This being the Spring Selling Season, we see the ranks of announced open houses growing, along with the typical number of days open – more and more are open both Saturday and Sunday.
Click here for the complete list of opens published in the Beach Reporter, or at any time use the link in the right-hand column under "Prop. Search Tools."
As always, click any highlighted address below for more pics & details via Redfin.
Hill Section
930 John is a brand-new listing of a brand-new estate home starting just $5k short of $5m. It's what you expect in a grand Hill Section home, except for the views – not ocean, but city. (Two of the pics, surprisingly, feature airplanes taking off and landing, and one has peeks of the refinery's tank farms. Hmph?!?) The home has 5br/6ba and 5400 sq. ft., and lot of custom touches. Luscious. Open Sat. 1-4pm and Sun. 2-4pm.
Two less typical Hill Section offerings are open: 402 Larsson, a crusty 3br/3ba place that was in foreclosure last year and is back as the cheapest in the sub-market. Open Sat. and Sun. 1-4pm.
Also, 612 11th, the odd "flag lot" home with an interesting recent sales history. Recall that it was offered last Spring for $975k and got bid up to sell for $1.275m. The current owner rented it out a while and put it back up for $1.599m just 6 weeks ago. No takers. A $200k cut this week, and now it's at $1.399m. Still we have to ask: Did it get $125k better in 8 months? Open Sun. 1-4pm.
Sand Section
225 Homer (first pic) is Mrs. MBC's pick for the week. It's a cool contemporary (circa 1992) with big-time ocean views, offering 3br/4ba and 2300 sq. ft. She loves it any time you can find a home without a garage face, particularly in the tighter lots in the Sand. This one starts at $2.3m. Open Sat. & Sun. 1-4pm.
Speaking of new listings in the South End without garage faces, Mrs. MBC also smiles upon 437 1st. This one was purchased 50 weeks ago for $1.45m and has recently been rehabbed.
1st offers 4br/3ba (one of those BRs is very small) and 2600 sq. ft. for $1.740m (+$290k/+20% over last year). Open Sat. & Sun., 1-4pm.
Further north, 417 28th (second pic) is a huge newer home with big ocean views. Offers 5br/6ba and 4600 sq. ft. on a corner lot. Owners paid $2.55m 2 1/2 years ago. It now starts at $3.495m (+$945k/+37%). Open Sat. & Sun., 1-4pm.
Tree Section
2505 Pacific is a 2br/2ba, 1100 sq. ft. cottage at the corner with Valley. The lot is smaller than the typical Tree Section lot at 3890 sq. ft. They're hanging their hat on the notion that this home is "adorable." We'll need some convincing. Start price: $995k. Open Sat. & Sun., 1-4pm.
If you're feeling strange Sunday, check out 534 14th, a large contemporary (ca. 1990) with 4br/4ba and 4100 sq. ft. It's really two buildings. Guests & kids get the front tower with its 3br and small hangout rooms. Grownups get the entertainment spaces and a master through which the back yard pool is accessed. Maybe it works for you. Current price: $3.199m. Open Sun. 1-4pm.
621 Marine (pictured) is a newer home (2002) with an even more recent sale (March 2007: $2.436m). The "rustic Spanish" home offers 5br/4ba, 3100 sq. ft., and now is up at $2.489m. Open Sun. 1-4pm.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Weekend Opens (4/5-4/6)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
32 comments:
10:58 You might want to consider re-reading what you wrote this evening. I'm sure that you're a good person, but mostly likely had a bad day. No one forces you to go onto this site. I mean this sincerely it is unhealthy to be as upset as you clearly are at this time of the evening. Tonight, relax. Sleep well. Tomorrow, plot your strategy for your own personal success and try to have some perspective on life. Sincerely, best wishes to you.
Who are you talking to? Yours is the first post.
Two of the pics, surprisingly, feature airplanes taking off and landing
Not everyone hates airplanes, you know. We can see the planes lined up to land at night from our back deck, and I like to watch them. There are groups of hobbyists who congregate on hillsides in El Segundo and in Westchester to watch the planes land and take off, and plenty of people love airports and planes. The realtor could very well be courting the planespotter demographic!
http://www.planespotters.net/
Kind of like saying that the sounds of living next to the Freeway sounds like the ocean?
I like looking at planes take off too, but tripled with the refinery and electrical wires, I'd say it is an awful photo choice.
Susan M,
"...courting the planespotter demographic..." You're kidding right?
susan m - I have a better idea. How about courting the petroleum engineer demographic with some refinery pictures?
http://www.spe.org/spe-app/spe/index.jsp
The number of dreamers hoping for these sale prices is staggering. What are people thinking? We are in the 3rd inning of the worse collapse of real estate in a generation. It will take at least a deacade to recover and these sellers are listing like we are in a boom market. I wish! I suspect more than half these sellers are in over their heads and must sell but this is not how you do it. Price it to sell or be prepared to wait and wait.
Let's see - "We are in the 3rd inning of the worse collapse of real estate in a generation.
Note this comment provides nothing of substance, just the typical loser's lament. Subtext is "I can't afford these prices so there must be something wrong with the sellers and the market in general." Meanwhile, the facts speak otherwise:
Inventory of SFRs in Manhattan Beach is the highest since Fall, 2006! Ooooh, that's scary. How about the median sale price - higher than last year at this time by 9.5%.
Get a grip, 9:51. The fact the market has slowed from the torrid pace of the previous 4-5 years is NOT the same thing as a market collapse. People are still buying homes (5 in the Trees currently in escrow at $2.7 million and higher), but now the playing field is more level between buyers and sellers (and, in some areas, the buyers have the upper hand).
Maybe some day when you've saved your pennies, you'll be able to buy here too, and hopefully the market won't be on another upward surge when you do.
Hey MBW. Thanks for this post. I find that the stuff you highlight is generally helpful and interesting and allows me to narrow my search to the houses that really interest me. But don't let this go to your head!
(now that I've been nice, can you remove anon 9:51 or at least have him use a different sport. LA baseball fans don't even get to the game 'till the 3rd inning and leave by the 7th)
" The fact the market has slowed from the torrid pace of the previous 4-5 years is NOT the same thing as a market collapse."
Yeah right. Real estate is collapsing all across America and in much of the world, yet MB is not going to suffer the same fate.
This site is so provincial that it is pathetic. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
NEWS FLASH! MB RE is doomed just like it is doomed in the Inland Empire. MB RE are like the people on the fantail of the Titanic. Just because the water reached them last didn't mean that they weren't going to drown like the poor folk down in steerage.
NEWSFLASH: Anon 10:41, another of the Chicken Little contingent on this blog, has provided us with NO FACTS to support his predicted/hoped for market collapse here in MB.
I'll repeat again for the intellectually impaired:
Real estate prices are all about local supply and demand. Current price softness here in MB is a function of these two metrics. Yet supply has not gotten wildly out of line with inventory levels of the past 7-8 years (except for an abnormally hot real estate market between mid-2002 and mid-2006) and demand is still evident if you take current inventory (as of today) and divide by current pending sales (as of today) which gives you about 3-4 months of supply, well within the norm for a NEUTRAL market (a level playing field between buyers and sellers).
Can things get worse from here? Of course, but they could also improve if the mortgage market sorts itself out - in which case, the chicken littles will have once again missed the boat.
Welcome back Huggy.
Nick
You're kidding right?
Should I have specified, "the highly coveted plainspotter demographic"?
BTW, for really really bad realtor photos, the LA Land blog linked to this site awhile ago:
Bad MLS Photo of the Day
http://www.reagentinct.com/category/bad-mls-photo-of-the-day/
It's pretty funny. In fact, he's got a bunch of his favorites gathered together up now, and they're great.
Oh that crazy Nick. You all see what he did? How witty! A poster has a positive view on RE and he said, "Welcome back Huggy"! That is so funny! You see, because it is fun to point all posts back to Huggy!
OK, I am going to go out on a limb and say that Nick is 17 years old (around there). If you read his posts, he picks up on phrases posted by others and includes them in his posts. Only, he is off a little bit. He simply regurgitates what he reads, and it gets jumbled a bit. Sort of like when he said he was going to stay away from "auction notes". Nick-O; it's "auction rate notes"!
For that, I say there should be an age requirement for posters. Nick, argue it all you want, but you and I know the truth.
To 10:41. I agree to your analogy regarding the Titanic, with one exception. Manhattan Beach is one of the life boats and it's chuck full of people enjoying the ocean.
Being 17 is wicked cool. I can date your daughter.
Wow, 90266 "Nick", are you Matt Leinart?
5:00, if Nick had something relevant to say, he would have said it. Since he has nothing to say, he falls back on the Huggy ruse. Pathetic, really.
Since when has it been wrong to welcome back someone?
Golly, you hyenas look for any reason to lash out. Is that because it's harder to refute the RE market's inevitable crash in MB? You have way too much time on your hands and much too much pent up frustration.
Anon 9:51 - I heard we were in the 3rd inning about 3-4 months ago. I'm guessing it was probably from you. Can you at least change it to the bottom of the 3rd?
Yeah 90266Nick, too much time, too much frustration . . . but you missed one . . . too much money.
Hm, since we are all doing way above average here, why does it often sound like a sticky-floored, honky-tonk beer joint off some lonesome highway on here?
And I'll second (third?) the coveted planespotter demographic. The babe, as I am driving her down some random expressway somewhere will point and say, "Look they are landing on two-zero today and my, look at all the planes lined up on the downwind leg. Huh, I didn't think United was flying 737s anymore..."
Me: "That's nice, dear."
Oh, man, I thought I was going to have a medical incident on my hands two years ago when we were driving around Perpignan and the a380 flew over, very low. Now, admittedly, that's a startlingly large object to see hovering in the sky like this was, but still... the biblical-style rending of garments was a bit much.
Well, gee Wez, maybe you should have opened your eyes.
It appears the sale of the Valley house triggered a lot of what were reading here, but it seems that the only thing that everybody can agree on is that it wasn't very good house in not a particularly good location. Here's my theory: I believe there will be serious reductions in the tree section, but the Hill section, John St. etc. will hold and finally, the best of the Sand will keep going up. The low end of the Sand will come down, but not beneath 2002 levels. Those looking for fire sales will find them, but they won't them on a nice walk street west of Highland or the Strand. I'm not realtor and I know I will torn the pieces, but I'd honestly love to hear why I'm wrong. Thanks.
Sorry 9:38 . . . but you're correct in your assessment. Oh 90266Nick . . . 9:51 . . . where are you.
alright, after reading this blog for about a 6 months now, tonight I have found the courage to get involved and post. ...and risk being attacked for my words (which happens often here.)
What do readers think... how many buyers are out there (like my wife and myself) hovering manhattan beach and looking for some sign of housing stability. we are patiently watching this national recession and falling home prices. it begs the question -why would anyone buy a house with this market uncertainty.
Before I get wounded for my thoughts I hope someone can explain the current buyers’ motives. Consumer confidence is down, the senate and president are desperately trying to find ways to boost the economy and there is that little war in iraq.
Our choice is to wait. We are keeping our money in the bank from the house we sold (before the slump hit that city.) Prices may go lower or they may stay flat. Why not let the economy bottom out or go lower before making that house purchase. what’s the hurry.
NEWSFLASH 11:15:
You said, "
Real estate prices are all about local supply and demand."
WRONG.
Real estate prices have to do with nothing more than local ECONOMIES.
The supply / demand comment is so...2005.
Gosh, 10:21, you certainly don't deserve to be ripped up for posting those fairly fundamental questions.
People are buying and selling for all the usual reasons now, but there are clearly more people waiting for all the reasons you point to. How many? Good question; I have no idea how to answer it with data.
10:21, if you think you can time the market, then go ahead. You're correct, there's no reason for you to buy if you don't have to and don't feel comfortable doing so. Right now, there are 5 homes in escrow in the Tree section at $2.7 million+. Those buyers obviously have a different view, maybe preferring the certainty of a good interest rate coupled with buyer negotiating leverage.
Example: The buyers of 644 33rd went for a 4200 sf home that was originally listed for $3.3 mil - they're paying $2,860,000. They could wait but then that home or a comparable one might not be available when they want to buy, interest rates may rise or the market may turn and they would lose leverage. Or maybe waiting was simply not an option for them. I happen to know that home fit their needs. It's also listed as contingent so they may have an issue, such as a home to sell.
Interesting that real estate seems to be the only product that, when it's on sale, buyers become more reluctant to buy.
Word of total wisdom 10:25. Boy are you the smartest thing. You obviously missed Econ 101 or buying a house when the time was right.
11:05 - "Interesting that real estate seems to be the only product that, when it's on sale, buyers become more reluctant to buy."
Ever hear of the stock market?
10:21: I could couch-style analyze my motives for wanting to buy and how it ties into some deep-seated desire to actually BE home more often but that's neither here nor there for your situation. Honestly, I just want a different house now rather than later in a purely childish manner, and our position is comfortable enough that the broader economy doesn't affect our decision, especially on the build side, which is looking optimal the more I think about it. I want an unusual house and I expect the contractors are getting optimally flexible about now.
But that's boring. So I'm wondering if you have ever seen or used a decision matrix? We find them useful for major decisions, both our's and our clients'. I could be wrong, but you sound like a man who's hoping someone will identify his own motives for him so he can recognize them in himself.
By the tail end of the spring-summer real estate season the situation will likely be significantly clearer than it is now and that's just a few short months away and a world of perspective gained. The last burst housing bubble had a little undershoot on the low side and then it needed five years to claw its way out of the doldrums. If you feel uncertain, don't jump just because you worry the timing is going to be tricky on the market.
Post a Comment