Suspended reclaimed-wood beams radiate toward the great room of this custom Scottsdale residence, highlighting its structural integrity. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, a signature stacked-stone-and-copper fireplace wall at the home’s alfresco living room reflects its indoor counterpart. The concept truly blurs the line between indoors and out.
More photos: http://www.contemporist.com/2012/10/15/pass-residence-by-tate-studio-architects/
A visual pun erected by an unknown prankster had motorists scratching their heads earlier this week in the La Costa area of Carlsbad.
Someone bolted a 6-foot-tall sculpture of a fork to the paved median at the intersection of Levante Street and Anillo Way, where Anillo forks away from Levante, a few blocks east of El Camino Real and south of La Costa Boulevard.
By 2 p.m. Wednesday, the upright “fork in the road” sculpture – which was appropriately silver colored, but appeared to be made out of wood – was gone, replaced by a 2-foot-tall, hand-lettered sign that said, “Why the fork not?”
Several city officials said Wednesday morning they had seen digital pictures of the large utensil, but no one seemed to know where it came from.
Searching for homes on-line is informative and highly encouraged, but if you are a realtor you really should be seeing homes in person. Agents working with buyers benefit from tracking the new inventory, but you always see the best listing agents on tour too. Why? The listing agents who have seen the comps are giving the most accurate advice to their sellers:
From Zillow: The inventory of lower-priced homes for sale, which are commonly sought by first-time homebuyers, has dropped by more than 40 percent in California over the past year, according to a new Zillow analysis, which tracks changes in the number of homes listed for sale on Zillow across the country as of Sept. 30, 2012 and compares inventory changes in the bottom, middle and upper tiers of home prices.
“First-time homebuyers are being squeezed out of the market by falling inventory and the rapid influx of investors looking to buy basic homes to rent out to the growing population of people who have recently been foreclosed upon,” said Stan Humphries, Zillow chief economist. “Investors are paying in cash and can close sooner, which is more favorable to banks and homeowners looking to sell.”
Nationally, inventory rates have dropped by one-fifth (-19.4 percent) across all homes with inventory declining the most in higher-priced homes (-22 percent).
In the largest 30 metro areas, inventory across all tiers has fallen the most in the Sacramento (-42.4 percent), San Francisco, (-42.4 percent) and San Diego (-40.7 percent) metros; and has fallen the least in the Cincinnati (-9.5 percent), Portland, Ore. (-10.8 percent) and St. Louis, Mo. (-14.5 percent) areas.
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While these percentages seem shocking, this isn’t bad news – it’s a sign of an active, productive marketplace. There has been a similar supply of homes for sale, they are just selling faster. The overall counts look fairly subtle too:
Total Number of MLS Listings, Jan 1st to Oct. 15th
2011 – 57,800
2012 – 52,300 -10%
Total Number of Det. & Att. Listings Sold, Jan 1st to Oct. 15th
2011 – 25,994
2012 – 28,847 +11%
Housing Tracker shows that the active inventory is at all-time lows – but they include the contingents:
Compare these counts for San Diego County, and how things have changed since early 2009 when the market first started to pick up:
| SD County Det. & Att | Actives | Cont & Pend | Ratio |
| Sept. 2008 | |||
| Oct. 2009 | |||
| Oct. 2012 |
What a difference since 2008! Plus we saw that half of the listings are going contingent/pending within the first 2-4 weeks too. It’s a hyper-fast, efficient market, if you can just get the price right.
Here is the 59-minute video of the discussion from the recent Zillow Forum On California Housing – the title of this discussion is:
Is it a Good Time to Buy in California?: The Housing Market’s New Normal
I agreed with Mark around the 41-minute market that we are heading for a paralysis, where the investors run out of reasonably-priced supply to purchase, and equity sellers keep holding out for higher prices. We have become dependent on the distressed sale!
Even though this is over the ridge and closer to the freeway, the yard alone will sell this one:
When Grant Fry spotted a listing one night for a four-bedroom house in Orange that seemed to be exactly what he was seeking, he knew he had to move fast. He showed up at the home the next day: “We were here. Bam.” He submitted an offer five hours later, at the full asking price of $479,000.
The seller’s photos weren’t even up on the MLS yet.
“I kept hearing about bidding wars,” said Fry, 51. “I did not want to get into that.” He said he was successful “by staying on top of the listings. They change every day.” In addition to online searches, he drove as much as 45 miles a day looking at houses.
With an extreme shortage of homes on the market in Orange County and many places around the nation, homebuyers have been swarming homes for sale and open houses, driving up prices and pretty much leaving any dream of scoring a “deal” in the dust, real estate agents say.
In Huntington Beach, Realtor Bill Smith describes an open house that “looked like a carnival. There was almost no parking on the entire block.”
In Rancho Santa Margarita, Realtor Cindi Powalski saw more than 50 people attend her open house. A loan officer worked on site. The four-bedroom house, which got several offers, found a buyer that day.
In Ladera Ranch, real estate broker Brian Doubleday sold a five-bedroom home listed for $888,000 in less than a week, at full price. “The demand was outrageous,” says Doubleday, co-owner of IML Real Estate. “All the properties right now, you get a tremendous amount of response right away.”
The same scenario is playing out around the country, with inventory shrinking by 19 percent over the past year, according to a report last week by Zillow.com. In California, it was down 38 percent, the Zillow analysis shows.
“First-time homebuyers are being squeezed out of the market by falling inventory and the rapid influx of investors looking to buy basic homes to rent out to the growing population of people who have recently been foreclosed upon,” said Stan Humphries, Zillow chief economist.
Nashville real estate broker Brian Copeland told Inman.com that his agents are being “brutally honest” with buyers, advising them not to even bother to look at houses unless they’re ready to make an offer that day. “We sold two (homes) off of buzz ,” he said.
The resale inventory around $800,000 has been so bleak lately around the 92130 that these brand-new homes that back to Carmel Valley Road look like a good deal – if you don’t mind the traffic. At least you can say that the noise is priced in – the next phase will be well into the $900,000s:
The million-dollar-plus market appears to be benefitting from the attractive low rates, and you have to wonder how many more sales would there be if there were more reasonably-priced homes for sale. There is a sizable gap between the million-dollar club’s wishing price, and reality:
NSDCC Detached-Home Listings Over $1,000,000
| NSDCC $1M+ | # of Listings | Avg. $/sf |
| Actives | ||
| Solds YTD |
Gap? It looks more like the Grand Canyon!
The buyers are have been very patient too – sales have taken off over the last three years, but pricing remains flat. Even those $1,000,000+ sales that have closed in the last 90 days are averaging $501/sf – identical to the YTD stat:
The overall SD County market looks hot with 52% of new listings finding a buyer within 2-4 weeks, but how about the tonier North SD County coastal region? The year-to-date numbers look similar to the county’s stats we saw in the last post, rather ho-hum:
NSDCC Detached-Home Sales, Jan 1 – Oct 13
| Year | # of Sales | Avg $/sf | DOM |
| 2011 | |||
| 2012 |
Sales are up 19% year-over-year, but average pricing and days-on-market aren’t over-heating.
Indeed, it is a bit calmer around NSDCC:
NSDCC Detached-Homes Listed Between Sept. 15-30
Total Number of NSDCC Detached-Homes Listed Between Sept 15-30: 135
Number Already Marked Contingent, Pending, or Sold: 46
Only a third (34%) of new listings have found a buyer in NSDCC, compared to just over half (52%) throughout the county.
People hang onto the notion that it takes longer to sell the more-expensive homes, and while that is a statistical fact, we shouldn’t just accept it as normal when everything else has changed.
Reasons Why It Shouldn’t Take Longer To Sell More-Expensive Homes
But how many NSDCC sellers price their home to sell quickly?
There are other reasons to price ’em to sell – the hassle of keeping the house immaculate, the inconvenience of showings 7 days a week – many with short notice, and the desire to move on. But here are the NSDCC detached-home stats on how close sellers got to their list price this year, compared to how long they were on the market:
| DOM | # of Sales | SP/LP Ratio |
| 0-14 Days | ||
| 15-59 days | ||
| 60+ Days |
The Sales Price-to-List Price ratio is figured from the current LP at time the listing was marked active – it doesn’t include any price reductions in the interim. If you have been on the market 60+ days, you probably had to lower the price to re-ignite urgency because after 14 days, the showings dry up. The 95% above is probably more like 90% of the original list price, and maybe lower.
Buyers use the days-on-market stat like a club, and want to penalize sellers for not pricing accurately. They will pay all the money in the first week or two, but after that it is a slippery slope. It is more efficient for sellers to price accurately from the beginning.
Sellers will find out how hungry buyers are for new meat – there is a rush of showings during the first 1-2 weeks, then they stop on a dime, and reducing the price is the only fix.
I don’t mind taking them a little high to test the market, as long as we adjust as needed. My closed non-REO listings this year have averaged 50 DOM, and 97% SP/LP, and removing a short sale and two paid-off homes, they improve to 14 DOM and 99% SP/LP.
Are you looking for an experienced agent to help you buy or sell a home?
Contact Jim the Realtor!
CA DRE #01527365, CA DRE #00873197
