Saturday, May 5, 2007

Weekly Inventory update

Active SFR Inventory

5/4: Santa Monica <$3M inventory is down 8% week-week but up 12% month-month and up 21% year-year. Palisades <$2M is down, but overall is a record high this year. Mar Vista and total Westside are record highs this year, matching the whole county (except what must have been an anomaly 3/30). L.A. County is up 35% year-year and nearing last October's record high.

4/27: Surge in Santa Monica and Mar Vista inventory, +5 each.

4/6: Pretty flat overall, unlike the LA County spike. New well-priced listings sell, and the rest sits (DOM is rising, especially for Palisades).

       LA County  Santa Monica  Pacific Palisades  Mar Vista
<$3M New Tot DOM<$2M New Tot DOM Tot New DOM

_________ _______________ _______________ ___________


1/30/06 27,732
2/28/06 29,420
3/31/06 31,819
4/21/06 33,054 35
5/ 1/06 34,032 38 33
6/ 2/06 37,847 56 36 38
6/30/06 42,317 66 39 49
8/ 4/06 45,315 70 35 50
9/ 1/06 46,781 71 27 59
10/ 6/06 47,369 83 25 98 71
11/ 3/06 45,780 80 20 91 77
12/ 1/06 43,103 65 18 72 96 39 20
1/ 5/07 35,646 54 4 60 117 33 6 71 66
2/ 2/07 36,715 38 15 45 124 29 16 61 71
3/ 2/07 41,251 42 14 51 114 26 10 68 79 53 25 76
3/30/07 50,730 42 23 51 104 17 8 71 94 60 50 40
4/ 6/07 41 23 49 107 18 8 73 103 52 52 50
4/14/07 42,857 45 13 55 105 19 2 75 95 56 10 55
4/20/07 44,764 45 20 54 89 19 3 77 89 63 20 53
4/27/07 50 28 60 85 17 6 77 73 68 29 56
5/ 4/07 45,918 46 28 53 92 19 6 82 79 68 35 52
5/11/07

All Westside (updated 1st Fri. of mo.)

                   2/9  3/1  4/6  5/4
Bel Air-Holmby Hls. 86 86 92 100
Beverly Center-M.M. 64 57 48 53
Beverly Hills 67 70 56 46
B.H. Post Office 94 91 92 88
Beverlywood Vic. 35 36 31 39
Brentwood 67 71 73 75
Cheviot Hills-R.Pk. 22 20 19 22
Culver City 35 25 20 28
Malibu 178 181 192 199
Malibu Beach 42 44 51 52
Marina Del Rey 20 20 20 27
Pacific Palisades 64 68 73 82
Palms-Mar Vista 62 53 52 68
Playa Del Rey 7 8 17 20
Playa Vista 3 2 3 1
Santa Monica 50 50 49 53
Sunset Stp.-Hwd.H. 155 178 159 166
Topanga 39 41 36 43
Venice 64 64 57 68
West Hollywood Vic. 23 32 25 36
West L.A. 19 21 25 24
Westchester 53 46 47 45
Westwood-Cent.City 33 44 37 42
____ ____ ____ ____
Total 1282 1308 1274 1377
Month-month incr. 2% -3% 8%

Notes

LA County inventory via OC Renter. Santa Monica Days on Market (DOM) is for <$3M, and omits Santa Monica Canyon (in City of Los Angeles but S.M. Post Office). Pacific Palisades DOM is for <$2M and count omits mobile homes. "New" is for previous month, or month-to-date for current partial month.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is odd. Why does this blog continue to attact spam from Costa Rica ?

But a question about the spike in Westside RE now on market- isn't this a normal increase given that May starts the summer selling season?
Isn't spring/summer a natural time for families to try to sell and move? What am I missing here?

Craig said...

thg,

you are missing the fact that inventory is up significantly over what it was during the same time period LAST YEAR...thus it is seasonally adjusted and much higher...meaning we should be hitting higher highs going forward. but yes, it is normal for increases due to seasonality.

Anonymous said...

Craig-

Thanks for your explanation. I'm sincerely interested in dialogue about this issue since iit's difficult for me to keep on top of all the changes afoot. I have some other questions, too. What about the cash flow needed to buy a house and pay for taxes?

On the Westside if an "average" family home sells for $1.5MM, then property taxes alone are about $1500 a month to start out the first year. Even with Prop 13, isn't there an annual increase of about 2%?

Am I on the right track?
Suppose the buyer of this 1.5MM home makes a down payment on the high side of 30%, that's $425K, for a standard 20%, it's still $300K; how many people have that kind of money available?

And about the monthly payments on this mortgage, even if we imagine a 30% down payment, then the buyer is still financing well over $1MM. I quickly calculate a fixed loan at 6.5% will be about $6800 a month, an interest only @6.375% would be about $5700 a month.
So in the interest only case, monthly outflow would be at least $7200; if homes do not appreciate, the buyer builds no additional equity. ;-(

So how many people are in the position to take on this mortgage? And all the maintenance a house needs? Of those folks available, what other options do they have?

What is the going rate for rent on a $1.5MM house? I haven't any idea but let's consider an option of renting and investing the $450K downpayment at 6%. The investment would earn about $25K before taxes, about $2100 a month to go toward rent or reinvest; $300K at 6% will garner about $18K a year.

What I'm not clear about is the impact of taxes on buyer motivation. Surely the AMT would apply to the income taxes of anyone in this income catagory, right? Capital gain taxes are currently at 20%, right? And then there is the homeowner exemption on gains of up to $250K (or $500K if married) if conditions are met. So how do all these tax considerations play out in the decision making of potential home buyers?
-THG