Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Ashland & Hill prices

A year ago there was still debate on whether Los Angeles prices would fall. No longer; now it's only whether the prime Westside will follow suit.

Last November I posted Why Westside prices will fall, after October's Different this time?. But we still feel like we're waiting.

I feel Mar Vista prices are falling (like what used to be an $850K house is now $750K; I'll try to document that in the future). So how is Sunset Park doing, as a transition zone between Mar Vista and higher-priced Santa Monica?

I've been using Ashland and Hill, east of 11th, as a Sunset Park index. Here's a list of everything sold there under $1.5M during 2005-8, plus current listings. General observations:

  • In 2005 listings usually sold fast for asking price, while this year has more listings and large price reductions.

  • It feels like there are more listings close to $1M, and listings toward $1.5M aren't moving much.

What are others' views here?

2008
1645 Ashland, 2 bed/1 bath, LP=$995K, LD=7/28/08, Active
2114 Ashland, 2/1, $1,120K (-17%), 5/19/08, Active
1215 Ashland, 3/1, $1,325K (-2%), 4/18/08, Backup 7/31/08
1702 Ashland, 4/3.5, $1,339K (-8%), 10/3/07, Expired 3/08
1621 Ashland (photo), 2/1.5, $1,399K (-16%), 8/13/07, Active
2010 Hill, 2/2, $949K, 6/9/08, SD=7/18/08, SP=$998K (LP +5%)
1519 Hill, 2/2, $1,099K, 6/18/08, Pending 7/5/08
1328 Hill, 3/2, $1,178K (-8%), 6/30/08, Active
2447 Hill, 3/3, $1,350K, 6/26/08, Active
1348 Hill, 3/2, $1,450K (-9%), 9/17/07, 4/1/08, $1,450K
2215 Hill, 3/2, $1,499K (-5%), 6/8/08, Active

2007
2423 Ashland, 3/2, $1,269K, 4/29/07, 6/26/07, $1,220K (-4%)
2005 Ashland, 3/1.75, $1,349K (-9%), 8/2/07, 11/28/07, $1,333K
2208 Ashland, 2/1.75, $1,449K, 10/4/07, 11/16/08, $1,449K
1408 Hill (photo below), 2/1, $899K, 1/11/07, 2/20/07, $896K
2308 Hill, 3/2, $1,309K (-3%), 2/1/07, 5/11/07, $1,275K (-3%)
1655 Hill, 3/2, $1,328K, 1/18/07, 2/23/07, $1,302K (-2%)
2315 Hill, 3/2, $1,475K (-3%), 9/06, 3/8/07, $1,475K

2006
2339 Ashland, 2/2, $1,129K, 5/06, 6/14/06, $1,131K
1710 Ashland, 3/3, $1,429K, 4/06, 5/4/06, $1,429K
1616 Hill, 2/1, $850K, 6/06, 8/23/06, $928K (+9%)
1314 Hill, 3/2,,, 3/13/06, $1,230K
1514 Hill, 2/1, $1,250K, 1/06, 3/24/06, $1,250K
1502 Hill, 3/1, $1,265K, 2/06, 4/18/06, $1,265K
1509 Hill, 3/1.75, $1,295K, 8/06, 1/4/07, $1,261K (-3%)
2315 Hill, 3/2, $1,450K, 5/06, 8/4/06, $1,400K (-3%)

2005
1215 Ashland, 3/1,,, 6/29/05, $1,150K
2030 Ashland, 3/3,,, 8/26/05, $1,245K
1307 Ashland, 3/2,,, 9/23/05, $1,299K
1635 Ashland, 4/2,,, 7/29/05, $1,425K
1621 Ashland, 3/2,,, 10/31/05, $1,450K
1502 Hill, 3/1,,, 11/3/05, $1,150K
1212 Hill, 3/2,,, 12/20/05, $1,182K
2427 Hill, 3/2,,, 7/15/05, $1,320K

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

1621 Ashland AND 1625 Ashland are both active listings? Yikes, side by side houses for sale, that's like so IE!!

Anonymous said...

1645 is for sale not 1625

Westside Bubble said...

Correction made - thanks, both.

Anonymous said...

2009 and beyoooooooooooond:

CNNMoney.com

Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, projects that housing prices could bottom out in 2009 - or maybe later - according to a news report. "Home prices in the U.S. are likely to start to stabilize or touch bottom sometime in the first half of 2009, " said Greenspan to The Wall Street Journal.

But he also added that "prices could continue to drift lower through 2009 and beyond," according to the newspaper.

Richard Mason said...

Well, that about covers the possibilities, Alan, thank you.

Anonymous said...

This just in: Greenspans continues to say nothing.

Anonymous said...

Westside: I'm not sure your point for upper end Sunset Park....prices continuing to hold, or no?

1215 Ashland seems like it sold for $200K more than 2 years ago....?

Anonymous said...

Regarding 1215 Ashland - I think it hasn't closed and with the home invasion occurring within a few houses of it, 1215 might be on it's way down to its 2005 price.

Anonymous said...

Ashland is not special - the liberal hippie elite that runs Santa Monica makes us all vulnerable to similar crimes.

just visit manhattan beach - the elite there have made different choices and as a result things are safer

Anonymous said...

"liberal hippie elite that runs Santa Monica makes us all vulnerable to similar crimes"

Preach on . . . We really need to throw the bums out, literally.

Anonymous said...

go read manhattan beach confidential - they are literally laughing at how santa monica invites in the homeless and manhattan beach boots them out.

the greatest retort for any discussion is - "we can't do that or we will turn in to santa monica"

ever go to MB? notice how clean it is - MB has the same tax base, it is just that the government there has told the cops to enforce the law and in SM government has told the cops to be politically correct

Anonymous said...

"ever go to MB? notice how clean it is - MB has the same tax base, it is just that the government there has told the cops to enforce the law and in SM government has told the cops to be politically correct"

Please cite evidence. Without evidence this claim seems... well... moronic.

Anonymous said...

uh - go do a search on the manhattan beach confidential site - the folks there laugh at SM all the time - cops in MB are well known for enforcing the law and keeping the gang bangers out while SM invites them in

thank city hall for the crime in SM

Anonymous said...

Eight Alleged Gang Members Charged with Two Murders, Serial Shootings
By Jorge Casuso

February 9 -- Hailing it as a turning point in Santa Monica’s effort to combat gang violence, police on Thursday announced the arrest of eight members of a West Los Angeles gang for a string of shootings that included the murders of Eddie Lopez and Miguel Martin.

The suspects were involved in the two homicides last year, as well as several attempted homicides and numerous drive-by shootings that began more than two years ago with a high-profile incident near an elementary school, police said.


( i am not allowed to post more due to the rules but you can get it yourself)


The ex hippies that run Santa Monica city hall keep the police from doing their jobs the way the cops do in MB

Anonymous said...

Um, that article is a year stale, and deals with the SMRR council's efforts to deal with a rise in gang violence in the city.

Try again.

Evidence. Support your point... otherwise we'll all continue to think you're an idiot.

Anonymous said...

You are probably right about the cops enforcing laws in MB and also right about what's being preached over at MB Confidential. You should totally move there if that is the world in which you seek to live. There's a lot to love about MB. I lived there for eight years and I go there at leas once a week for something. It's just a different animal. However, their world and what they are discussing over at MB Confidential is irrelevant and if that's where you are getting your intel, from an impassioned blog filled with tons of hate speech, then you need to broaden your horizons, son. It's really hard to describe what's going on at MB COnfidential. It's a war. Take the discussions we have here about our 90402 and multiply the anger and conjecture by twenty.

Anonymous said...

The funny thing is, the reasons I like owning a home in Santa Monica include the local political culture. I've enjoyed living here for nearly twenty years... and not a hell of a lot has changed.

I don't know why there's such a contingent of non-homeowners (or one non-homeowner who feels compelled to post 50 times, and reply to his own posts within ten minutes of their posting) on this board who feel like they want to buy a house in Santa Monica, even though they want to change everything about the city.

That just seems like the intersection between Don Quixote and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

Anonymous said...

I only visit MB once a month, but i can second the notion that it is *much* cleaner than Santa Monica. The ratio of homeless people in MB to homeless in SM is perhaps 1 to 10

i see young parents letting their young kids roam freely on the manhattan beach pier in a way that would never happen on the SM pier.

I see the relief that moms have in Manhattan Beach letting their kids play in the parks without the drugged out homeless that we have in Reed park

I think the poster raised a valid point - why is SM so different than MB

Anonymous said...

I wrecked my car at that intersection once. I was t-boned by an gag-balled knight chained to a horse in latex.

Anonymous said...

MB is pretty isolated...hard to get to the freeways, etc. It doesn't have the access and services that SM does...

Anonymous said...

....unless the 405 and 105 are the freeways. Oh, and those seem to lead to everywhere in LA. MB is about the same as SM when it comes to getting downtown in the morning. Most people I know who live down there either work in Manhattan Beach on Rosecrans, downtown Los Angeles, El Segundo, somewhere in Torrance, and some in Culver City. Actually, most of friends down there daytrade the open from home and go surfing shortly thereafter.

Anonymous said...

"I think the poster raised a valid point - why is SM so different than MB"

Posting more than once does not make you more persuasive.

Anonymous said...

"MB is about the same as SM when it comes to getting downtown in the morning."

As a former Manhattan Beach resident who now lives in Santa Monica, and has often worked downtown, I can tell you that this is absolute and total nonsense.

Santa Monica is at least 35 minutes closer to downtown (as you can more easily avoid the 405 and 110), on Wednesdays-Fridays it's more like an hour closer.

Anonymous said...

MB is a little farther to downtown (unless you carpool and then it takes 30 min), but to say it's an hour longer is crazy too. You can manage the 110 pretty well if you don't mind shooting down Fig until about Gage. The 105 just flys in both directions. When I commuted to downtown from MB I took the express bus or commuted. That was the best way to do it as far as I was concerned. Fortunately, I now live in Sunset Park and have my office at the Santa Monica airport. I just need to lubricate the bearings on my skateboard in order to get to my office in under 5 minutes.

Anonymous said...

Just looking at a map, it appears that there is a longer distance from MB to downtown than there is from SM to downtown.

The commute would appear to be longer from MB - and that longer commute is in and of itself a reason to live in SM and not MB.

however, if you believe (as i do) that we will see $8 a gallon gas within a few years, then you can hypothesize the following

(1) the very wealthy will be able to commute from far away places much more easily due to lack of traffice
(2) the very wealthy won't care about gas prices
(3) more of the very wealthy will choose a place based on its attractiveness and not based on how close it is to downtown
(4) therefore more of the very wealthy will buy homes in places like malibu that are inherently attractive but really far from downtown

I am not dogmatic about this and i would invite others to comment on how $8 a gallon gas would impact the prices of various neighborhoods.

Perhaps the rush of middle class people to sell out of malibu and move closer to their jobs might put so much downward pressure on malibu prices that the rush of wealthy in to malibu won't push prices in malibu up


The only thing i am 100% sure of is very high gas prices will lead many more of the middle class who work downtown to seek homes right next to the subway stations so that they can commute entirely by subway. I would therefore speculate that land right near the subway stations could go up in value a great deal. IT would seem to me that within a four block radius of the subway stations we should have 40 or 50 level apartment buildints so that the maximum number of people can have a NYC type lifestyle where they walk from their building to the subway and take the subway to work. These people could go the entire work week monday to friday without touching a car - which would greatly improve the air quality in LA and also remove congestion from the subway.

So i would say that very high gas prices should make the land right by the subways more valuable but i do not know what other impacts it would have

Unknown said...

As for the part about Mar Vista down 100K...my husband and I have been watching this area and have noted the same. (or at least we're optimistic because we want to buy in MV but turned down the crazy ARMS and opted to wait until we could actually AFFORD it...2 years later still patiently waiting)

What have you seen in terms of defaults, short sales and foreclosures in this area?

"As Newbie (10/28) commented, "The realtor - happily - told me that more than 75 percent of the homes she was selling were being purchased with no money down, IO or similar." These move-up buyers must be impacted on one or both sides by tighter credit. "

This is what we're hoping to find to get into the neighborhood and stay put for a while. We keep running the numbers and as you stated, it's not cost effective to buy yet. The only way in is on someone else's mistake/misfortune.

"When rent is so much less than a mortgage payment on an equivalent house, there's no financial reason to buy in a flat or falling market."

Anyone know how to find a realtor with experience in short sales and foreclosures? Do they even exist in Mar Vista? Can't seem to find much info other than RealtyTrac which seems like a scam.

Anonymous said...

It's very odd that the poster who keeps calling people names here is so pro-homeless, anti-neighborhood. We need to understand this type of hippie and why they wish for failure and squalor in the city of Santa Monica. As with everything it's got everything to do with their issues and psychology, but I'm trying to understand where this dark impulse is coming from. Is it personal failure, that they want others to experience?

Anonymous said...

"It's very odd that the poster who keeps calling people names here is so pro-homeless, anti-neighborhood. We need to understand this type of hippie and why they wish for failure and squalor in the city of Santa Monica. As with everything it's got everything to do with their issues and psychology, but I'm trying to understand where this dark impulse is coming from. Is it personal failure, that they want others to experience?"

I don't see any pro homeless posters. I see a guy who wants to see some evidence that the current city council is BRINGING the homeless into Santa Monica.

I'll come right out and say I'm strongly anti-homeless... but I believe that the current council is as well. I think that they want to ensure that there is an end to homelessness in Santa Monica... even if they want to go about it in a different way than I do.

So back to you. As rgw other poster said, lets see some evidence...

How is the current city council BRINGING the homeless here?

I'm curious too. Lets see some evidence.

Anonymous said...

thanks very much for this blog. the article on appraisal fraud explains much: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080817/mortgage_mess_appraisers.html

once the public has a better grasp of the real reasons behind the bubble, we will see even SM prices decline significantly.

Westside Bubble said...

You're welcome! On appraisal fraud, see 3121 Urban for what has to be a vivid example.

It's currently Pending sale, last asking price $700K. Previous sale was 9/26/06 for $1,390K, twice as much!

I'm going to declare the homeless issue beaten to death here. Please no more comments on it.

Anonymous said...

WOW, 3121 Urban is 5 day old fish in the hot sun.

2 bed / 2 bath, 1,541 SF on a 6,170 SF lot. The ONLY justification for the appraisal on steroids is if it was zoned for a billboard visible from the freeway on the lot. Of course there is no such zoning...let's hope there is an investigation.