Today's February DataQuick price numbers were essentially flat from January. A change in direction? Probably not, considering if you look back on the graphs there seems to be a flat step every January-February.
Median prices are now down 45.6% for Los Angeles County from its peak in August 2007. Volumes were up 32% year-to-year from February 2008 - but that was an all-time low. They were also essentially flat (up 1%) from the previous month, January 2009, and still in an obvious down trend. (January DataQuick post)
This leaves Los Angeles County prices at April 2003, Orange County at August 2002, Ventura County at June 2002, and San Diego at December 2001.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
February DataQuick
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29 comments:
la is down 46% and dirt north of montana is down 30% from 2.3 million to 1.7 million
Which one of the 1.8MM homes is going to go first with another 100K reduction? It seems long overdue.
My wife and I own a really small 2 bedroom one bath house
South of Montana - we have been trying to sell it for the past 12 months
unfortunately the market for crummy little houses like mine has totally disappeared
there is no way I can sell it - so I am now thinking about just having a builder put up a cookie-cutter inexpensive house on this piece of land
No way can I afford North of Montana quality - I want to build a house that is sort of at the middle of the quality range for the 90403
Can anyone tell me which general contractors seem to have experience building middle of the quality range houses in the 90403 over the past two years?
I want to only consider hiring a GC who can show me a house he has recently built on a standard 7500 sq foot lot
Again, I can't afford any of the expensive builders
thanks
yes - no way to sell a crummy teardown in the 90403
there are today FIVE crummy 90403 teardowns on the market each asking 1.5
Sounds like a losing proposition to me.
Wait 2 years, throw in hundreds of thousands in new costs, and suffer 25% more price reductions on both the lot value and the "investment" in construction.
The only construction happening is the "all-in" gamblers still building the most elite houses in NOM. And there are several of those sitting and cutting prices.
Better to sell now. Take what you can get. Buy bonds or stocks ( which will fall less than 25% more)
"dirt north of montana is down 30% from 2.3 million to 1.7 million"
Not quite, the typical lot topped at $2 million (not 2.3) but they are now $1.5 (not $1.7), check Santa Monica Distress Monitor they had a couple of comps that puts it at $1.5.
"Not quite, the typical lot topped at $2 million (not 2.3) but they are now $1.5 (not $1.7), check Santa Monica Distress Monitor they had a couple of comps that puts it at $1.5."
I don't know how many times we're going to have to go over this, but search westside bubble's blog in March or April of 2007 and you will see a large number of very low end homes selling for 2.2-2.3MM.
Dude, don't build on your lot. You will lose more money. Spec building without absurdely lowland basis is 100% going to lose you money in this market. The only reason your small home is 90403 is not selling is because it is priced too high. Try bringing down the price. if you can't because you owe too much on it, well then you are screwed just a little bit.
Crappy houses not selling, what is the lesson here?
Simple - don't buy crap (unless it is real cheap investment), and don't build crap, ever. Put your eggs in the quality basket - cut your price, sit, and buy something in 90402 that is habitable. You can add-on, tear, etc later, and you will have a more valuable asset in 10 years.
Sounds like you are one of the various delusional sellers asking $1.5M for a 90403 teardown. Your house is currently worth between $1.1M and $1.2M. If you reduce now, you might get a buyer. If you wait and ponder the unwise notion of building a cheap new house on your lot, your value will decrease even further. Good luck.
Ease off on the SOM guy, he is looking for building advise out there....not your smart mouthed 2 bit RE knowledge
SOM guy was not merely asking for building advice. He was also taking the position that there is no way he can sell his house, and that type of inaccurate statement is fair game for commentary. It's simple. Ask a reasonable price, and you can sell your house. Ask 25% more than reasonable and keep it on the market for a year without reducing...
It's an interesting question. What would you do if you had bought this house and were now underwater? I assume the SOM guy bought during the bubble and this is now the case. If it were me, I think I'd hold on to it at this point. Definitely do not build. That's like doubling down at this point. You could spend a year of money and headaches and not be any further ahead financially. Let someone else buy the land and build what they want. If you can sell at a $100-200k loss, that's not so bad. If you need to sell now, then do it, don't prolong the agony. And by the way, where does he plan on living during this building process? Sounds like he's asking for trouble by choosing to build SOM today. On the other hand, I'm sure you'd get some fairly competitive bids.
You build now with out a very low land cost, you lose more money that you would otherwise by just selling the property. This guy is two years away from having anything like this done. He's at least a year away from pouring the cement foundation. I would hate to work with that time horizon right now.
Wonder if the SM Bldg Dept. is still busy. They were such jerks in the high flying boom times....and they are paid higher than any other municipality in the county.
Maybe they are looking at lay offs too....
building department still makes life hellish for anyone trying to build
how good a deal
build a cookie cutter four thousand sq foot home for 1.0 million hard cost?
Sell now, or be priced into this home for the rest of your life.
They probably aren't that busy at Planning, but that's not why things take forever in Santa Monica, so it wouldn't matter for your timeline. in fact, with more attention span bandwidth available to focus on your project, it might actually take longer and cost you more money to get something through planning right now. They might also hold you to a higher standard after seeing the wreckage caused by spec builders and their crappy houses, so be careful trying to get a new home built in SM.
There is no way you can build a quality home for under $300/sq. ft. Would love to hear from builders who build quality, design high end homes on the Westside.
People are lying if they say they can do it cheaper.....
If you go with a modernist architecture and simple floorplan you can definitely build high quality for around $300. You shouldn't think you know all the costs just because you have a few examples of people spending $700-1,000 psf.
2009 Montana, new modern construction listed at $2.798M is a perfect case study. The postage stamp lot is easy to factor out. How much do think the structure cost to build per SF, and how would you rate the quality of the construction?
The architecture is super-clean, with concrete floors and minimal ornamentation.
2009 Montana: assuming they are priced at breakeven it was at most $380 psf to build that ((sales price - prior purchase price)/SF). Given it just came on the market and hasn't been reduced in price and a profit is baked in then it's probably a little over $300 psf because they would probably be thinking about holding costs at this point. It's worth noting, however, that I'm pretty sure that this place has underground parking which would have jacked costs up a bit.
I think $380 per SF is in the ballpark, and the parking is dug in pretty deep. A less complex build - 2 floors, no underground, separate garage, etc. could be done for around $300, barebones. Definitely not under $300, unless you pour a slab and drop pre-fab modulars on it. Ironically, killer pre-fabs like the Kappe house are in the neighborhood of $400+. Plan to spend +$300 no matter what you build NOMA, the City will torpedo anything less.
i love 2009 montana
is the concensus here that that home could be reproduced exactly as is,
with no elevator, no excavation, no underground parking, on a standard flat lot for exactly 300 a square foot?
so if a standard NOM home is four thousand sq feet plus garage we are talking write a check for 1.2 million to a GC and he slaps up a clone of 2009 Montana ?>
is the concensus here that that home could be reproduced exactly as is,
with no elevator, no excavation, no underground parking, on a standard flat lot for exactly 300 a square foot?
Plus plans and hearings, City fees, lot scrape, holding costs, utility lines, etc. which is another $200k. $300 per sf will cover what is owed the GC for the build, not the the pre-build and peripherals.
OK - so here is the budget for a new house in the 90402
1.5 to buy the teardown
0.2 for plans, scrape, and misc
0.1 for landscaping
1.2 for the GC to slap up a 4k home
3.0 all in (plus a lot of pain and hassle) is the price of admission for a newly created home in the 90402
I still say it would be closer to 3.5m to get a new home built in the 90402.
Arch, engineering, soils, demo,permits, utilities upgrade, pool or fancy landscaping and carrying costs would be more around 400k.
And 1.2m hard costs to build 4000 sq. ft. is unrealistic...try 350-400/sq. ft. Wish it wasn't so, but it is.
Questions like this definitely help to explain why all those nasty houses in SM cost so much.
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