The other two neighborhoods I mentioned as “superior homes” to watch were Davidson’s Starboard tract in La Costa Oaks, and the old beach community, Terramar. How are they doing?
The number of sales have been low, and data scattered in both areas.
Here are the same-house sales in Starboard, listed in chronological order of their resale date, with the only three 2008 sales in bold:
| Floor Plan | Sales Price, New | Resale Price, Date | % Diff |
| Plan One | |||
| 3,743sf | $1.123, 2/05 | $1.200, 5/06 | +7% |
| 3,743sf | $913K, 3/05 | $1.130, 7/07 | +24% |
| 3,743sf | $992K, 4/05 | $1.175, 7/07 | +18% |
| 3,743sf | $997K, 11/05 | $1.070, 9/07 | +7% |
| 3,743sf | $1.008, 4/05 | $1.007, 11/07 REO | -0- |
| 3,743sf | $999K, 12/05 | $900K, 6/08 REO | -10% |
| Plan Two | |||
| 4,000sf | $1.025, 12/06 | $1.150, 5/07 | +12% |
| 4,000sf | $983K, 6/05 | $1.167, 6/07 | +19% |
| 4,000sf | $956K, 3/05 | $1.200, 7/07 | +26% |
| 4,000sf | $1.156, 12/05 | $1.150, 4/08 | -1% |
| 4,216sf | $1.065, 9/05 | $1.095, 6/08 | +3% |
| Plan Three | |||
| 4,398sf | $1.009, 3/05 | $1.165, 10/06 | +15% |
| 4,398sf | $975K, 4/05 | $1.024, 4/07 | +5% |
The second REO sale had listed for $849,000, and the agent already had the buyer standing by at $900,000 – it went pending the first day, and could have sold for more.
There is an active short-sale listing of a 3,743sf plan, listed on the range $949,000 to $1,049,000, and a PENDING 4,398sf plan, listed for $1,549,000 to $1,649,000.
I think this is going to be typical in the prime areas from now on – lower short-sale or REO listings closing under the trend, interspersed with primo listings going for top dollar. The future sales depend on how many homeowners can’t hang on – about half of them had equity in the 0-20% range.
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Terramar has been beating the odds.
In May of this year, there were three different 1,500sf houses sell in the $800,000s on El Arbol and Los Robles, similar to sales in 2005.
There have been two shockers lately too.
The nutty 1,399sf house with a studio over the garage on the non-oceanfront side of Shore Drive closed for $1,600,000 cash to an Arizona buyer. It had sold in 2002 for $750,000.
And the 2,760sf house at 5390 Los Robles closed at $1,225,000 to a buyer from Simi Valley on 9/4/08. I had it listed for $349,000 in 1995 and couldn’t sell it – everyone thought I was crazy. The owner finally did get lucky and sold it for $762,500 in August, 2003.
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The fewer sales in both areas help illustrate the difficulty for buyers looking for prime properties – do you keep waiting for lower prices, or take your shot when you have it, because of the few choices available?
Jim,
Believe it or not I am heartened by the persistence of high end pricing. There really aren’t very many “prime properties.” My thesis was about the mundane having in the past commanded prime prices and thus when they failed dragging the top down when trend reversed.
I have absolutely no explanation( or excuse) as to why anything mid 2005 is selling for more today. I include landscaping and aging out of Mello-Roos in that calculation.
We all understand the numbers are so small error bars are extreme. Still, the best (weak) thing I can say is that
Ignore the “outliers”.” I think JtR will agree. Not just the shocking high prices but I am beginning to see, ummm… non arms length transactions sneaking into the data. Face it. A divorce settlement won’t trigger either Case-Shiller or Zillow exceptions.
From the Dow Jones newswire:
“U.S. mortgage rates edged slightly higher this week, according to Freddie Mac’s (FRE) weekly survey, released on Thursday. “Average mortgage rates were nearly unchanged during the past week, leaving rates above the levels of two weeks ago,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist, in a news release. “Reflecting the rate uptick from two weeks ago, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that loan applications were down 23% last week.” The rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.10% for the week ending Oct. 2, up from last week’s 6.09% average. The mortgage averaged 6.37% a year ago.”
Isn’t it shocking that rates haven’t gone up much, given the financial turmoil?
Isn’t it shocking that rates haven’t gone up much, given the financial turmoil?
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IMHO, rates have shot up to where they should be — that’s why the LIBOR and commercial paper rates are so high right now. As fractional reserve’s “fake” money is being unwound, the monetary base is shrinking…supply and demand, less money, higher rates. It’s also why existing mortgage paper is being priced so low/effectively increasing the interest rate earned on those loans (in addition to default rates). It’s also the reason govt took over Fannie and Freddie, and why they are offering to buy mortgage-related products via the bailout — because they knew rates were going to skyrocket, which would have made housing prices plummet further (lowering the price of existing mortgage debt and related paper), which would have greatly exaggerated the credit market problems that already exist.
The ONLY reason we are seeing low mortgage rates right now is because the govt (that’s us) is subsidizing them.
How good of us. 😛
OK, I have no particular insight into how commercial lending works, but wouldn’t it have been better if the government simply entered that market instead of doing this bailout? Maybe entered it in some indirect way, such insuring the commercial loans for some modest proportional fee? All the gab seems to be that the reason we need a bailout is to prevent a lockup of the commercial credit market. OK, I can see that. But presumably these short term commercial loans (not talking home mortgages here) are pretty low risk. At least, they don’t pay much interest. So wouldn’t it make more sense for a two-year (say) program of the government guaranteeing those sort of safe commercial loans for a not-too-big extra fee, instead of buying securities we all know are crap in hope that THAT will get banks to lend money more easily? It seems like it would accomplish the desired objective (un-freezing commercial loans) much more directly, and at a far lower cost to the taxpayers than the path we appear to be taking.
Why, that would be **socialism** and we can’t have that, can we?
See…as long as we do it the convoluted way, we can pretend that we are capitalists (and reclaim business once things become profitable again). If we allow the government to intervene now, what’s to guarantee we’d be able to get back into the business and make all our profits if/when things get better?
Best to be capitalists! Keep the profits for the private sector. The losses?? Well, the government (that’s us, again) can handle that part.
Speaking of which… All that money these guys earned during the boom years had to have gone *somewhere*. I’d feel much better about all this bailing-out if we could recover at least some of that.
Let’s see, maybe go after Hummer dealerships? Or Sony’s LCD TV division? Or perhaps strippers? Sounds like some investigative journalism is called for, Kwaping.
The pending Plan Three closed yesterday for $1,504,000. Incredible price!