This is the house I featured here when it went on the market on January 12th. It was a little early for the usual selling season but the market has been so hot over the last three months that we dove right in.
The numbers:
Model-match sale across the street in May: $1,450,000 (the list price was $1,299,000)
Realtor.com estimate of my listing: $1,531,100
Zestimate: $1,549,500
Our list price: $1,795,000
Five offers: between $1,800,000 and $1,950,000
Other agents would have grabbed the $1,950,000 and been happy. It was a half-million over the comp!
But I was just getting started. I encouraged every bidder to raise their offer by sending each of them a written counter asking for their highest-and-best offer.
The key point?
The winner who paid $2,100,000 was the buyer who made the lowest offer originally.
In 2021, the practice of countering buyers for their highest-and-best offer went by the wayside. If listing agents do counter, the latest practice is to only counter the top 2-3 offers and ignore the rest.
If I would have done that on this listing, I would have left $150,000 on the table! When the sixth offer arrived late, I still gave them ample opportunity to bid higher too.
When you get multiple offers, you want me in your corner.
Are you thinking of selling? Contact me at 858-997-3801, or klingerealty@gmail.com.
This guy has been drunk on the doom juice for so long that he must never get out of his bunker!
If he did, he would see the overwhelming demand for every new listing, even though underwriting standards are strict and rates are going up. Of the 140 NSDCC sales last month, 36% were all-cash.
Last Friday was an interesting day for mortgage rates and the broader bond market. Rates began the day roughly in line with Thursday’s latest levels, but bonds lost ground throughout the morning. Multiple lenders adjusted rates higher before 1:30pm. After that, headlines made the rounds regarding the potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, which sent bond yields lower. By the end of the day, many lenders adjusted rates slightly lower.
The new week began with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov making a series of comments that helped to moderate the more dire tone from Friday. Markets followed in lock step with rates rising to undo a majority of Friday’s improvement. This left the average mortgage lender roughly in line with Friday’s highs. That equates to 30yr fixed rates over 4.0% for most scenarios.
Russia/Ukraine headlines continued throughout the day. Although this did cause some volatility at times, markets progressively tuned out. Moreover, geopolitical risk is not destined to be the key market moving consideration unless things get appreciably worse. Even then, the primary narrative remains focused on inflation and the Fed’s evolving policy response.
Even with the list prices reflecting massively-inflated values, nearly half of the homebuyers felt the need to pay over the list price lately:
NSDCC Detached-Home Sales, % Closed Over List Price
January: 38%
February: 43%
March: 53%
April: 55%
May: 54%
June: 59%
July: 64%
August: 55%
September: 41%
October: 45%
November: 48%
December: 48%
January: 49%
There were another 15% who paid full price in January, so almost two-thirds paid all the money. There were 16 listings that sold with zero days on market too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Percentage Of Sales Over List Price by Price Range
Price Range
March
April
May
June
July
Aug
Sept
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
$0 – $1.0M
76%
79%
89%
88%
89%
88%
64%
78%
71%
88%
50%
$1.0M – $1.5M
68%
78%
84%
75%
74%
74%
37%
64%
64%
76%
82%
$1.5M – $2.0M
66%
66%
72%
66%
82%
73%
61%
58%
56%
50%
67%
$2.0M – $3.0M
54%
32%
34%
66%
56%
56%
36%
38%
46%
20%
33%
$3M+
16%
22%
22%
17%
26%
19%
24%
7%
22%
13%
26%
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The January sales were a little soft, historically, but the inventory has been decimated:
NSDCC January Sales
2017: 174
2018: 149
2019: 150
2020: 182
2021: 187
2022: 140
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NSDCC Average and Median Prices
Month
# of Sales
Avg. LP
Avg. SP
Median LP
Median SP
Feb
224
$2,298,797
$2,257,334
$1,719,500
$1,758,000
March
252
$2,295,629
$2,260,524
$1,800,000
$1,825,000
April
357
$2,396,667
$2,403,962
$1,799,900
$1,828,000
May
300
$2,596,992
$2,581,715
$1,900,000
$1,994,500
June
348
$2,509,175
$2,537,953
$1,900,000
$1,967,500
July
311
$2,421,326
$2,442,738
$1,795,000
$1,855,000
Aug
268
$2,415,075
$2,438,934
$1,897,000
$1,950,000
Sept
278
$2,479,440
$2,445,817
$1,899,000
$1,987,500
Oct
248
$2,754,470
$2,705,071
$1,899,000
$1,899,500
Nov
199
$2,713,693
$2,707,359
$1,999,000
$2,100,000
Dec
189
$2,686,126
$2,664,391
$1,985,000
$2,157,500
Jan
140
$2,828,988
$2,855,213
$2,234,944
$2,240,000
The average sales price went up 7% MoM.
The median sales price went up 4% MoM.
The local pricing flattened out last summer, only to be revived over the last three months.
It should be a crazy spring – probably the craziest ever!
The Super Bowl is complete, and the spring selling season begins today!
Judging by the quick jump in the total number of pendings, homebuyers aren’t waiting around. Mortgage rates have risen faster than any time in the last dozen years, and the number of homes for sale is scary low:
There was heavy activity over the weekend, and on the hot buys, the offers seemed to be starting at 10% over the list prices – which is now the new normal. Waiving contingencies and giving sellers free rentbacks for 60 days will be part of the landscape for the next few months.
Will rising rates cool off the market? Only for those who are on the fringes and sensitive to payment shock. The affluent – the buyers who are controlling the market – are less impacted, and a measly 1% rise in your loan rate only changes the payment by $1,116 per month on a $2,000,000 mortgage.
How long will the 2022 frenzy last?
It should stay hot until one of the following happens:
Mortgage rates hit 5%
A flood of inventory
Mid-summer
By summertime, the pool of highly-motivated buyers should be diminishing, and we’ll be left with those who haven’t been willing to pay these prices. Remember that when you see another crazy-high sales price, there was only one buyer who was willing to pay that much – the rest all wanted to pay less!
The number of NSDCC active listings has been in a tight range of 167-179 over the last six weeks – which means there is a strong surge of new pendings, evidenced by the purple line racing upward. The number of homes in escrow has grown from 142 on January 10th to 193 today!
As of today, the number of new listings in January is 201, which means it looks like Daniel is going to be the winner, and will receive four tickets to a Padres game…..if there is a season.
The guesses:
142 The other Bob
181 Eddie89 201 Daniel Nicolas
210 Drew
215 Joe
222 Majeed
230 Lifeisradincbad (who was a winner last year)
237 Curtis Kaiser
245 doughboy
250 Deckard Mehdy
259 Susie
260 Derek (the other winner last year and only missed by 1)
270 Skip
278 Haile
286 Matt
290 Esteban del Rio
294 Tom
295 Rob Dawg
300 BWell_SoCal
312 big T
325 Mortgage Guy
373 Rob
The 201 is a 30% drop from the January, 2021 count, and you remember how tight the inventory was last year. Hopefully the pandemic is the cause, and we bounce back to have as many listings as we had last year?
Year
Annual Number of NSDCC Detached-Home Listings
2017
4,637
2018
4,840
2019
4,741
2020
4,494
2021
3,618
Remember when we thought the dip in 2020 was a temporary covid decline? Yikes!
People say there will always be a need for a realtor, but consumers may adapt to new methods:
JG: How is Zillow addressing these different aspects of the consumer journey?
ES: The problem that we are spending a bunch of time on right now is how do you fix the home-touring problem. We’ve noticed that a lot of times we had a consumer who wanted to go see a home, and couldn’t get in. We went and talked to ShowingTime and they told us that there were 92 million showing requests on our platform last year, but only 68 million of those got fulfilled.
This is a boring problem, and what we are doing is attacking it in three different ways.
The first is a new technology that we call “3D Home” and it’s sort of like your next-generation, virtual tour that allows you to walk through the house. What we found is that homes that have these 3D Home tours are viewed 45% more than homes that don’t have them and on average they sold 14% faster.
Then, we’re putting a bunch of technology, resources and engineering into ShowingTime so that when that buy side request comes in to see a home in person, we can make sure that the agents can connect and we can get that person into the house. We also just launched a beta test of a product where you can actually use the Zillow app as a mobile control to get into the house.
So with these three different projects that we have going on right now, we are going to try to fix this boring but incredibly impactful problem of getting into a house.
JG: What other innovation can we expect that will help drive the next generation of Zillow and its business model?
ES: There are a bunch of things that we are doing to simply help consumers buy homes. We have a really sophisticated artificial intelligence engine that sits behind our user search interface.
We’re doing essentially the same thing for listings that Netflix does when it sends users a “here is a show that you’re probably going to like” suggestion. On the second time you come back to the app or site, we’ve looked at not only what you’ve been searching, but also what people similar to you are searching, and our goal is that on that first page of search results to get you a house we think you’re going to like.
The goal is you should never have to go to page two to get a home that you like.
Another thing is we just launched a feature that we call SharePlay, and what it does is set up a FaceTime call and you and another person can use the app at the same time. In our research we found that 86% of our users on Zillow said they were shopping with someone else—either a spouse, housemate or parent.
I was just saying the other day that we’re due for a sale that closes $1,000,000 over the list price……but I’m not going to count this one.
The seller had been telling agents that he wanted $4,000,000, and it went on the Compass internal site at $3,260,000 for a few days before the MLS. Darin sold it and he lives in the ER so he probably knew that the seller’s intentions were to get into the 3’s. The list-it-low strategy worked though!
It does continue a strong run of closed sales in the $3,000,000s over the last year – with my November sale still the all-time leader:
San Francisco is no longer the nation’s least affordable metro area, being surpassed by San Diego, it’s neighborhood to the south. The latest OJO Labs unaffordability report saw San Diego bypass both San Francisco and Los Angeles to become the nation’s least affordable metro by comparing median home price to local incomes.
The median home sold price in San Diego climbed 14.3% in January to $764,000, bringing the city’s unaffordability score — a ratio of home sold price to median household income — to 8.1.
And despite San Francisco still boasting the most expensive housing stock of any metro in the U.S., a 4.2% home sold price decrease in January on an annual basis actually drove San Francisco’s unaffordability score below 8 for the first time since OJO Labs began tracking the data in July 2021. In January, San Francisco’s unaffordability score fell to 7.9, down from 9.2 last month.
Los Angeles; Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola, Florida; and Boise, Idaho metro areas rounded out the top five least affordable metro areas in the U.S.
Unaffordability score is a ratio that’s derived from monthly median housing prices and median household income. The higher the score, the more unaffordable a metro area is for a household making the median income. Median home price data is drawn from local multiple listing service sold data and median household income is derived from 2016-19 census data.
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We sold a home with Jim and Donna and from beginning to end they were consummate professionals. Their initial walk through the property resulted in a list of items to be repaired or updated. They supplied a list of vendors and job quotes to do the repairs and updates. We originally wanted to sell ‘as is’ and just get it over with. They gave us a selling price for ‘as is’ and options for doing a few updates/repairs to doing it all with the selling price for each option. We agreed to do all they suggested and we sold for the exact price they predicted. For every dollar spent we got back more than $2 back in the selling price. And they got that price in a rising interest rate environment! Donna and Jim are extremely detailed and guide you through ever aspect of the sale. There were no surprises thanks to their guidance. We couldn’t be more pleased with their representation.
Thank you Donna and Jim,
Jerry and Mary
Heather Quejada
March 27, 2025
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We have known Jim & Donna Klinge for over a dozen years, having met them in Carlsbad where our children went to the same school. As long time North County residents, it was a no- brainer for us to have the Klinges be our eyes and ears for San Diego real estate in general and North County in particular. As my military career caused our family to move all over the country and overseas to Asia, Europe and the Pacific, we trusted Jim and Donna to help keep our house in Carlsbad rented with reliable and respectful tenants for over 10 years.
Naturally, when the time came to sell our beloved Carlsbad home to pursue a rural lifestyle in retirement out of California, we could think of no better team to represent us than Jim and Donna. They immediately went to work to update our house built in 2004 to current-day standards and trends — in 2 short months they transformed it into a literal modern-day masterpiece. We trusted their judgement implicitly and followed 100% of their recommended changes. When our house finally came on the market, there was a blizzard of serious interest, we had multiple offers by the third day and it sold in just 5 days after a frenzied bidding war for 20% above our asking price! The investment we made in upgrades recommended by Jim and Donna yielded a 4-fold return, in the process setting a new high water mark for a house sold in our community.
In our view, there are no better real estate professionals in all of San Diego than Jim and Donna Klinge. Buying or selling, you must run and beg Jim and Donna Klinge to represent you! Our family will never forget Jim, Donna, and their whole team at Compass — we are forever grateful to them.
Lou F
March 27, 2025
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WeI had the pleasure of working with Klinge Realty Group to sell our home in Carmel Valley, and I cannot recommend them highly enough!
Jim and Donna demonstrated exceptional professionalism, offering expert guidance on market conditions and pricing strategy, which resulted in a quick and successful sale.
Communication was prompt and we were well-informed throughout the entire process.
For anyone looking for a dedicated and knowledgeable real estate team, look no further!
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William Sams
March 25, 2025
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Donna and Jim Klinge of Klinge Realty Group have our highest possible recommendation. From Donna and Jim’s first visit to our house through closing their advice and counsel was candid and honest in all dealings. They kept us fully informed throughout the process. The house sold less than three days after listing with a two-week closing. My wife and I have sold several houses during our lives. This was by far the best experience. Klinge Reality is a premium service realtor. You can’t make a better choice for someone to sell your home fast and for top dollar.
Emily Hernandez
December 29, 2024
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Donna and Jim provided exceptional support and professionalism throughout the entire process. We couldn't have been happier with their efforts. They made our house shine, and thanks to their expertise, it sold above the listing price in the very first weekend! Truly a fantastic experience from start to finish.
Jesus Adrian Sahagun
November 11, 2024
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This year has been difficult on our family, mainly due to having to sell our home. Thankfully we knew God had a plan for us and working with the Klinge team was a key part of it. It was an obvious decision to work with them again after such an amazing experience when purchasing the same home we needed to sell. The challenge was, how will we do this in so little time with so much going on? Jim and Donna held our hand every step of the way. Whenever an unexpected issue arose they found and provided a solution. Never once did we feel pressured to make a decision and the Klinges were always reassuring after providing the information that the decision was ours to make. Despite the curve balls, they never panicked and exemplified the “can do” attitude, making us feel optimistic and taken care of. Their expertise and professionalism was superb. But of all the reasons to work with the Klinges, the most impactful and valuable is their compassion and genuine care for their clients. We pray that we can one day purchase our forever home and you better believe that Jim and Donna will be representing us - as long as they will have us of course. Thank you again Klinge team! Your execution, experience, and care are unmatched.
SABIHA PASHA
July 23, 2024
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Jim and Donna were fantastic! Jim understanding my needs, recommending potential places, pointing out the pros and cons of each property was invaluable. Then when the offer was accepted Donna’s organized guidance through the inspections, paperwork etc made the whole process seem effortless.
So grateful that I had them on my side!
Anu Koberg
July 13, 2024
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We first found Jim through his blog at bubbleinfo.com, which really showcased his knowledge of SoCal real estate. Since then we've done three transactions with Jim and Donna, and they are an incredible full service agency, with Jim's deep market insight and Donna's deft contract and project management. We trust them implicitly in their analysis and strategy, which is based on years of experience. They're always available and on top of things, and we strongly recommend them to anyone.
Bjorn Isachsen
July 10, 2024
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The Good
The Klinge Realty Group operates like a finely tuned machine, with a very personal touch. We contacted them on a Sunday and they were talking to us about our family and our needs on our living room couch the following day. They carefully listened to us and worked with us to identify the best and quickest path to listing within 2 weeks to take advantage of the low inventory conditions in our South Carlsbad neighborhood. They knew our tract specifically and had many previous sales there over the years - they came prepared with a thorough analysis of comparative sales and recommended a pricing strategy that they felt confident would yield offers the first weekend on the market.
The Great
Over the next two weeks Donna coordinated a range of vendors who she knew from experience could get the preparation to list work we needed done on time and with high quality. Our light tune-up involved excellent experiences with their stagers, landscapers, contractors, electricians, and plumbers. Throughout this period Donna's daily communication was clear, concise, and responsive. Any time we had questions Donna picked up the phone or texted immediately - but almost always, she answered our questions before we even knew we had them.
The Outstanding
We had a tricky situation with a shared fence that could have delayed our escrow. Donna used superb mediation skills to negotiate the terms of replacement and was personally on site with the fence contractor to make sure everything went smoothly. The fence looks great and escrow closed on time.
The Truly Exceptional
Our house came on the market on a Wednesday and between then and Monday morning Jim was personally at all three open houses. He was in constant communication explaining potential buyer reaction and strength. As he predicted offers began to come in on Saturday and each one was incrementally higher than the last. At the end we had 5 offers, 4 of which were over list, and the final accepted offer was $100,000 over list. In addition to being over list it included rent back terms that met our needs.
The Recommendation
For all of these reasons we would strongly recommend The Klinge Team to anyone wanting to sell in North County Coastal San Diego. I had been reading Jim's bubbleinfo.com blog for 15 years and knew when the time came to sell that he would be our first call. Jim Klinge is not your standard realtor. He is keenly aware of market conditions and sales strategies. And, works his tail off - though not as hard as Donna . At this point he's gone from realtor to friend and I plan to have him over to grill and chill at our new place to talk real estate, but also just about life and raising kids in San Diego. He's more interested in relationships than his sales numbers - and that's why his sales numbers are so high. We have already recommended the Klinge's to some close friends and another successful sale is on deck right around the corner...
Chris Shea
June 21, 2024
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We recently had the pleasure of working with Jim and Donna from Klinge Realty Group to sell our house, and we couldn't be more satisfied with the experience. From the initial meeting, they listened attentively to our needs and provided invaluable guidance on specific improvements to get our home market ready.
Their responsiveness throughout the entire process was truly impressive. Anytime we had questions or concerns, they were quick to address them, ensuring we felt comfortable and informed every step of the way. What stood out the most was their team and extensive network of tradespeople, which made addressing any necessary repairs or updates seamless and stress-free.
Thanks to their expertise and dedication, our house sold quickly and at a great price. We highly recommend Jim and Donna to anyone looking to buy or sell a home. They are a fantastic team who truly care about their clients and deliver exceptional results.
