In today’s Union-Tribune they quote nine different people about the real estate market, and the reports are remarkably similar. Let’s give them some credit, at least they are getting closer to the truth – the lower end is hot, and the higher end is not:
San Diego County home prices remained virtually flat in March for the third straight month, with sales of entry-level homes the strongest, in the clearest sign yet that at least the market’s bottom rung may have stabilized.
The county’s median price was $285,000, unchanged from February and up $5,000 from January, MDA DataQuick reported yesterday. Sales skyrocketed to 3,020, up 43 percent from a year ago; it was the biggest increase for any March in five years.
Local buying has been dominated by low-priced foreclosure homes, which represented 51.1 percent of all resales last month, DataQuick said. It was the fourth month in a row that more than half of resales were foreclosure properties.
Prices on those discounted properties are clearly attracting heightened interest from first-time buyers and investors. Agents such as Calvin Goad report multiple bids, often above the asking price. He recently drew nine offers on a $384,000 home in two days, with some over the $400,000 mark.
“Most of those buyers have been hanging on, trying to get the incredible deal, and the incredible deal is gone now – it was a couple months ago,” Goad said.
The only thing a stable median price might mean is that there could be more higher-end sellers who are starting to cave and actually selling their home, which would help balance the midpoint.
We have nine offers in on Dixon, and the seller/bank countered for their highest and best offer. Later today we should have a winner somewhere in the mid-$300,000s.
One of the offers is $367,500 VA, and they’re asking for a 3% credit for closing costs, and another 3% for discount points.
Typical closing costs for buyers run from 1.0% to 1.5%, where does the other 4.5% to 5.0% go?
We probably won’t have to worry about it, because the REO managers are going to take a lower offer with a higher net, and not have to sweat an appraisal issue.
If your loan broker is telling you that you need an extra 4.5% to 5.0% packed into your offer, and to just raise the price to compensate – go find another lender!
Here are the guesses for our contest:
Guess
Guesser
$1
shadash
$199,000
arizonadude
$305,000
Genius
$310,000
Kook1315
$311,000
Wes
$312,000
NateTG
$314,000
greenlander
$314,900
No_Such_Reality
$316,000
REB
$318,500
Erin
$319,000
The Wood
$320,000
jose
$321,000
GameAgent
$321,500
mybleachhouse
$322,500
CA renter
$323,000
Dwalla
$323,500
DKO
$324,000
gywright
$324,600
Custerdome
$325,000
Susan
$325,000
nolongerjoerenter
$325,000.43
Renter Pete in Carlsbad
$327,000
bobfather99
$327,500
IRE
$327,900
no bubble here
$328,500
mtb
$329,500
sosad
$330,000
Steve
$330,000
Geotpf
$331,000
m
$331,500
4s Renter
$332,000
Dave
$333,500
CB Mark
$334,000
Erica Douglass
$335,000
Kwaping
$336,000
Poorhouse
$337,500
Blissful Ignoramus
$338,000
OCVulture
$338,500
Angela
$338,500
mab
$339,462.20
Mozart
$340,000
Kompeitou
$340,000
tjandthebear
$340,250
rbresident
$340,500
Al in IC
$344,800
Rob Dawg
$345,000
doughboy
$346,000
Atenbrown
$346,800
FreedomCM
$347,000
sd nerd
$349,000
Don Q
$349,500
Myriad
$355,000
Mojo
$362,000
Stephen Waits
$415,000
newbie
The list price is $314,900. Here is the link to the original post on the contest, with video: Four Padres Tickets!
The foreclosure carnage in Chula Vista has been well-documented. The McMillin-built tracts on the east side of town have been hammered, but hey, there’s nothing price won’t fix!
There are 49 houses on Blairwood Avenue, and 8 of them have been in foreclosure recently. Two already resold, three have been served notice, and three are bank-owned and in the process of being resold.
When new in late-2004 and 2005, the majority of these homes sold in the $600,000s, a few sold in the $700,000s, and a handful sold in the low-$800,000s.
Today’s market? This 3,181sf house listed for $399,000!
The recent model-match comps:
$420,000 SOLD 1/30/09 Short Sale
$480,000 SOLD 2/27/09 REO
$479,000 PEND 3/12/09 REO
The $399,000 list price may have been determined before this recent activity.
Let’s review on some of the more-interesting closings this month:
5167 Los Robles, Carlsbad
2 br/2 ba, 1,468sf
LP:$875,000 10/19/08
SP:$696,000 4/1/09
YB: 1952
DOM: 95
This is the impeccably-maintained but all-original beach bungalow in Terramar. The listing agent from Escondido had a small stake in the outcome, but most of the estate’s proceeds went to the zoo. The agent must not have been too concerned about the monkeys, because not only did he dump on price, he also paid one point plus $10,000 of the buyer’s closing costs. A similar house across the street just listed for $899,000, and has two offers in.
This had several offers and fell out of escrow 2-3 times over the last six months, but finally closed at 32% below last sales price. Here’s a video tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfC1k3zIag8
The last sale of this model closed at $949,000 on March 12th, and boom, three weeks later this one sells for $164,000 less. An example of how an original owner can undercut the masses and get out, and leave everyone else wondering what happened. Future buyers gravitate to a comp-killer like this, yet sellers want to ignore them.
The neighborhood is Arroyo Vista, which is in the prime Encinitas School District too, not some foo-foo Aviara-close tract or a house in the San Marcos School District.
The seller had invested $300,000 into the tricked-out pool and landscaping, but didn’t expect to recoup much of it, listing for a reasonable $1.595 million. They had 10-12 offers. Note that these were Shea tract homes when built in 1989.
This is good news for those who remember when you could get a prime Covenant location for around a million dollars – it appears that those days are coming back!
Last year a 3,000sf house that listed under $1 million would sell quickly – now the bar is down around $900,000. Glacier-like price movement in 92130, but not a ton selling either, with 131 of 219 active listings being over $1,000,000, and only three closed over a million dollars in April so far.
Wondering what the FDIC is doing with all the incoming assets? You’ll see that it doesn’t take a billion dollars to participate, they have sold several bulks under $1,000,000.
Thet’ve been selling our residential assets for 37 cents on the dollar on average (actual vs. book value), and commercial is going out at roughly 53 cents on the dollar. A spreadsheet of a sampling of this year’s sales:
The Somali pirate story bumped us off tonight’s Nightline show, and no other date has been determined.
It happened like this with the L.A. Times story too, and was drawn out for weeks. Rather than do the start-stop thing with you, I’ll just post a link to it once it’s done.
I’d put my ice cream truck drivers up against those pirates any day!
