Broker’s Open House - what is it?

Broker’s Open House is one of the most important open houses a listing agent/seller can hold.  They are held during the week and during specific hours that are set by the local board of realtors.  For instance, in Redondo Beach, Hollywood Riviera and Torrance, Thursdays from 12-2 is the traditional time for broker’s to host their broker’s opens.  In Palos Verdes areas - Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes and Palos Verdes Estates - broker’s host their listings open on Tuesdays from 11-1.  The other main South Bay broker’s open house day is Friday and that is for the Hermosa & Manhattan Beach areas….that is also usually from 12-2.  It’s nice when the broker’s make it from 12-2:30 (or 1:30 in PV area) as sometimes their is a lot of area to cover in a short amount of time.   That extra half an hour can make a big difference.

Real estate agents advertise their broker’s opens lots of ways…but the most economical (free) and the easiest way for agents to find out what houses are open is right through our Multiple Listing Service.  We can easily load the open house times into the MLS and it’s easy to check that morning for the Open House List.  Of course, there are other means of advertising that work and many of us employ all the ways in order to attract as many agents as possible to the new listings.  The Easy Reader has a free open house listing for agents…you have to know what your plan is though by Tuesday at noon.  (PV agents never use any other way of advertising their Broker’s Opens though besides the MLS.  That makes life so easy, I’ll tell ya.  Wish the Beach Cities would jump on that boat.)  Professional Flyer Service hands out flyers that they drop off  for free at the different brokerages - seems like a waste of paper (and trees) to me.   Their is a fee for advertising w/ PFS.   Some of the title reps have a service they provide (also gratisse) to help in earning their client’s business….Jim McFarland w/ Southland Title does a great job of this.  And lastly, the Beach Reporter has a popular open house guide, especially for the Hermosa & Manhattan Beach properties.   I find it highly disorganized and hard to read though.  And I believe they used to offer this service of listing broker’s open houses for free and now they only will do it if you advertise in their publication. 

Agents typically provide lunch or snacks for the hungry agents that drive around from house to house checking out the new inventory.  Good agents do this on a regular basis to keep up with the new inventory.  Agents who specialize in certain areas typically just go on certain days.  You do tend to see the same agents over and over and these are typically the ones that are doing business….this is why they are doing business.  They are out working.  It is also a great way to network with other agents and discuss what may be coming on the market or how to improve listings or pricing strategies.  It is very important to get good feedback from the realtors that you work with.  You never know when they are going to be the agent you are working with to make a deal come together and it helps to get along. 

It’s here…yuck!  May-Gray to be followed by June-Gloom.  There is actually a definition in Wikipedia for May-Gray & June-Gloom…I’m shocked!  And it’s right on the money - “June Gloom (also May Gray) is a California term for a weather pattern that results in overcast skies with mild temperatures during the late spring and early summer….”  It also mentions that it may lead to “Seasonal  Affective Disorder” - depression basically. 

Here in the Hollywood Riviera and any other South Bay area with views, it is a horrible time to put a “VIEW” home on the market.  You can’t see a thing right now - on a clear day it feels like you could reach out and touch the Santa Monica Mountains and during May-Gray - forget that there are even mountains there.  One may even call you a liar if you told them there were mountains and/or an ocean out there in the pea-soup!

I sure hope it clears up for 4th of July this year.  The fireworks at Torrance Beach are gorgeous when you can see them!!  Let’s hope all hope for clear weather soon!  Here’s what it looks like on a clear day at the sunset hour!

424 Via La Selva - Gorgeous Remodeled Modern Architectural Ocean  & City View Home - priced at $1,849,000

308 Via Anita - Ocean Views from the Remodeled Kitchen & Family Room (Great Room) - priced at $1,399,000

308 Via El Chico - Panoramic Queen’s Necklace Views & Remodeled House - Priced at $1,199,000

We work for Sandra Sanders who is the broker/owner of Re/Max Palos Verdes Realty & Re/Max Execs.  We truly respect her and love how she runs her business.  One of the reasons is because this is the type of message she likes to put out to her agents.  This was part of our “What’s New at Re/Max Palos Verdes/Execs” newsletter this spring.  She sends this out quarterly.  I really liked her “Message from Sandra” this quarter and would like to share it!

“Years ago, a 10 year old boy went to the soda shop and asked the waitress, “What does an ice cream sundae cost?”
“Fifty Cents,” the waitress replied.

The little boy reached into his pocket and carefully counted his change as the waitress became more and more impatient.  She had “bigger” customers to wait on.

“How much for just plain ice cream?” the boy asked.  The waitress noticeably irritated, said “Thirty five cents.”  Again the boy slowly counted his money and then asked for a dish of plain ice cream and paid the correct amount.

Later, the waitress cleared the boy’s dish and there on the counter he had left two nickels and five pennies.  She realized that he had had enough money for the sundae, but had sacrificed so that he could leave her a tip.

The moral of the story: Before passing judgment, first treat others with courtesy, dignity and respect.  

We are still seeing multiple offers believe it or not ~ music to our seller’s ears ~ but they are not the same multiple offers of the last 5 years.  Now we are seeing “lowball multiple offers.”  And this is after only days on the market when the buyers know there are other offes.  We just had one where the buyer actually made their counter offer worse than their original offer and this was in a  multiple offer situation.  Crazy!  They did not get the house!

Pricing is all too critical now for sellers.  Staging is critical as well…having “the house on the market” that stands out from the rest and that is priced slightly under it’s competition is the key.  Pricing is not as easy to do as it was over the last 5 years.  Our number of sales are way down, so there is little sold inventory to compare to.  Even though our 2008 sold prices are seemingly 6% higher than this time same quarter 2007, one can not build that into their sales price.  I would ascertain that the 6% rise in average price for the Hollywood Riviera this year over last is due to some very high end homes selling this year and thus raising the average.  We have also seen the lowest price sale in a long time occur this year -2008- $575,000 for a fixer upper in the lower Torrance side of the Riviera.  That is lower than the last low sale of $605,000 which was an even worse location on the Pacific Coast Highway service street of the lower Torrance side of the Riviera.    We have quite a diversity of homes in our “designated-by-the-MLS” Hollywood Riviera neighborhood.  There are definitely two sides to the Riviera and two separate price ranges that go along with the different addresses. 

To date the 90277 (Redondo Beach) side of the Riviera has an average sales price of $1,375K and the 90505 (Torrance) side of the Riviera has an average sales price of $946K.  That is a $444,000 price discrepancy.  Wow - a 32% price difference. 

This is interesting here….the Redondo Beach side (90277 only) had an average price of sold homes this same period last year (Jan 1 - May 2, 2007) of $1,195K.  That means the RB side has gone up 14% year over year - same time period.  Now the number of sales has gone down from 23 last year to 11 this year…that’s more than a 50% drop.   The Torrance side had an average price this same period last year of $951K and it’s $946K this year.  They had a drop in their year over year average price of 1/2%.  Not much, but not the increase in average price the RB side had.  There were 7 houses sold in 2007 Jan - May 2nd 2007 and 9 solds for 2008.   About the same which makes their numbers a bit more in line with each other. 

Here’s the map of the Riviera with the dividing line in different colors.

9 South Bay schools were inducted into these ranks this year - they include:

Torrance Unified - Riviera Elementary, Arnold Elementary, Towers Elementary & Edison Elementary.

Redondo Beach Unified - Jefferson & Tulita Elementary Schools.

El Segundo Unified - Center Street & Richmond Elementary

Congratulations to our terrific South Bay Elementary Schools.  Note that the middle and high schools receive the awards on alternate years.   

This is a photo taken in July 1951 on Calle de Madrid - a street at the top of the Riviera (also considered the “Upper Hollywood Riviera.̶   It’s super cool - check out the cars!  The man who took the photo was amazed at how you used to be able to see views from so many places in the Riviera before all the trees grew up!  The trees in this photo are around 3 years old…as the homes in this photo were mostly built around 1948.  I am going to post a picture of this same spot as soon as the next clear day comes around so we can compare the views then vs. now.  Love the “woody” in the background! 

As far as what’s in escrow currently - there are 9 homes pending sale and their average days on market was also 61.  2 of those properties reduced their price once before going under contract.  The highest price pending home is $1,999,000 for a gorgeous new construction home with an ocean view on the corner of Calle Mayor and Via Pasqual.  It’s not quite done yet and never hit the MLS as active; it just came on as pending.  The lowest price pending property is $650,000 and it’s down on Highgrove and needed some work. 

As far as what’s sold this year - 2008 - we’ve got 16 sales so far.  It’s a far cry from this time last year (2007 had 28 homes sold by now) as far as number of units sold.  This year is off by 43% for number of units sold. A lot of people are clearly “waiting it out.”  We do have the same number of actively listed homes though - but many of those have been on the market a long time….a couple for over a year!  The only good news here for 2008 so far is that the average price is actually up 8% with the average price for 2008 sales coming in at $1,228K and average price from 2007 sales (same period January 1st - April 22nd) coming in at $1,129K.   The most expensive home sold in 2008 so far was $2,425,000 and it was gorgeous with the most amazing views!!  It is one of the most expensive homes ever sold here in the Riviera, short of the homes on the Paseo de la Playa bluffs.  The least expensive home sold in 2008 was $605,000 on that same PCH service street as mentioned above. 

One area to look at as well when mentioning the Hollywood Riviera is the difference in the Torrance side (90505) and the Redondo Beach side (90277.)   See my article - “Hollywood Riviera - Where is that Anyway” for a map of the different sides.  The Torrance side’s solds in 2008 average price was $958,00 (6 units) and the Redondo Beach side’s average price was $1,390,000 (10 units.)  Big Difference here!

Stay tuned for next months update!

The Redondo Beach SEA Lab and the Redondo Beach Department of Public Works is hosting “Come Celebrate Earth Day 2008!”  The event is scheduled from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm today and is FREE!  You can trade your plastic bags in for reusable tote bags, join in on the Beach Clean Up, take an aquarium tour, watch a composting demonstration and more!  There will be live music and entertainment as well as games, and prizes!  Come celebrate Earth Day and join in our Wonderful Community!

The SEA Lab offers another way to be good to our earth and give back to the community - every 3rd Saturday of the month they work to restore the Redondo Beach Bluffs!  Volunteers of all ages and abilities are invited to help the SEA Lab restore the bluffs.  Show up at 10am at the big tent between Avenue I and Vista Del Mar.  Remember to bring a hat, sunscreen and some water.  For more information or to RSVP, call Monica at (310) 318-7411.

There are several cities within the state of CA that also offer the Mills Act.  For Example, in Floral Park, CA (Tustin area) Sandy DeAngelis notes in her Historic Homes blog that they often look to the Mills Act for preservation of property and tax savings.

Here in Redondo Beach there are several homes that have been designated as local Landmarks!  This one is at 213 Avenue C. 
And this is at 510 Garnet. 
  This gorgeous home is located on 501 Ave B.  All these homes have their own character and uniqueness that make our local community something to cherish and preserve for later generations to enjoy!

http://www.redondobeachhistorical.org/millsact.htm