Here’s a sky shot of the South Carlsbad/Encinitas region in 1967. The La Costa Resort opened in 1965 (in the center of the photo) and another nine holes was added on the north end in 1984.
I’m going to guess that half of the total NSDCC transactions are estate sales – only because nobody else wants to sell. We’re going to see a lot more like this one – no real improvements except for a few windows:
We closed escrow yesterday in La Costa Valley! The seller is a bubbleinfo reader so obviously we have analyzed our results carefully over the last month. We felt that we did everything right in preparing what we thought was a superior home in the tract and utilized an attractive price, but it wasn’t enough to set off a wild bidding war like back in the frenzy days.
We received five offers, but when presented with the opportunity to submit their highest-and-best price, NONE of the buyers were willing to go up. It made this sales price feel like full retail and differ greatly from the covid-frenzy ultra-low interest rate days when buyers were desperate and would pay any price to win.
Now buyers seem to be patient with today’s shortage of homes for sale and would rather wait, than go crazy on price (there were two higher-priced sales of this model during peak frenzy last year).
Same thing here with six buyers yesterday, where it was very orderly and nobody went nuts on price:
Or maybe the group of homes that deserve a wild bidding war is much smaller than it used to be? This is peak season, so any remaining exuberance should be worked out by July/August.
It’s the original roof, three original bathrooms that look like $60k-80k to fix, original furnace (no A/C), only half of the windows were replaced, no solar, no pool, no spa, no backyard improvements at all – the skimpy old BBQ is a negative and there are more weeds than grass in the yard. The house was built in 1990 so it was designed in the 80s, which means it has a big living room/smaller family room which makes for an odd fit for a 6-br house. Doing our $75k in showing improvements only gets buyers interested – an attractive list price and gentle coddling are needed to get this one closed.
Everything wrong with this property can be fixed with money!
Have you been seeing Encinitas Ranch and La Costa Valley homes selling in the mid-$2 millions and higher, and wish you could get something similar but with a bigger yard on a culdesac for less money?
Check this out!
Downstairs bedroom suite with full bath, hardwood floors, remodeled kitchen, new carpet & paint, new lighting, newer windows, fireplace, 3-car garage, and an extra-large 10,014sf lot that backs to open space. There is enough room to play catch, and this is dog paradise! The 6th bedroom is bonus room upstairs.
For the buyers who want to live in a master-planned community with good schools, how bleak is it?
No one will be surprised to see the newer tracts hunkered down for another decade or longer, so let’s look at the older communities – those that are 20-25 years old. Those original owners are bouncing around in their empty nest, and should be cashing in and downsizing by now, shouldn’t they?
Yeah….no.
For homeowners who are planning their move carefully, April should be seen as the ideal month to list a home for sale. Yet look at the results:
The Carmel Valley tracts used were Belmont, The Breakers, and Lexington.
I know there are still a few days on April left this year, but it doesn’t look good for buyers so far!
It took almost a year to sell it – the initial list price was $3,395,000 last April during peak frenzy – but after refreshing the listing 2-3 times and lowering the price (list was $2,749,000 at time of sale) they got it done.
This is the single-level home that sold in February, 2022 for a million over the $2.5 million list price (set deliberately low by the seller). The buyer passed away, unfortunately, and their heirs listed it a year later for $2,900,000. The listing agent (who lives in the ER) also set his list price attractively low and got it bid up to $3,200,000 this time.
While the casual observer would deduce that prices have come down 9% in the last year, you have to wonder if the buyer had to pay as much as $3,500,000 to win it last year – or if that was a random plunge.
