Friday, July 25, 2008

Weekly inventory update

7/25 - SM and PP are slightly down; MV is a little up, including a couple of re-listings.

7/18 - Pretty flat to just slightly down, with more price reductions, withdrawals, and expired listings.

7/11 - SM, PP, and MV are all flat. But for Mar Vista that included a lot of changes: expired and withdrawn listings, listings back on the market, new listings, and listings into escrow.

7/4 - SM is down by the 5 listings that expired this week. PP and MV are down just slightly.

      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
5/ 1/06 34,032 38 33
6/ 2/06 37,847 56 36 38
6/30/06 42,317 66 40 49
8/ 4/06 45,315 70 34 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 70
3/ 2/07 41,251 42 14 51 114 26 10 68 79 55 25 76
4/ 6/07 42,857 41 23 49 107 18 8 73 103 54 52 50
5/ 4/07 45,918 46 28 54 92 19 6 82 79 71 37 52
6/ 1/07 52,198 50 25 61 78 17 15 87 78 77 39 53
6/30/07 52,769 42 18 56 81 17 11 92 77 74 33 61
8/ 3/07 54,166 53 28 68 86 23 12 78 76 84 39 68
8/31/07 57,432 57 21 72 98 18 7 69 75 90 40 79
9/28/07 58,973 59 17 74 103 26 9 90 81 87 20 87
11/ 2/07 58,731 62 19 81 120 29 7 106 77 98 35 88
11/30/07 59,108 52 14 67 136 23 11 88 94 96 23 96
12/31/07 53,475 42 5 53 148 19 2 73 119 79 13 116
-------- ------ -------------- -------------- ----------
2/ 1/08 53,722 54 16 67 157 26 16 101 118 89 36 96
2/29/08 53,520 50 10 68 178 29 8 108 108 88 21 103
3/28/08 53,566 57 17 81 171 32 14 122 92 82 22 105
5/ 2/08 54,098 59 14 83 159 35 7 136 93 90 33 96
5/30/08 53,216 56 23 79 147 34 9 142 106 91 29 89
6/27/08 53,058 74 28 98 131 30 6 129 107 96 26 95
7/ 4/08 69 1 91 124 29 1 126 105 95 5 96
7/11/08 69 3 91 131 29 3 127 106 95 14 103
7/18/08 52,049 69 8 90 132 30 5 123 116 93 22 102
7/25/08 65 10 88 128 29 5 116 123 96 24 111
8/ 2/08

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry for the dumb question, but can you explain what the columns stand for? eg. Santa Monica's 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th column?

Anonymous said...

1. # of homes on the mkt for <$3M
2. New listings
3. Total number of homes (at all prices)
4. Avg. Days on Market

Anonymous said...

Been to any open houses recently - they seem PACKED

may be a lot of looking and little buying but still - lots of crowds

Anonymous said...

May i humbly suggest a new thread or new topic of discussion-

that topic would be the cost and availability of office space above the stores on Montana Avenue

For me and a number of my friends who live in the blocks between Washington and Montana, we aspire to a lifestyle in which we can stop dealing with traffic.

Those of us that work in small three to ten person offices have often thought about moving those offices to Montana Avenue -

If our offices were on Montana we could literally walk a few blocks to the office each day, walk to lunch, walk to wild oats to pick up dinner and then walk home.

it would make it possible to not even start our car us very often (but we would have to keep a car in order to visit friends on a weekend)

anyway, i know the offices on montana don't have the prestige of the water garden or anything but they seem like a good bet for people like us

i saw one listing for what looked like a pretty nice office space above montana they were asking four bucks a square foot per month
can anyone comment on whether those rents are going up or down in this current recession and what the market looks like for that office space?

I would say that having a well located office may be almost as important for happiness as having a well located home

Westside Bubble said...

cost and availability of office space above the stores on Montana Avenue

Good topic, that I unfortunately have nothing to contribute to beyond agreeing with you. Others?

Richard Mason said...

The pedestrian lifestyle is the whole point of living in Santa Monica IMHO. I've been doing it for four years and it's great. I think your plan is sound.

I don't have any specific information about offices on Montana but I notice there is that Wachovia space at Montana and Lincoln. I doubt Wachovia will be using it for anything any time soon.

Anonymous said...

"Been to any open houses recently-they seem PACKED"

Seen this guy's posts recently-he seems REALTOR

Anonymous said...

"Been to any open houses recently-they seem PACKED"

I'd agree with this. I know a lot of people who are starting to browse recreationally. None of them are serious about buying at this point, but it's a matter of educating oneself about the current state of housing stock. In a year or two they'll recognize the bargain when they see it.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about open houses being packed. In my neighborhood, Sunset Park, there were several opens and not much activity at all.

Anonymous said...

My wife and I just starting going to open houses again. Wife said she has seen enough until next spring.

Others I know are fed up with Santa Monica and most of the westside and have begun to look elsewhere. No one wants a commute.

Anonymous said...

Open houses in the Palisades have been tomb-quiet of late.

Westside Bubble said...

Others I know are fed up with Santa Monica and most of the westside and have begun to look elsewhere.

Where are they looking now?

Anonymous said...

I've been to two open houses in the last month. That's two more than I've been to in the last 4 years.

Anonymous said...

I like it when they have cookies at the open houses.

Anonymous said...

Personally I don't buy into the argument that it's better to start going to open houses now so as to be "educated" when the prices finally correct for the bubble. Because if you start looking before the greedy or delusional sellers adjust their prices for the bubble, all you're doing is mentally setting yourself up for capitulation and a purchase, it's just a matter of time.

Also, it assumes price corrections are just around the corner--they are not. In the last real estate bubble in LA, it took seven years, from 1989 to 1996, for bottom. I understand that no one's looking to buy at a bottom (just some rationality in the prices), but this gives you an idea that we are still barely in the second inning of this correction in the Westside.

There's just too much time to go, no use getting worked up and tempted going to these open houses with their fantasy prices.

Anonymous said...

Getting educated is really about the what to expect in a house. Most of the people I know who are going out are first time buyers. They have not lived in a house since they left their parents house. The notion of basements, garages, mustiness, plumbing, attics, setbacks, covenants, rights of way etc. are all brand new to them. I think they have a pie-in-the-sky view of a SFR always being clean and fresh smelling with both views and privacy. Seeing a few dozen to a hundred homes or so helps cure them of that. It also lets them realize what a discount for a small sideyard or a decrepit garage should be. I agree that you would have to be an idiot or spending someone else's money to buy in the next couple of years.

Anonymous said...

2:19 a.m. said "no one is looking to buy at the bottom."

I, for one, am looking to buy at the bottom. My guess is that everyone else is too - or at least hopes to do so.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about that. . . we recently bought a house. It made both lifestyle and economic sense for us to buy the house we did for the price we paid (for all the realtor trashing that goes on on these blogs, we loved our realtor). Our house fits our needs now, and in the long term, and we have no intention of moving. If we were buying a true starter home or looking for something more temporary, I would be worried about not buying at the bottom of the market, but thinking about this as a long-term home and an assert, I'm not.

Epsilon said...

I, for one, have started to look a lot more at Culver City... there's a decent amount of new night life in the area (and I can still be close to Father's Office... just a different outpost). Plus, it will have a train to downtown in the not-too-distant future. I'm sick of commuting; I've even thought of looking at downtown, although there's still so little open after 5 that it doesn't seem practical.

Anonymous said...

check out 503 alta

my broker says it is a "pocket" listing - not on the MLS

they have just about an acre of land and the broker tells me the zoning allows the buyer, as of right, to tear down the house and put up a 21,000 square foot home in its place

the seller wants $16 million for it -

this seems in line with the comps, there are probably very few people looking for teardowns in that price range in SM right now, so who the heck knows.

Anyone know how healthy or not healthy the market is for properties like this - remember you can walk to the cliff overlooking the beach very easily but it is very hard to walk to the sand

Anonymous said...

check out 503 alta

Big lot, but not super premium location like Adelaide, La Mesa, or, even less so, San Vicente, with a built-in view. For large house/compound builders, this non-view lot is in competition with Brentwood lots, which are less $ per SF w/o SM approval issues. The Brentwood lots are actually more reclusive and tucked away; Alta is more public with an alley in the rear and walk-by traffic.

I think $16M is too high...maybe $12M will ultimately move it.

Westside Bubble said...

check out 503 alta

I think $16M is too high...maybe $12M will ultimately move it.

An interesting comp for discussion is 234 Alta, LP=$2,980K, now pending. It's a 50 foot lot (1/3 the width of 503), and not as deep.

Is there a discount or a premium for 4 times the area in one lot?