The active listings of detached homes from La Jolla to Carlsbad:
Date
NSDCC Listings
Avg. LP $$/sf
Jan 14
649
$722/sf
Feb 4
667
$716/sf
Feb 10
679
$713/sf
Feb 25
678
$719/sf
March 6
727
$703/sf
March 11
744
$698/sf
The breakdown of those active listings is a tad top-heavy:
List Prices
#of Actives
List Price-per-SF
Avg DOM
0-$750,000
70
$339/sf
34
$750 – $1.2
134
$410/sf
47
$1,200,000+
539
$814/sf
110
Two distinctly different markets – the market under $750,000 is red hot, with buyers lining up to buy and willing to pay retail-plus, while the sellers and buyers over $1,200,000 are bogged down in a quagmire of choices.
Larry Delassus, a 62-year-old disabled veteran, died in court last month while continuing a three-year battle against Wells Fargo for foreclosing on his Hermosa Beach home – a battle he had to fight even though court records show he paid his mortgage two months ahead of schedule and also paid his property taxes in advance.
He suffered heart failure Dec. 19 while his attorney argued against a tentative ruling issued by a Torrance Courthouse judge siding with Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo called Delassus’s death “tragic,” but it was Wells Fargo that put Delassus into default when the bank mistakenly thought Delassus was behind in his property taxes. In fact, the bank was using an incorrect assessor’s parcel number that corresponded to Delassus’s neighbor’s home.
Delassus’s attorney and close friend, Anthony Trujillo of Redondo Beach, working the case on contingency, discovered the bank error and informed the bank. Wells Fargo acknowledged the error, fixed Delassus’s credit history but still proceeded with selling Delassus’s home at auction, according to deposition testimony and court documents.
When both parties appeared in court Dec. 19 for a preliminary hearing, Delassus, suffering liver disease, was in a wheelchair in the back of the courtroom, incoherent and breathing loudly.
Judge Laura Ellison told Trujillo the facts of the case did not appear to justify Delassus’s claim of fraud and negligence.
In response, Trujillo spent most of an hour reviewing, out loud, bank documents that indicate Delassus was never late on a mortgage payment or property tax bill. He argued that putting him in default was an error originally created by the bank’s tax service subcontractor.
As the proceedings played out, Delassus went into cardiac arrest.
“He was sure that when a judge heard that he was never even late on a payment, that [the judge] would do something,” said Debbie Popovich, a friend who arrived in court with Delassus.
On May 13, 2011, the bank had conducted the trustee sale of Delassus’s condominium for $270,000. The buyer re-sold it a few months for $440,000, according to public documents.
Delassus’ attorney Anthony Trujillo, a friend and next-door neighbor, recalls deposing Wells Fargo Litigation Support Manager Michael Dolan in 2012, and asked what his definition of “fair” was.
“Fair is a place where they have ponies and merry-go-rounds,” Dolan said.
Now that it appears the market has bottomed, we’ll see claims of how much better we’re doing. Take them with a grain of salt, because results may vary!
In the low-to-mid-range areas, you can probably tack on another 5%-10% since the fourth quarter of 2012 as well:
I still utilize my video tours for out-of-town buyers so they can watch it few times to get acquainted, but I can also broadcast live with iphone’s Facetime or the Tango apps so you can ask questions while seeing the property first-hand:
Why has the traditional-agent model been so resilient?
It’s because the upstarts won’t pay the money to attract great agents. A new model could work if the upstart company would hire the great realtors to implement it.
Redfin has an opportunity primarily because they offer the only alternative (no offense to the zippers), and none of the big corporate realty firms seem to mind (you don’t see Prudential or Coldwell Banker going for mega VC money to build a slick website, etc.).
But the Redfin method of having part-timers show houses to the buyers is flawed, and when the market is so intense like it is now, it seems unlikely that enough clients would endure.
They might get away with it though, in a rising market – if they can win the bidding wars, and/or adopt the old Century 21 model and just hire every licensee who can fog a mirror, and hope to make it on sheer numbers. The article points out that Redfin may IPO in 2014, which should put the squeeze on profitability.
Regardless of which upstart poses the threat, traditional agents can always cut a similar commission deal, if necessary, to stay in the game.
The agent’s competency should play a bigger role in who gets hired – these are huge transactions for the consumer, and they want quality help.
An excerpt from the article:
So far, Redfin hasn’t convinced many people that brokers, or their 6 percent take on most deals, are in any real danger. Last October, at a Seattle technology conference, an audience member asked Spencer Rascoff, Zillow’s CEO, if sales commissions were ever going to decline. “There are other startups that are trying to break down those agent commissions, and I think most of them will fail,” he said. Rascoff said later in an interview that “consumers don’t really care about commissions. They say they care, and they talk a big game in the off-season. But when push comes to shove and it comes time to sell their home, the transaction is so infrequent and so highly emotional and expensive—and consumers are so prone to error—that they turn to a professional.”
Economists, like the University of Chicago’s Syverson, watch and wait for a real change in the market. “The Chicagoan in me says there is so much money on the table that someone will figure it out eventually,” he says. “But I will admit, I’ve been impressed with the resilience of the old model.”
A scarcity of homes for sale and record-low mortgage rates are setting up for a bullish real estate market, Zelman & Associates CEO Ivy Zelman said Thursday on CNBC.
“I think we’re in nirvana for housing,” she said. “I think that I have to tell you, I’m probably the most bullish I’ve ever been fundamentally, and I’m dating myself, been around for over 20 years, so I’ve seen a lot of ups and downs.”
On “Fast Money,” Zelman likened consumer sentiment to a battleship pointing down for the past several years.
“And then the inventory cleared, the blight goes away, consumers feel better and now it’s really this urgency to go find a house,” she said. “I’ll tell you, there are Realtors blanketing neighborhoods, asking people to sell their homes.”
Zelman correctly called both the housing market’s top in 2005 and the bottom in 2012.
Usually when the media reports an increase in the median price, they say that “prices are going up”. But technically it only means that there were additional sales of more-expensive houses.
NSDCC Feb.
#Sales
Median SP
Median DOM
2011
166
$844,000
60
2012
184
$795,000
69
2013
184
$900,000
25
The speed at which homes are selling is remarkable.
Half of the homes sold last month only took 3.5 weeks to find a buyer? And that is based on when the listing agent reports it, which is typically at least a day or two after it happens.
Inventory remains low and ample buyers are waiting. Sellers can expect to sell in the first 1-3 weeks, unless your price is more than 10% above comps.
Larry Delassus, a 62-year-old disabled veteran, died in court last month while continuing a three-year battle against Wells Fargo for foreclosing on his Hermosa Beach home – a battle he had to fight even though court records show he paid his mortgage two months ahead of schedule and also paid his property taxes in advance.
“I think we’re in nirvana for housing,” she said. “I think that I have to tell you, I’m probably the most bullish I’ve ever been fundamentally, and I’m dating myself, been around for over 20 years, so I’ve seen a lot of ups and downs.”
