Timely Real Estate News………………………………………………..17 April, 2007
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It all depends on your point of view….
Look at what the Los Angeles Times said last Friday….”Congress is talking about bailing out homeowners facing foreclosure. Lenders are filing for bankruptcy. The National Assn. of Realtors is predicting a drop in U.S. home values this year for the first time since it began keeping records 40 years ago. Doom, any number of forecasters and bloggers will eagerly tell you, is at hand for housing. Yet the median sales price in Southern California went up again in March, crossing the half-a-million-dollar mark, a real estate data service reported Thursday.”
So, there you have it….doom and gloom across the board on the housing market, but right here in Southern California, the market is strong. I have always made the case that West Los Angeles is a unique market — outside the box of traditional Southern California and national statistical tracking. Let’s take a look at March MLS sale price statistics — Bel Air was up more than 71% for March 2007 over the previous March 2006. Brentwood was up a modest 2% over the same year-to-year period, and Beverly Hills, experiencing a rare drop in median price over the past year of 13% — March 2006 was an especially robust sales period in Beverly Hills with several large sales that skewed the average median sales. Days on Market (DOM) are down 10% for Beverly Hills compared to a year ago, and DOM for Bel Air and Brentwood are almost identical to a year ago.
What this is telling us that we do live in a micro-climate. Even more illustrative of this trend is that in Brentwood, between the price range of $1,100,000 – $9,500,000 there were 256 sales of which 17 were in Mountaingate for the March 2006-March 2007 period. This compares to 225 sales in the previous year (March 2005-2006) with 17 sales in Mountaingate. Similarly, in Bel Air in the price range of $1,400,000 – $9,500,000 there were 82 sales during the same March 2006-2007 period, with 24 sales in Bel Air Crest. The previous period — March 2005-2006, there were 137 sales in Bel Air and 14 in Bel Air Crest. Bottom-line — sales remain strong in all of the key Westside communities for this past year.
So what about the ‘lender’ crash? How does this affect me?
There is no question that the fall of sub-prime lenders has affected the home loan market. “Sub-prime lenders difficulties have resulted in a tightening in the home loan market up the food chain,” according to Jim Greenwald of First Capital, a major mortgage-lending firm in Los Angeles. “This factor has worked up to mid-prime lenders, and as a result, all lenders are now tightening loan requirements, especially for first-time buyers. So, yes, the loan market is a bit tougher today, but we still are not feeling it much since our market is not affecting upper-income buyers who want a home loan.” That’s good news.
There is no bad news….I’ve been busier than ever. So, it’s all a matter of where you live, isn’t it? Count your blessings for living in one of the world’s best real estate markets.
