To Those Who Are Waiting

Here’s more click bait on the front page of the local paper, and most people won’t read any further – it’s too easy to decide to do nothing, which is fine. Wait as long as you want, and we will see where it goes.

It’s a great plan if you’re a buyer and don’t care much about what you are buying.  But if you are picky and want to wait until the headlines ease, then you can expect there will be others acting quicker than you, and probably with more horsepower.  The affluent aren’t as concerned about timing the exact bottom of the market when they just want a nice house.

Take my Aviara listing. It’s priced at 12% under the last model-match sale in June, and even the buyer of the comparable sale around the corner said mine was better than hers. In the story above, the San Diego County median price came down 6%, so I’m lower than that, and it’s got all the extras.

Yet, as I’m talking to open-house attendees, there was a steady flow of the usual soft stuff:

‘I don’t want to get into a bidding war’.

‘I want to wait-and-see where this goes’.

‘Prices are going down’.

Ok, no problem. But given what we’ve been through, you can’t expect that buying a quality home is going to get easier.  Even if the price was lower, there will be competition for the good buys – and when you think about it, there always has been in recent years. We had plenty of bidding wars and people paying over list prior to the pandemic – it isn’t a new thing.

Besides, if the market became so desolate that you could walk into an open house that you thought was a quality buy and nobody else wanted it, wouldn’t that scare you off too?

I have multiple offers on my listing and we’ll sell it for a decent price, so don’t worry about me.  I just want buyers to keep looking, and when you see something you like, don’t let the headlines written by ivory-tower guys talk you out of it.

Aviara Creampuff

7313 Golden Star Lane, Carlsbad

3 br + loft/2.5 ba, 2,593sf

YB: 1996

HOA + MR = $125/mo.

Lot size: 9,529sf

SP = $1,750,000 – we represented the seller.

Immaculate Davidson-built one-story with pool/spa, owned Solar, 3-car, putting green, and upgraded interior all on a great cul-de-sac near the lagoon walking trail, Aviara golf course, and Park Hyatt Resort! New carpet and paint, high ceilings, plantation shutters throughout, travertine master bath with walk-in closet, plus roomy loft/master retreat with huge walk-in closet too! Being on the west side of the street gives you two great benefits – afternoon sun for your pool area, and your house doesn’t get hit by golf balls like those across the street.

Open House Report 2

I had another 80+ people attend my open house on Sunday, and a total of more than 200 people for the weekend.  Virtually everyone who came was older, and the overwhelming message was that the buyer pool for one-story homes is large and they are hungry for product.

We have received one full-price cash offer so far, and there should be 2-3 more coming in today.

This smaller tract was built by Davidson in 1996, and sold in the $300,000s originally.  Only 12 of the 82 homes are the one-story floor plan – which is typical (some newer tracts don’t have ANY one-story plans).  Of the 82 homes, 57 of them, or 70% were purchased for less than $1,000,000.

I sure get the feeling that there are boomers occupying most of the newer tract homes in North San Diego County’s coastal region, and they aren’t going anywhere – unless they can buy a single-story home.

The most interesting part is that my listing will be the third sale of this floor plan in 2022, in a neighborhood where there hasn’t been a sale of this model since June, 2018. It could be another few years before the next one sells, because those who have a single-story home tend to hang onto them.

The doomers want to blame higher rates for the slowdown in sales, but unless we get a flood of one-story homes for sale, the inventory will probably keep shrinking – and be mostly made up of the two-story homes where boomers have gotten lucky and snagged one of the few single-story homes coming to market, or where they gave up and left town. It makes it tough on those buyers who are coming here to retire!

Aviara One-Story Video Tour

There is a mystery foot in the beginning of the interior tour in this video, and it would be a good time to acknowledge the difference made by my wife Donna.

We knew on Saturday that our client’s purchase offer was accepted, contingent upon this house selling. Between Monday and Thursday night, Donna got the home carpeted, painted, and staged by her favorite vendors – people who regularly drop everything to help her out.  It is a testimony to how well she has nurtured her relationships with them over the years, and when she needs a favor, she can get one!

Aviara One-Story on Culdesac!

7313 Golden Star Lane, Carlsbad

3 br + loft/2.5 ba, 2,593sf

YB: 1996

HOA + MR = $125/mo.

Lot size: 9,529sf

LP = $1,800,000

Immaculate Davidson-built one-story with pool/spa, Owned Solar, 3-car, putting green, and upgraded interior all on a great cul-de-sac near the lagoon walking trail, Aviara golf course, and Park Hyatt Resort! New carpet and paint, high ceilings, plantation shutters throughout, travertine master bath with walk-in closet, plus roomy loft/master retreat with huge walk-in closet too! Being on the west side of the street gives you two great benefits – afternoon sun for your pool area, and your house doesn’t get hit by golf balls like the model-match across the street that just sold for $2,110,000! Other model-match sold comp (1327 Savannah) closed in June for $2,050,000 – wow!

Open house 12-3pm this Saturday and Sunday, September 17th & 18th.

Where To Get A Deal

Are you waiting to buy a home until you can get a sizable discount?

Is it because you know a guy who will give you a deal on any home improvements needed; you’ve got your eye on some new appliances down at the scratch-and-dent outlet; and you were thinking about going through Redfin until you heard they are cancelling their rebates? You want a deal on everything!

Well, here you go!

These late-1990s tract homes in SE Carlsbad and in the Encinitas school district are priced LOW. The pending listing on Corte Clarita should close at $2,300,000+ because it had already gone pending once in mid-August but came back on market – then the agent refreshed the listing once he found a second buyer a couple of weeks later. He told me there was no big discount happening there:

You know that my listing is going to be closing for $2,250,000 nearby, plus this one should be over $2,300,000…..so these actives are 10% to 20% under. It looks like the market is crashing….is there a catch?

Look at their locations:

The first three are on the corner of Calle Acervo, and the fourth is next door, but hey, La Costa Canyon High School is walking distance!  But you have the traffic from high-school drivers too, and you know it will be a madhouse during football games. A deal is a deal though, and you can save hundreds of thousands compared to the remodeled home with larger canyon lot (in purple at bottom).

Or save millions here!  This house is listed for $32,500,000, or go down the street and buy this home that was newly priced today for only $4,900,000!  Both are oceanfront La Jolla!

https://www.compass.com/app/listing/5650-dolphin-place-la-jolla-ca-92037/1136258851857198681

The difference? This house is 1,167sf on a 2,982sf lot….at least for now. But it’s 85% cheaper! And the more-expensive one RAISED their price from $25,000,000.

My point? The low comps won’t suck down the expectations of future sellers of superior homes – it’s too easy for them to ignore/explain away the low comps, and will only consider pricing theirs like the other superior sales nearby – which there will be some.

Oh, what about a foreclosure? Well, they are starting to spike:

Or are you going to wait until you can rub my sizable nose in it?

Hey, I wish prices were lower, and if they crashed it would only mean more opportunity for buyers, and hopefully more volume, which is what I want.  I’m not trying to coax buyers into paying too much – I’m showing you where the deals are today, if you don’t mind an inferior home or location.

I just hoping that the coming standoff only lasts a couple of years, instead of 5-10.

San Diego Appreciation, Next 12 Months

The final accuracy of any guess on appreciation doesn’t matter. We all know that they are just guesses.

What matters is whether home buyers and sellers will make decisions today, based on what they read.

If I keep showing data and forecasts that show pricing isn’t tanking between La Jolla and Carlsbad, would it cause you to ignore the national doom and do something different, like buy or sell now?

Or will people just take it all in, and then do what they planned to do all along – move next spring? Or deliberately wait until 2024 to ‘wait-and-see’ what happens then, hoping for something different?

Because for the market to be ‘different’ , there would need to be a change here:

Very few quality homes for sale at less-than-retail pricing.

Most everyone who bought a home in the last 13 years has tremendous incentives to NOT sell it.  Will the IRS waive the capital-gains tax to help the real estate market? Will there be a load of new homes built between La Jolla and Carlsbad?  Will higher rates make potential sellers panic?

The answer to those questions is ‘very unlikely’, and things are most likely going to stay the same.

Will ANY data or forecasts have an effect on your moving plans?

https://fortune.com/2022/09/15/housing-market-home-prices-forecast-zillow-these-housing-markets-expected-to-fall/

The next round of Zillow local guesses started today – here’s the first installment:

Carmel Valley

$15,000,000 Extravaganza

One of my favorite Compass agents went all out today to promote her new $15,000,000 listing – the MLS remarks:

If these walls could talk, they would speak of the fact that this estate was built by a US ambassador to Italy as a summer home for he and his family with many materials imported from Italy. They’d mention the famous houseguests, upscale fundraisers and political gatherings that have taken place here. Upon driving down the private road to the estate’s gate, you’ll be transported to Tuscany from the moment you pull in. Unlike anything else in the upscale town of Rancho Santa Fe, this home’s historic architecture is met with modern features from a head-to-toe renovation over the last two years.

Pin It on Pinterest