Beach Condo
We agree that location is everything…..especially if you can squeeze into something smaller!
Slow-Motion Auction Underway
There is no guidance on how to effectively handle a bidding war.
I don’t see or hear anything from NAR, CAR, brokerage managers, or team leaders on how listing agents should handle a bidding war, other than to put the offers on a spreadsheet and let the seller decide. But they are paying us a lot of money to give them advice, and that’s all we got? Embarrassing.
For realtors who think that’s good enough, then fine. Do you mind hurrying up with that retirement?
I made an offer on behalf of buyers last Thursday that was 6% over the list price. The listing agent won’t tell me how many offers they have, what price they are at, or even how the winner will be determined. After five days of waiting, we are left with nothing except “I’m trying to get you a counter” that came last night.
It never occurs to them that their inaction for days causes the buyers to cool off in the hurry. The agent will finally get around to picking a buyer they like, and the home will finally sell. But it won’t be for top dollar.
When I receive multiple offers, I’m transparent with everyone.
With our Cedarcrest listing, I’ve been telling every buyer and agent exactly what to expect. I encourage all of them to make a written offer, we will request their highest-and-best offer on Monday, and then find the winner on Tuesday.
Once the offers are in, usually half of them won’t submit a highest-and-best because they already did, or they cooled off quickly. No problem, and thank you for your offer.
We’re up to nine offers now, yet only two or three have expressed their sincere desire to buy this house. What a great filtering system to find the real players! Once I’ve confirmed with every agent that their highest-and-best offer has been received, I ask them if they want to go any higher – and tell them that if they don’t they are going to lose.
The efficiency is spectacular. The buyer-agents have the intel they need to literally tell their buyers, “If you don’t go higher, you’re going to lose out”. Every buyer would like that clarity in which to make a decision – yet every other listing agent thinks it’s better to keep them guessing in the dark for days.
A few will be startled by the transparency because they have never seen it before.
They think they deserve some favoritism because they are a cash buyer, or because they were first, or because their agent is a sweet-talker…..but what they really want is to score an off-market deal at a lower price because they see a lot of those happening – and they’ve never seen anything like mine.
Another agent asked about the action because she has a new listing coming in the neighborhood that is on the canyon side. She got what she wanted out of me, but then wouldn’t tell me anything else about hers, other than, “You’ll see it when it’s on the open market”. Great – we’ll see how she does vs. me!
4:40pm:
San Diego Case-Shiller Index, November
After seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National Index and the 10-City Composite posted month-over-month increases of 0.2%, while the 20-City Composite posted a month-over-month increase of 0.1%.
“U.S. home prices edged downward from their all-time high in November,” says Brian D. Luke, Head of Commodities, Real & Digital Assets at S&P DJI. “The streak of nine monthly gains ended in November, setting the index back to levels last seen over the summer months. Seattle and San Francisco reported the largest monthly declines, falling 1.4% and 1.3%, respectively.”
“November’s year-over-year gain saw the largest growth in U.S. home prices in 2023, with our National Composite rising 5.1% and the 10-city index rising 6.2%. Detroit held its position as the best performing market for the third month in a row, accelerating to an 8.2% gain. San Diego notched an 8% annual gain, retaining its second spot in the nation. Barring a late surge from another market, those cities will vie for the ‘housing market of the year’ as the best performing city in our composite.”
“Six cities registered a new all-time high in November (Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, Charlotte, New York, and Cleveland). Portland remains the lone market in annual decline. The Northeast and Midwest recorded the largest gains with returns of 6.4% and 6.3%, respectively. Other regions are not far behind with the slowest gains in the West of 3%. This month’s report revealed the narrowest spread of performance across the nation since the first quarter of 2021.”
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The decline in the local index is picking up speed, but it’s not falling as fast as it was last year.
Who cares – September, October, and November were forever ago.
Either a house has been improved to sell and gets a lot of attention, or it sits.
Take our listing here:
Judging by the statistics, Zillow thinks this house should sell fast, a smaller house down the street just had seven offers and sold over $1,400,000, and we are up to NINE offers on our similarly-priced new listing. But here the owner refused to do staging, in spite of our recommendation – and they have bought and sold three other houses with us!
The impact? Only two people came to the open house on Saturday, and we haven’t sniffed an offer.
Buyers don’t have the vision or patience to imagine what a house could be – they are attracted to those homes who have already done the work for them. At these prices, you can’t blame them!
Zestimates of Active Listings
There is a common belief that it takes longer to sell homes that are more expensive.
The statistics back it up too.
But the belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy that is executed by realtors and sellers every day. It’s hard enough to put an attractive price on a more-expensive custom home, and then sellers and listing agents can’t resist goosing their price by another 5% or so, just to make sure they don’t leave any money on the table.
It looks like Zillow is going to help bring an end to this sloppy practice.
We know that the zestimates are way wronger than they admit, especially with custom homes. Once a home hits the MLS, we also see them adjust the zestimate to within pennies of the list price – so they are unreliable at best, and fraudulent by most common standards.
But I’ve also noticed on this listing that the zestimate has been going down since we went for sale.
After a week on the market, the zestimate was down to $3,419,900 on Jan 22nd:
Then today the zestimate is even lower, and the spread between the views and the saves is getting larger because the highly-motivated buyers see it in the first few days and run up the count of saves:
Buyers have full access to all data now, and the longer a home is on the market, the less they will want to pay. If a recognized authority (in their mind) is also lowering their zestimate on the home publicly, it will fortify the buyers’ belief that they should offer less. Thanks Zillow!
I can’t change that belief – I’m just going to try and sell my listings early on!
Inventory Watch
In our previous reading last Monday, the pendings count had jumped 20% – and this week it popped another 15%! Today’s actual count of 140 pendings is now ahead of last year, which had an early start to the selling season! At this point, this year looks the same!
This morning’s count of January listings between La Jolla and Carlsbad is 204, which means Joe has the contest for Padres tickets in the bag. Having slightly more inventory than last year should mean more sales!
Open House Report, January
One house doesn’t speak for the whole market but it sure felt like it was already peak selling season this weekend. We had 160+ people attend, received eight offers so far, and it’s already $100,000+ over list:
Happy Happy
I know San Diego-Carlsbad is on this list, but there are others. It’s a great time to move elsewhere!
Designed by Gallup senior scientist Dan Witters, the study established 15 metrics—from eating healthy and learning something new every day to civic engagement, financial security, vacation time, and even dental checkups—that signal happiness. The National Geographic Gallup Special/Blue Zones Index draws on nearly 250,000 interviews conducted with adults from 2014 to 2015 in 190 metropolitan areas across the U.S as part of the Gallup-Sharecare Well Being Index.
In happier places, locals smile and laugh more often, socialize several hours a day, have access to green spaces, and feel that they are making purposeful progress toward achieving life goals. For our index, it tracked factors that are statistically associated with doing well and feeling well; these include feeling secure, taking vacations, and having enough money to cover basic needs.
Link to NG articleNSDCC January Update
After a disappointing number of sales last month (87, the lowest monthly count ever), January is poised to reach 100+ sales. There are 128 houses in escrow today, and 39 of those were marked ‘pending’ prior to January 1st so probably 20+ of those stand a good chance of closing by the end of the month:
NSDCC Monthly Sales
Although the severe drop in sales recently can be attributed to higher mortgage rates, higher prices, etc., you can’t sell what’s not for sale:
NSDCC January Listings
With the number of listings up to 183 this month, we should reach the 205 listings we had last January. Will the last few people on our list still have a fighting chance, or should we hand the Padres tickets to Joe?
Here are the contestants:
Contest to Guess the Total Number of NSDCC January Listings
142 Anne M
157 Skip
160 doughboy
170 Dale
174 SurfRider
176 LifeIsRadInCbad
180 Kingside
188 Stephanie R.
189 Chris
190 Tom
192 Sara G.
196 Derek
200 Curtis
208 Rob Dawg
210 Bode
213 Shadash
217 Nick
222 Majeed
223 Joe
With slightly more inventory, similar pricing and rates, and pent-up everything, the 2024 Selling Season should be as hot as it was last year. This week, I had buyers survive an 8-offer bidding war and win by submitting the now-customary $100,000+ over the list price, and there have been crazier sales already:
Portal Wars
As a battle of words and philosophies rages between major real estate portals, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin on Thursday jumped into the fray and threw support behind the newest entrant in the space, Homes.com.
Reffkin was asked about Homes.com’s “your listing, your lead” strategy that aims to direct consumers to listing agents, and about Andy Florance, CEO of Homes.com parent CoStar. “Do you agree with him?”
“Yes,” Reffkin simply replied.
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Land Value
This should close higher on price – want to take a guess?
