to come!

I came across a good blog written by one of our real estate colleagues, Elaine Carlson, also of RE/MAX Palos Verdes Realty.  She mentions in her article about Palos Verdes Estateshow Frank Vanderlip Sr. and partners bought the entire Palos Verdes Peninsula in 1913 for $1,500,000.  Can you imagine?  In today’s dollars you’d get one house for that price – here’s one for example – 1305 Via Zumaya – listed for $1,495,000 – it’s been on the market for 17 days so far and sadly there is only one photo of the ocean view.  (this is one of my pet peeves – a listing with no photos of the house – leads one to believe that this house is a “fixer upper.”)  Here’s the ocean view photo…. So in today’s dollar this is the view you can get along with a house that needs some work.  The question is – how much was $1,500,000 worth in today’s dollars?   According to http://www.MeasuringWorth.com it is worth $31,500,000 using the Consumer Price Index.  That’s a lot of money Frank Vanderlip Sr and his partners ponied up!

There are many marketing tools in a realtor’s arsenal to get a house sold but the best one and most important one is Pricing!  Everyone wants to sell their house for “top dollar” – everyone!  The job of  realtor who is really doing their job is to price it right.  Here in the Hollywood Riviera homes that are priced right and in top showing condition sell quickly and some in “multiple offers.”  Yes, I said multiple offers.  They still exist and there is no getting one on an “overpriced listing.”  If a buyer is not even interested in the house – if their agent isn’t telling their buyer this is a good deal – then they are certainly not going to spend an “extra” $10K – $30K.  Now get more than one party interested in the house and you’ve got the right atmosphere for more of an “auction” if you will. 

We believe in “staging” a home to get people really excited about a home’s potential – it’s funny, even though a buyer is not buying the furnishings/accessories, if it’s shown with really great stuff they can somehow see themselves in the house.  Often if you create the right mood – people will want to buy the house for the lifestyle it offers.   People want “move in condition” these days.  They want to feel like they got a house that was “wanted” by others – it is perceived to have more value that way.  This is part of the key to pricing – create value! This is an idea of “setting the mood.”  What a great house with a great view…it was completely staged and really looked amazing!

A seller wants to sell their house for $1.4K and a buyer wants to buy a house for $1.399K – it’s perceived as a lower price although it sure is close.  The retail stores of the world know this and use it almost exclusively. 

As you can only imagine, we see a lot of great property descriptions in our business.  There are the typical ones, charming, cozy, all original, etc….

But now I’ve heard it all when I read this the other day – actually I was thinking “now there’s a good one that I am going to file away for future use!”  (hee, hee..)  Here it is…..“unhampered by customizations that you may not want.”   I love it!  Now we went to go see this house that was “unhampered” and I’ll tell you, it was not bad.  Great pool in sunny front courtyard on a nice quiet street in Rolling Hills Estates (90274 – get your kids in the PV school system!) and yes, the house needs some work, but for $1,049,000 what do you want!   Here’s the picture of “unhampered.”

As of today, there are 20 homes for sale in the Hollywood Riviera.  Of those 20, only 8 are in the Redondo Beach P.O. Box area.  The average price of the 20 homes for sale is $1.275K and the average days on market is 76. 

There are 10 homes pending sale right now (or in escrow.)  That’s a good ratio for our area.  The average price of the 10 in escrow is $1.218K and an average of 60 days on market.

There have been 13 sales (homes sold) since January 1st, 2008.  The average price of those homes is $1.189K and the average days on market of those homes was 53.

All in all, the Riviera is moving along nicely for 2008.  90 homes sold in 2007, and that was an increase over 2006 of +2 homes.  The first quarter of 2008 ends on March 31st – only 2 weeks away.  Typically the first quarter is one of the slowest so, we are not doing too badly at this point.  Strangely, the same date range last year showed the same amount of sales – 13 closed sales happened Jan 1st – March 19th 2007.  We are following along the same path as last year, so considering all the “doom & gloom” news about the real estate market, we aren’t doing too badly.

One of the comments I hear the most when holding open houses in the Hollywood Riviera has to do with the utility poles.  Often the comment comes in the form of a question, “so when are the utility poles going to be undergrounded?” 

My new response is “I used to think they would be undergrounded in “my lifetime”, but now I doubt that.”  The Hollywood Riviera has its own Homeowners Associationthat has a link on their website to the City of Torrance Engineering Dept for further information.  (I just went there though and the link no longer goes anywhere?)  It will be very expensive this proposition.  It would take a vote amongst the Riviera homeowners and for those owners that have been here for 50 years – ask me why they would want to pay an enormous amount of money for something they have been living with for a long time.  It’s the new homeowners moving in today that seem to notice the poles and the wires that hang off of them.  With the cable companies adding their mess of wires to the whole thing, it’s not pretty.  For those homeowners with a view – it is those properties that are most affected by the wires/poles actually – they have the most to gain if the utility poles were to be undergrounded. 

From what I hear, it would take a large majority of the people to agree to the vote – they usually do it street by street.  Then there would be an assessment placed on your property tax bill that would be paid over a certain amount of time.  There are other costs involved though – getting the new undergrounded utilities to your house…..if you have any kind of “hardscape” in the affected area this could be very expensive to re-route.  Then the electrical box on your house would have to be updated to accept the new undergrounded electrical lines and cable lines coming in.  Of course in the end, it sure would look prettier.  One other thing to consider, when there is a “power outage” it is harded to fix from what I hear, then the power companies need to “find” the problem – which they can’t see without digging.  As it is now, they can at least “see” the problem.

On the upside  – if you were to find a positive spin on the utility poles – I have them in my backyard – you get to see all sorts of neat birds and squirrells hanging out on them!  I like that part!

Did you know you would have to be 95 years old to have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day and Easter in the same month?

You might be interested in this Trivia: The date of this coming Easter is quite early this year:

Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st Full Moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20th.)  This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.  Here’s the interesting info.  This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives!  And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!)  And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier!  Here’s the facts:
    1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now.)  The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that.)
    2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now.)  The last time it was on March 22 was 1818.  So, no one alive today will ever see it any earlier than this year!

Have you been to the Riviera Village lately?  There are some cool new hot spots there.  Food wise – Creme de la Crepe  just opened near Hennesseys.  It’s a cool french crepe store and the waiters are really french.  The guy who helped us the other day was just learning english, but that didn’t hinder his good spirits – we had great service.  We brought our own wine and they corked it for us…not a bad corkage fee.  We had dinner crepes and dessert crepes.  The dessert crepes were my favorite.  The place was packed – I would recommend a reservation.  They always seem to have a crowd a breakfast time too.  The Riviera Village really needed a place like this.  I am awaiting yet another new eatery that is supposed to be european in nature where the old Redondo Village Sports used to be.  Guess he also owns the Playa store so he’s combining the whole thing into one location.  Bottomline: the crepe store is a “yes, go do it!”

On a completely different note – but also new in the Riviera Village – we have the Ma Me Spa.  Here’s an idea for you if you have children, especially young ones.  Go get a manicure, pedicure, facial or massage and bring the kids and have them watch them for you at the same time!  A true spa get away without the guilt!  What a gorgeous boutique they have as well – fine organic products to take home and pamper yourself there as well as gorgeous baby & mommy gifts!  They also do couples night out – the two of you get a night out or a pampering spa treatment for two and babysitting all in one place..not bad! 

I was out the other night in the Village at Friends of the Vine – they are not new – actually think they’ve been there quite a while now.  What a great place – great atmosphere, great service, great food (hors d’oerves) and of course, great wine!  You can go and buy wonderful wine there as well as wine accessories if you need a nice gift for a wine lover.  Seems like you always run into someone you know there, so head on down and enjoy an evening at Friends of the Vine in the Village!

You want some luxury real estate?  Check out Palos Verdes Estates – a beautiful part of the Palos Verdes Peninsula mainly occupying the west and north end of the peninsula.   Valmonte, Malaga Cove, Monte Malaga and Lunada Bay are the players here.  Currently there are a total of 51 homes for sale in PVE.  Let’s look at each small section and see what’s looking hot.

Valmonte – the northern-most neighborhood (sometimes referred to as the Grove because of all the eucalyptus trees there.)  There is also an “exclusive to PVE residents” golf and tennis country club - the PV Country Club….the clubhouse was just re-built and is gorgeous.  Valmonte borders the South Torrance Beaches and is the closest PVE neighborhood to the Beach Cities.  Currently there are all of 9 homes for sale there – the inventory is dramatically low.  That neighborhood experienced a 4% increase in its average sales price - 2007 vs 2006…not bad for a “bad year.”  The lowest priced home right now is listed for $999,999 (a “diamond in the rough” the listing starts off…although it doesn’t look too bad from the photo) and the most expensive home lists for $2.550 million (new construction – something we don’t see too much of and nicely staged inside.)

Next we’re off to Malaga Cove – one of the more expensive and beautiful parts of the Peninsula.  The ”Beach Club” is located in Malaga Cove.   Currently there are 6 homes for sale to chose from in this gorgeous bluffside neighborhood.  The least expensive home is $1,695,000 and is a fixer upper with quite a smashing view.    Something you can “make your own.”  Or – you could go to the high end of the list and spend $4.2 million on a “build your dream home later” 1-1/4 acre panoramic ocean view lot.

Next we head up the hill – to Monte Malaga – there are some serious views of the Queen’s Necklace from up here.  As of today – there are 18 homes for sale here (the highest amount of inventory is in this neighborhood of PVE.)  The least expensive home is listed for $1,449,00 right now and is located on Granvira Altimira – a main road that runs through PVE and takes you into Rancho Palos Verdes.  It is also a “fantastic opportunity” to build your dream house later….it does offer some views and a pool.   So what’s the most expensive house in PVE – it’s in Monte Malaga and its list price is $12,990,000…strangely there is only one picture in the MLS for this one.  Guess when you’re thinking of spending $12.9 million dollars one picture is enough???  Here’s the picture that’s going to sell you a $12.9 million dollar house – ready?!  Don’t know if that picture is knocking my socks off. 

The last and most southerly bluff-side neighborhood of Palos Verdes Estates is the ever lovely, Lunada Bay.  Noted for it’s gorgeous fountain right in the middle of the Drive (Palos Verdes Drive West.)  Inventory in Lunada Bay is more plentiful and you have 18 homes to chose from starting at an “affordable” $1,049,000 – and this is a brand new listing – first showings will be Tuesday from 11-1 for the brokers…..it’s pretty much all original with wood paneling.  The upper end of Lunada Bay is not too bad – $3.495 affords you amazing ocean & Catalina Island views including romantic sunset views as evidenced by our MLS lead photo for the property This home offers over 6200 sq ft in two remodeled floors including a beautiful kitchen…seems like a lot of house to me. 

Palos Verdes Estates is a wonderful place to call home.  They tout their wonderful school system – Palos Verdes Unified School District - some of the best around – as well as many acres of parkland.  Wouldn’t be be a bad place to end up if you ask me!