$23,500,000
Congratulations to Kelly and team for their new listing of this iconic 6,329sf masterpiece on the bluff by Wallace Cunningham – the same architect who designed the Razor House in La Jolla (that Alicia bought):
Inventory Watch
An interesting phenomenon that has been occurring more lately is the delay in offers being submitted.
I’ve heard agents say it’s because people are being smarter about waiting until closer to the offer deadline so the listing agents have less time to shop them around, and that buyers are being more deliberate in checking their finances.
However, the more time that passes between the initial open house and the submission of offers, the less likely buyers will pay wildly over the list price….or even offer at all.
The pool of buyers who are willing to pay $500,000-$1,000,000 over list price has to be diminishing, and will it be long before the only buyers left are those who want to pay a fair price?
Typically there are a flurry of closings in the last week of the month. If there isn’t a corresponding uptick in new pendings this week, we could see the graph (at the top) look remarkably different next Monday!
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Mega-Auctions
The network insinuates that auctions are giving houses away, but the initial prices seem ridiculous:
Dr. Alex Khadavi, a celebrity skin doctor in Los Angeles, was hoping for a quick sale and big payday when he finally completed a 21,000-square-foot mansion that took seven years and tens of millions of dollars to develop.
But a little over a year after he listed it for sale — with a price tag featuring a string of lucky 7s at $87,777,777 — the doctor’s dreams of cashing out are being crushed by a mountain of debt, unpaid contractor bills, bankruptcy court proceedings and trouble with the law.
Now he’s running low on luck, money and time.
Khadavi, who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection about two weeks after putting the home on the market, hasn’t lost his sense of humor, though.
“The home is sandwiched between billionaires, and I’m the poorest guy on the block,” he told CNBC with a laugh.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/19/mega-mansions-suffer-massive-price-cuts-at-real-estate-auctions.html
Seller & Buyer Survey
This looks pretty normal:
In an era where 50% or more of the homes for sale receive multiple offers, yet half or more of the sellers don’t ask the buyers to improve their offer – they just grab one instead? Money is being left on the table coast-to-coast:
We make sure you don’t end up on this list – Get Good Help!
Read the full survey here:
From their last page:
Speaking of gifts from buyers, we asked our sellers if buyers used any unusual tactics to try to win a bidding war, and the results were shocking. When flattery and (possibly) bribery didn’t work, some buyers turned to more nefarious tactics.
Among the troubling experiences sellers reported, the highlights include:
- An offer of two fully paid, all-inclusive tickets to a resort in Hawaii, presented over dinner
- Offering a $10,000 signing bonuses if the offer was accepted by midnight
- Buyers offering to buy toys and gifts for the seller’s children
- Three weeks at a time share in the Bahamas
- A buyer lying to the seller and saying they knew the seller’s grandmother
- A buyer texting a seller each morning to ask if they had received any better offers
- Buyers promising one price to sellers but writing their offers at a significantly lower price
- Telling the seller a home was on ancestral lands
- Heartfelt personal letters in hopes of tugging on a seller’s heart strings
- An offer to purchase the home with Bitcoin
- Attempted to give the seller exotic animals and a car to accept their offer
Just some of the tactics sellers reported buyers using to have their offer chosen include:
- A buyer lying to the seller and saying they knew the seller’s grandmother
- A buyer texting a seller each morning to ask if they had received any better offers
- Buyers promising one price to sellers but writing their offers at a significantly lower price
- Telling the seller a home was on ancestral lands
Earth Day – Climate Havens
If you’re worried about wildfires and earthquakes…..you can always move to Detroit!
Millions of Americans are living in communities with precarious climate conditions, in houses that feel overpriced. There is a solution for many of these people, though:
Move to one of the so-called climate havens.
Climate havens or climate destinations are situated in places that avoid the worst effects of natural disasters and have the infrastructure to support a larger population. Many of these legacy cities are located in the Northeast.
Jesse Keenan, associate professor of real estate at Tulane University, named the following cities as possible climate havens:
- Asheville, North Carolina
- Buffalo, New York
- Burlington, Vermont
- Detroit, Michigan
- Duluth, Minnesota
- Madison, Wisconsin
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Rochester, New York
Anna Marandi, who served as the program manager of climate resilience and sustainability at the National League of Cities, added two other places to the safe haven list: Ann Arbor, Michigan and perhaps surprisingly, Orlando, Florida.
Orlando makes the cut, Marandi said, because the city has introduced measures to decarbonize. While the natural environment, such as being a noncoastal city, is an advantage, cities can “earn” the designation by working to provide benefits like affordable housing and being committed to economic sustainability.
“I see climate migration as an opportunity for these cities to avoid the mistakes of urban sprawl,” Marandi said. “They often have a vibrant, walkable downtown that might just need a little bit of revitalization.”
Keenan also stressed that climate haven cities need to help their own residents, which in turn will attract more climate migrants.
“This isn’t we’re going to build a community for tomorrow,” he said. “We’re going to build a community for today. And that’s going to be the foundation for the building of a community for tomorrow.”
Latest La Costa Oaks
After seeing two homes go off for more than $4,000,000, buying this for $3,100,000 probably doesn’t seem so bad. But the house next door closed for $2,450,000, and the highest sale on this street was $2,220,000 twelve months earlier and was a newer Davidson home up around the bend:
Carmel Valley Starter
Our listing in Carmel Valley has closed escrow!
13010 Brixton Pl., Carmel Valley 92130
3 br/2.5 ba, 1,804sf
YB: 1989
LP = $1,750,000
SP = $1,875,000
Location is everything! Enjoy this end-of-culdesac gem that is just steps from TPHS (so close you won’t need to buy your kid a car!) and an easy stroll to Del Mar Highlands & One Paseo! Totally renovated with newer kitchen & baths, stainless appliances including 6-burner stove, Pella Pro-line designer wood windows, new paint & carpet, new light fixtures & LEDs, and new landscaping!
A link to our before and after photos to see our prep work:
https://www.bubbleinfo.com/2022/03/31/the-krg-minor-tune-up/
The consumers’ fascination with the zestimates has never been greater! With home prices detached from comps, the zestimate is the only other measuring stick for both buyers or sellers – right or wrong!
CV Listing Closed Escrow
Our Carmel Valley listing closed escrow yesterday!
It was the 3br/2.5 ba, 1,804sf home built in 1989 that we completed about $60,000 worth of upgrades in preparing for market (it had been a rental for years). The before-and-after photos were featured here:
Previous Blog PostThe house looked great and it was vacant but this was when I did the blog post about spring break interrupting the market’s momentum. We decided to forge ahead, and I inputted the listing onto the MLS on the Thursday morning before spring break with immediate showings available that day – in hopes of catching any buyers that might be leaving for vacation the next day.
We had six showings on Thursday and Friday, and 100+ people came to open house over the weekend.
In January, I predicted that we would list for $1,750,000, and sell for $1,900,000.
On March 31st, we hit the MLS priced at $1,750,000, and closed for $1,875,000.
We received one offer.
Thankfully, the only offer included a $125,000 premium to incentivize the sellers to take the deal, instead of waiting for two in the bush. But we were already on Day 4 of open-market exposure, so I knew we were at peak market and our chances of selling for over list price would start dropping .
We contemplated whether we should counter-offer on price, or extend the two-week escrow period because we wanted the extra time for the sellers’ 1031 exchange. But given the fact that we only had one offer, the sellers signed it.
We had already completed a home inspection in advance, and thought we had fixed everything. The buyers did their own home inspection – which we always recommend to our buyers as well, and here’s why.
Their inspector noted that the water-meter gauge was running, even with all faucets being off. It’s the sign that a leak had developed, and the hot-water heater was operating the entire time too. The sellers checked their history of utilities and found their costs spiked on March 31st.
We have a ‘slab leak’, and we knew it was the hot side!
Just the thought of a slab leak causes grave concern and panic for most people. But we’ve handled them before, and know that they can be fixed with money like any other home repair.
Donna’s vendors jumped on it, and we closed in 16 days, instead of fourteen.
Here’s the video:
Gregg & Jackson
After Gregg’s funeral, Jackson wanted to play, somewhere. He went to a place called Grant’s Lounge, where everyone played back in the’70’s. Folks had a real shock that night. The talent that came there, for Gregg’s memory was amazing. Thank Jackson. That was appreciated by everyone who just happened to be there that night. Adding, being Gregg’s friend was not an easy thing for a long time. Have had some friends like that myself. Jackson is one helluva good man, will leave that there.
“I wrote ‘These Days’ before I met Gregg. He heard me play the song when we were first friends, I guess we were probably both 18,” Jackson Browne tells Blackbird about Gregg Allman in this concert clip. “The way he did that song completely changed it, I think for me and for everybody… I could write a song like that but when it came time to singing it, Gregg really gave it a kind of graveness and gravity that the song can hold.”
Relive the magic of Gregg and Jackson performing “These Days” together for the first time:
Please don’t confront me with my failures, I am aware of them.
SW Carlsbad Resort Land
The one thing I’ll miss when the MLS is gone are those new listings that come out of nowhere!
https://www.compass.com/app/listing/0-avenida-encinas-carlsbad-ca-92011/1029145866231605337
