It feels like a lot of inventory north of Montana (as well as Pacific Palisades) has been accumulating. The main properties selling seem to be in the $2-2.5M range, not the upper-end.
Let's see how this compares with the seven past monthly "Not selling north of Montana" updates, that list everything over 30 days on the market:
4/21/08 - 21
1/16/08 - 7
12/15/07 - 9
11/14/07 - 9
10/15/07 - 11* (*omitting 1020 Palisades Beach Road)
9/15/07 - 10*
8/16/07 - 13
7/16/07 - 8
At 21 it's over double the past months' average, and 9 are over 90 days on the market (red below). Maybe upscale SM isn't that different after all. Here's the detail:
476 26th, 2 bed/2 bath, CLP=$1,685K (-14%), OLD=11/7/07
420 7th, 2/2, $1,777K (+27%**), 8/16/07 (**redone to sell after first listing)
1140 San Vicente, 0/0, $1,995K (-9%), 1/30/08
754 23rd, 4/3.5, $2,279K (-15%), 6/8/06
710 19th, 3/2, $2,400K (-4%), 3/10/08
1020 San Vicente, 5/4.5, $2,665K (-11%), 7/9/07
238 17th, 4/3.5, $2,700K, 3/11/08
1820 San Vicente, 4/3.5, $3,295K, 3/6/08
369 22nd, 5/4.5, $3,599K (-5%), 1/18/08
714 14th, 5/5.5, $3,695K (-1%), 2/26/08
317 Alta, 5/3.5, $3,799K (-5%), 11/8/07
636 22nd, 5/4.5, $3,995K, 3/14/08
311 11th, 5/6.5, $4,150K, 2/26/08
316 25th, 5/5.5, $4,195K (-11%), 2/6/08
333 14th (photo), 5/6, $4,195K (-14%), 6/29/07
424 14th, 6/6.5, $4,195K, 3/6/08
734 22nd, 5/4.5, $4,288K, 3/21/08
310 22nd, 5/5.5, $4,395K, 11/6/07
425 4th, 5/5.5, $4,890K (-6%), 2/4/08
1221 Georgina, 5/6.5, $4,995K (-5%), 3/20/08
147 Georgina, 4/3.5, $7,500K (-6%), 10/26/07
Monday, April 21, 2008
North of Montana glut
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58 comments:
How about just the high end glut on 14th alone?
There is the house in your photo (333) which needs to cut its price again to sell (it has been on the market WAYYY too long)
Then there is the newer spec house (714) which came on and undercut it at $3.75M
Then there is 424 14th at $4.195
But of course if you are spending around $4M, you have some others to choose from that have been sitting as well.
Time to realize that most "used" properties and even some of the new properties need to be under $4M to have a shot at selling. Yea, I'm talking to you, 316 25th and 311 11th and 734 22nd...etc
Come on agents, knock some sense into your sellers. 5% or 6% of $3.5M is still a big payday. You should be trying to drive transactions, and lower prices is the way to get it done.
Let them sit on the market; every month they will bleed more money in holding costs and taxes, and every month more inventory comes online and prices weaken as the bust spreads from the marginal areas to the nicer areas.
Keep waiting sellers, keep your asking prices high. It took seven years for the last LA housing bust to bottom out, so you're going to be waiting a few more years and then sell for far less than you can even today. You think this is bad? Wait till next year around this time, when prime mortgages will be going bust and we're in the midst of the coming recession. Keep waiting sellers.
Tough to get a loan, let alone cover all the costs. Let that inventory build!
it seems clear that today if you want a new house you are better off buying one of these specs
rather than buying a lot and then building your own
i mean think about it - a lot costs 1.9 million on a non busy street so it is hard to build it cheaper than you can buy these spec homes
of course smartest thing is to rent
6%? Try 30%... THAT will move the market. Until of course prices drop 40%. Keep in mind that only drops the 4mil house to 2.4 mil - still a lot of money and more importantly more that it was back to when? 2003?
You guys are so bitter....unless the entertainment industry collapses (and it usually does BETTER in a recession) discounts of 40% are unlikely unless the property has some issue/defect.
I would rather have my tidy tax breaks and know that at least I am not paying my landlord's mortgage. Who cares if RE in SM goes down a bit?....i'm not selling. Where else can I own a home in the best climate in the U.S., maybe the world? See who jumps in when prices lower...not some American wannabe....the foreigners will all jump on board with their strong currency, recognizing a good deal...Better learn Dutch now.
To Anon at 9:35,
No one is saying you should sell or shouldn't have bought, you're telling us about tax breaks as if you're trying to justify the purchase to yourself. But our comments are directed at the market generally, and to current sellers in SM specifically (of which you are not one). And in their cases, clearly they're not doing the right things as their homes are sitting on the market for months.
If you don't think home prices in SM are going to go down, you are in for a rude awakening though. They did go down a lot from 89-96, and this bubble is far worse. The only reason the sellers in SM are still in the "denial" stage of shock is that there is no buying or selling going on right now, it's a standoff. But with inventories piling, credit tightening, recession coming, and prices plunging everywhere else, Santa Monica will follow the rest of the market, albeit lagging time-wise. The prices haven't even begun to go down on the homes (though condos have started the plunge). If you don't believe that SM is simply lagging and will follow the same pattern, I urge you to read the Santa Monica Distress Monitor blog, it's all there to see, by zip code.
I hope in your case that you have so much money that it won't matter to you that you could have bought much more house by waiting for the bubble to correct, I do. But for the rest of us, we just don't want to pay $1.6 mil for a shack north of Wilshire when we know darn well that the shack is worth $900k in the best case scenario. Prices will adjust; they will come down to their historic ratio levels compared to rents charged in the area and the median household incomes in the area.
These foreign buyers the sellers are hoping will come will never materialize, not when they have to deal with their own recession at home because our over-extended consumers can no longer afford to buy their foreign-currency denominated goods.
To the buyers out there: hang tight and make yourself comfortable: this is going to take years, not months. Remember 89-96. Remember the dot com bubble. The only difference is that real estate goes up and down much more slowly, you need lower comps. And the low comps are coming. It's just going to be one neighborhood at a time. Keep your powder dry for when the sellers reach the "bargaining" and then "acceptance" phases, which is 30-40% down from today's prices (if you look at incomes and rents by zip).
Well put, 10:06.
I'd like to add (regarding the earlier poster's comment), don't oversell the power of the entertainment industry in buoying the market for expensive properties. That industry is extremely top heavy and it's participants are scatterered around a hundred nice communities in the county. They can't sustain a market that has all the other factors working against it.
I should go post on the "glad I bought when I did" and "there is no bubble" blogs. Wait...
To anon at 9.35am, I'm guessing this is a windup post, for never have I heard anything so far from reality. Some issue or defect? Foreigners buying up properties? Best climate in the world? Well, all I can say is you don't follow the news, and obviously have never owned a passport. But your are right about the entertainment industry doing well ...keep on posting friend :)
"You guys are so bitter....unless the entertainment industry collapses (and it usually does BETTER in a recession) discounts of 40% are unlikely unless the property has some issue/defect.
I would rather have my tidy tax breaks and know that at least I am not paying my landlord's mortgage. Who cares if RE in SM goes down a bit?....i'm not selling."
There should be a contest to guess when this anon bought his/her house. Based on those comments, my guess is June, 2005.
Great post 10:06 but I must disagree with one thing... I think the air will come out of this bubble much faster. It went up faster and is much bigger.
Let's be somewhat fair to 9:35... some of the bears do seem to exaggerate the "sky is falling" claims. 40% is a lot, especially in nominal terms, given how much money Congress and the Fed are trying to pump into the economy...
I think the degree of the price drop in the top areas will be determined by two things that are almost impossible to predict: 1) what the next president does to taxes, and 2) whether inflationary pressures ultimately lead to a spike in interest (and therefore mortgage) rates.
Note: the health of the entertainment industry is not one of them.
9:35 here.
I bought my house in '93, at the near bottom, but it did continue to go down for a couple of years. But we didn't care...we had a 30 year fixed like everyone else, and didn't have to worry about ARMs resetting, etc.
Listen, maybe the Entertainment money is not all the money that is buying. I am telling you who I see buying in SM around me....agents, writers, actors, producers...all in the past year...over 12 properties that I know of have been bought by those trades.
If it lowers by $100-200K, developers will be back in the game and you all will be SOL...find a crappy condo and call it a day.
Thanks for the shout out Epsilon...thats a first.
9:35 -
Developer here. It would need to fall much farther for me to spec anything in Santa Monica. Since there is no raw land, you have to buy an old teardown and make it work. I'll start looking at those deals once I can get a lot in NoMo for $1.5MM.
You know NOTHING about developers if you thing 100-200k will make a difference. First of all, where will they get the money to build? Second, at those prices if the market goes down at all, they're underwater.
Also, 12 whole houses? WOW! Where are all the foreigners?
Hey developer, lot at 1.5? You sure it's going to pencil out when finished prices are down that much or more?
The money made in the last few years has been in financial jobs (hedge funds, mortgage etc), not entertainment where they spend everything they get to look successful and then go bust. 98% of entertainment money is a mirage of consumption.
Of course, the financials made money...until last year. The people with equity (i.e. those who bought before 2000) are the ones who will survive long term NOM. Half of the ones that bought a house after 2003 will blow out big time, many in the next 24 months. Will prices reflect this... well of course.
And of course more transient money (that is made and lost) will be made wherever the next asset bubble happens. Temporarily rich.
If you have any expert predictions where the next asset bubble will form before it forms, please post. I suggest manufacturers of cheap flexible solar panels...
Oil, potash and many commodities seem like a very speculative bubbles recently.
"The money made in the last few years has been in financial jobs (hedge funds, mortgage etc)"
Ouch, can't you sugar coat it a little for Epsilon's sake?
"I bought my house in '93, at the near bottom, but it did continue to go down for a couple of years."
Wow, even some of the people who have been through previous bubble bursts have no clue. If you're comparing this bubble to the one in the late 80s, you need to look at some charts.
the teardowns north of montana are today getting bids from spec developers in the 1.8 range and the sellers are holding out for more
why is it that developers are willing / eager to pay 1.8 for these - are the developers dumb or are they really sure they can make money buying at 1.8 and then building a speccie ?
Do you care to verify anything you've just written? I find it hard to believe sellers are holding out. I also find it hard to believe developers are still buying.
6:13, lawyers have done pretty well for themselves (though not relatively) feeding off those industries. A 200k income could look pretty decent in a year compared to all the unemployed analysts.
And yeah, the entertainment industry has actually taken a step back these last few years. Hopefully the countercyclical part still holds true though.
Can anybody name a better climate than So. Calif.?
Well, some parts of Italy, Greece and Australia come to mind immediately ...
I'm clearly out of touch with market compensation rates (particularly for the non-financial industries).
If there are any mortgage industry folks (still employed) on here, what income level is needed to get a $1.2mm mortgage with no "funny money"??
It would seem like you need to be making $350K plus.
I obviously don't run around in the right "entertainment industry" circles, since all the writers I know tend to write one script, maybe make some money, and then it's a few years before selling another one.
Yes, I know that dudes who write "The Office", "Entourage", etc make bank. And clearly, there are a number of people making over $350K in the entertainment (and financial, and legal, etc) industries, but they really want 1500 sq ft shacks in Santa Monica? Really?
I don't have to speak Dutch to recognize tulipmania.
If the creative financing doesn't come back so that people are forced to pay cash or keep within the 28%/36% income to house spending guidelines, not many people are going to be able to buy homes at existing SM prices. You might be the exception with 2 Million sitting in the bank - but if you buy, when you want to sell you'll need to find someone else just like you. People buy winning lottery tickets every day so good luck with that.
First of all, the bears are right.
if you look at houses north of montana, anything nice is $4 million plus
the bears are saying that few people have $4 million in the bank - few people can slap down cash for the house
the bears are saying that banks are hesitant to lend people $4 million so borrowing from a bank is hard
if the only option for buying a house in 90402 was paying cash or borrowing from a bank then the bears would win hands down
what the bears keep forgetting is the transfer of wealth from parents to children so that children can buy the house
Let's take an example - John Paulson's take home pay last year was 3.7 billion
That's enough for him to buy a house in the 90402 for every single one of his children, nieces and nephews
Go look in forbes at the wealth that has been created in the past few years - then go talk to the people north of montana -everyone knows a young couple that just moved in to a house purchased by the parents.
Bottom line, the bears have their heads stuck in the sand. Plenty of wealthy older people that want to pay $4 million so their kids can live in the 90402
Deal with it
"Go look in forbes at the wealth that has been created in the past few years - then go talk to the people north of montana -everyone knows a young couple that just moved in to a house purchased by the parents."
Can you provide one example that you personally know of?
So it turns out 90402 is the only neighborhood in the country! EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE HERE!
Wait. Doesn't Paulson live in NYC? Idiot.
Anon 5:38,
On the one hand I can cite a recent McMansion on Georgina rumored to be owned by U-Haul heirs.
On the other hand there's still a record level of 90402 inventory despite all the alleged wealthy offspring and foreign buyers.
There are certainly very wealthy people but their numbers are very small, they can live anywhere, they already own houses and they don't want to buy depreciating assets either. Nowhere is different. Nowhere.
"6:13, lawyers have done pretty well for themselves (though not relatively) feeding off those industries. A 200k income could look pretty decent in a year compared to all the unemployed analysts."
You're absolutely right, I would much rather have gone to law school between 2003-06 so I could make 200K from 2008-? rather than stay in a hedge fund and make seven figures for 3 straight years and then find myself tossed out on the streets, destitute and hungry.
Developer here again- yeah it would probably pencil at $1.5MM.
I'll build it out at about $300/ft.
Then again, maybe not because I'm not really looking to do anything right now anway. My money has gone into properties with cash flow.
John Paulson? His kids and family are going to elevate NoMo? Sure a lot of wealthy offspring bought in recent times, but you are just plain wrong about a billionaire children and even hundred-millionair children being able to hold back the tide of devaluation. Hang your hat on it if you must, but your argument makes are tremendous amount of assumptions, the first of which is that the supply of wealthy children all want to be in NoMo.
Deal with it.
Go to the Peet's on Montana - hang out at Blue Plate - talk to anyone you know who lives North of Montana -
the truth is that the people who moved in to 90402 before 2000 generally could afford to buy their houses on their own - since 2000 it is plenty of parents buying houses for their kids -
why don't you call the north of montana neighborhood association - ask them - anyone living in 90402 knows who is moving in today
1000% hedge fund wins subprime bet
By James Mackintosh in London
Published: November 25 2007 22:20 | Last updated: November 25 2007 22:20
A Californian hedge fund has made more than 1,000 per cent return this year by betting against US subprime home loans, making it one of the world’s best-performing funds of all time.
Lahde Capital, set up in Santa Monica last year by Andrew Lahde, last week passed the 1,000 per cent mark, after fees, following the latest leg of the credit market turmoil. The fall in the value of subprime-linked securities has boosted a group of funds which spotted the problems in advance.
_____________
Two points from the above article. First of all there are people in Santa Monica who can afford to buy houses in the 90402 for all their kids. Lahde is one of them (and he is a very nice guy to boot)
Another point - everyone who claims they knew subprime was a bubble waiting to burst had the chance to make money from that knowledge - that's how the system works
8:58
Do you know what an analyst is? Hint: even MBAs don't make anything close to that.
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/Documents/areas/adm/cmc/EmploymentReport.pdf
"anyone living in 90402 knows who is moving in today"
Yeah, a lot loss people than are apparently trying to move out.
Here we go again with the 90402, I thought we were done with the obsession with that zip code. Wake up people! You have to just be realistic and own up to the FACT that you will NEVER live in the 90402. Never.
I am very sorry to bring you such a harsh truth, but I have seen many men lose their sanity, many families completely destroyed, all at the altar of the 90402. It starts out as a place you want to live, it ends up being an all-consuming obsession. Let it go. Don't drive through it. Pretend it does not exist, because for you, it does not.
Hedge Fund Analysts' Salaries Soar
Mark Malyszko of Institutional Investor says that pay at hedge funds is through the roof:
A senior analyst with three to four years experience at an investment bank can earn an average $1 million - $1.5 million at a hedge fund, compared with an average across various sectors of $800,000-$850,000 at a Wall Street firm...
A senior hedge fund analyst with three to six years of investing experience in the distressed debt sector can receive up to $2 million a year.
Right now, everybody agrees that there are too many hedge funds. As a result, they're all chasing analysts in a desperate search for ideas and alpha.
Would you rather work at a bureaucratic bank with over draconian compliance issues pulling down 800k, or a freewheeling shop where they give you the ball and pay you twice as much?
That is a no-brainer.
Especially if you know you can always return to the bank if and when things don't work out at the fund.
____________________
oops - guess the bears better go back to the drawing board
"8:58
Do you know what an analyst is? Hint: even MBAs don't make anything close to that."
Apparently I do, and apparently you don't.
"A senior analyst with three to four years experience at an investment bank can earn an average $1 million - $1.5 million at a hedge fund, compared with an average across various sectors of $800,000-$850,000 at a Wall Street firm...
A senior hedge fund analyst with three to six years of investing experience in the distressed debt sector can receive up to $2 million a year."
Funny because I have several friends in finance getting let go from large firms... including a couple from failed hedge funds. What you're doing here is cherry-picking the facts you want, a lot like other professional liars... realtors. What a coincidence.
"Funny because I have several friends in finance getting let go from large firms... including a couple from failed hedge funds. What you're doing here is cherry-picking the facts you want, a lot like other professional liars... realtors. What a coincidence."
I'm talking about the golden years for hedge funds, not right now.
And don't you dare call me a realtor, those are fighting words.
ok - so we hear about the hedge funders
who else is buying in the 90402:
I guess calling anyone a Realtor is uncalled for...
And you can point out the few very successful people at any given time in any industry and any location. It doesn't matter because they don't move markets.
isn't 14th street busier than many others in the 90402? who the heck wants to live on 14th
April 22, 2008 8:26 PM here, I was just comparing to my friends that graduated college at the same time as me in 2005. A bunch became analysts (1st years) at bulge bracket banks and made less than 200k all in annually before getting fired. And they all worked in NY where that doesn't leave much after taxes, rent, and bar tabs. This was the sole point of comparison, and it's not a broad one. Sorry if I spurred a flame war.
Finance-minded people know about markets. They will NOT buy in 90402 now or in the next 2 years. They see the obvious bloated 90402 bubble. They see the popped bubbles elsewhere with unprecedented (post depression) 50% declines in a year. To sell a 90402 house in the next 2-3 years, you've got to sell to a creative type, a sucker, a dreamer, or an idiot.
The 90402 buyer will not be a rational finance person because only someone who does NOT know (or who does not care) about markets buys past the top, past the volume, into peak prices, at low turnover volume, with no other buyers, when the info is already out.
In other words, the information about the "housing bubble" is out in the world but not yet priced into the 90402 housing market because 90402 owners are willfully recalcitrant (and do not yet have to sell).
To buy into 90402 at these prices requires suspending disbelief ( like you do in a movie) and sustaining that disbelief in the face of a mountain of contrary and compelling evidence.
Or maybe they are just stupid and everybody else dislikes them so much that no one will tell them how stupid they are.
I'm not going to get into specific numbers, but I think several people have underestimated the extent to which salary structures, in almost every industry, resemble a pyramid. Salaries at the base of the pyramid in the hedge fund industry may be better than most, but it's not like they're out there saying, "you've got a bachelor's degree from a good school... here's $1 million dollars!"
I also really would be pressed to convey the misery of the life you have to endure to make it to the top of the hedge fund industry. It really is worse than the legal industry, which is bad enough already. If these people want to buy their kids $5 million homes in 90402, god bless them, they've earned that right.
I'm not sure why that explains why "million dollar home," on the Westside of LA, still means, "sub-1000 sq. ft. teardown."
That's exactly it Epsilon; north of Wilshire of example, anything in the 90403 (not even the 90402 which is only a dream) is $1.5 million minimum, and if you even find anything at that price it's usually a 2 or 3 BR teardown. $2 million and up is more typical in that zip. Now, to own a mortgage close to that size, you need to be making around $700,000 per year. Are you telling me the median resident of 90403 makes $700,000 per year? No? Then the prices there will plunge, be in now or next year, but they will plunge because no one can afford anything at those prices there.
A 6% loan on 1mm is $60K/year, right? Why do you need to be making $700K?
"A 6% loan on 1mm is $60K/year, right?"
Wow, so many mistakes in that. First, you're not factoring in property taxes. Second, this would be a nonconforming jumbo, we're talking more than 6%. Third, he's talking about $2 million and not $1 million. That's the minimum right now for a decent non-teardown in 90403. Yes, you probably need around $600k in yearly income in justify that kind of expense. Problem is, most people during the bubble did the math like you did and the banks were only too eager to give out the loans. This is how we got into this mess, and why the prices are going to fall like a rock.
hmmm, If the only people buying home in NOMO are the ones making $600K and up...wait, that can't be true.
That doesn't include tax write offs, and big down payments...can you CPA-types run the numbers on that????
http://www.dealbreaker.com/2007/05/bonusbumer_update.php
Base salary for analysts is about 60k.
To crack a million you pretty much need to be VP level, so 6+ years out of an MBA or 8-10 years out of college.
Great money at all levels, but not easily had either.
"hmmm, If the only people buying home in NOMO are the ones making $600K and up..."
You're not even in the ballpark, that anon was talking about north of wilshire 90403, not nomo 90402. It's $2 million for a decent starter in 90403, which you can afford if your income is around $600k/yr. For nomo, you're really talking upper $2 to $3 million, with a higher income to support that.
How much of a house can a person afford with a 500,000/yr salary and a down payment of 400,000-500,000? My husband and I looked at a house on 22nd in 90403 for 2.6 and the broker seemed to think we could qualify. We were a little hesitant though and think we need to stay near 2.2- 2.3 max. The difference in house quality between 2.2 to 2.6 seems pretty large in that zip code.
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