Timely Real Estate News………………………………………………15 February 2012
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You don’t have to go to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras
The 18th annual Mardi Gras in San Diego’s Gas Lamp district is back. The largest Mardi Gras celebration on the West Coast, San Diego’s 18th annual celebration in the Gas Lamp district takes over downtown San Diego on Fat Tuesday, February 21. Although much smaller and cozier than the famous Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, the authenticity and charming Gas Lamp area of San Diego makes this a must-see if you’re in the mood for fun and joining other Fat Tuesday celebrants
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Leap Year (2012) and Leap Day (February 29) are fast approaching
Every four years, we get to play Leap Year and Leap Day. February 29 is Leap Day and is the one day that we add a “day” to our calendar to make sure we catch up with the Earth’s rotation around the sun. We all do the obligatory snicker when someone says that because they were born on February 29 (in one of the former Leap Years), they’re not as old as they really are. So how did this all get started?
Julius Caesar, Father of Leap Year
Julius Caesar was behind the origin of leap year in 45 BC. The early Romans had a 355 day calendar and to keep festivals occurring around the same season each year a 22 or 23 day month was created every second year. Julius Caesar decided to simplify things and added days to different months of the year to create the 365 day calendar, the actual calculation were made by Caesar’s astronomer, Sosigenes. Every fourth year following the 28th day of Februarius (February 29th) one day was to be added, making every fourth year a leap year. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII further refined the calendar with the rule that leap day would occur in any year divisible by 4 as described above
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Home prices surge for first month…..sales volume down
There’s good news and not-so-good news: Home prices surged upward in the four communities I report on — Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills Post Office, Bel-Air, and Brentwood — for the month of January when compared to same period in 2011. But sales volume was down 25% for the first month as well, which dampens some of my initial enthusiasm for the start of the New Year.
On the good news side, however, Median Sales Prices were up in all four communities for January 2012 compared to January 2011. Beverly Hills, which had a great January, was up 60% over January 2011. Beverly Hills Post Office was up 25% over last January; Bel-Air was up 30%, and Brentwood nudged ahead by 3%. Year-To-Date Median Sales Prices are the best gauge how our neighborhoods are doing in terms of home values. Each month, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) continues to track monthly sales and for the most part, the #s are trailing statistics at best. Homes sold in December may not show up for three or four months, depending on when the escrows close. And, as I have noted in the past, MSL has had challenges in eradicating double booking a sale when two real estate agents record the same sale. I try my best to weed these out, but sometimes, it’s difficult based on the way MLS sends out its data. Still, our #s remain the best guideline as to what is happening in our communities.
When you track median sales prices for December 2011 sales vs. January 2012 sales, Beverly Hills had a huge statistical leap of 110% increase for this year — with the average MSP of $4,800,000 vs. $2,280,000. Bel-Air showed a 46% increase in January 2012 over December 2011, with a MSP of $1,935,000 vs. $1,654,000. BHPO was down 5% for the same period as was Brentwood.
What does this mean? It’s too early to tell?
One month does not make a year, and while it is encouraging to see all four communities I report on in the positive area, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to have a spectacular year. I will share with you that we’re seeing a lot of activity at open houses, and I’m off to one of my best starts already.
One of my recent sales was to a wonderful lady from Hawaii who came here to shop for a home close to UCLA ((She had already done her research on the Internet (California Moves, Trulia) and she was very focused and organized. Our combined – 50 homes, most of which we looked at in a crush of 4 days. About 25% of the homes on the lists had at least one offer, some as many as 10 pr had gone into escrow while we were looking.. But fear not, we did find “that special one”, and now are going through the inspections. She really had not totally planned to find something that quickly, but fortunately we did. I am relating this story to illustrate the current state of the market. .
One of the key factors in this market is the challenge to even see the home you want to inspect. In Beverly Hills, for example, it may take you three or four days, and in some cases, a full week — before you can even get an appointment to see the house. And one of the reasons for this is that there is not a lot of good inventory out there now. Good properties are hard to find, and many homes are being gobbled up before they even get on the market. And as an aside, a house next door to my Mother’s home in Beverly Wood, came on the market and had 11 offers on it. We couldn’t believe it.
The point is that the Westside continues to attract buyers from all over the world — it’s all about location, isn’t it?
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Los Angeles County luxury home prices make up some lost ground
In a larger context, the luxury market is finally getting traction in Los Angeles County.
I attended the Previews Directors meeting of Coldwell Banker’s Los Angeles Company today. This is the group of Coldwell Banker agents that specialize in the higher end market (in West Los Angeles, that cut off is $2,000,0000 and slightly lower in other parts of the areas covered by the Los Angeles Company which includes all of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties). The energy in the room was palpable, and exciting in that the difference in the production and sales volume between, just the first six weeks of 2012 vs. 2010 and 2011 were appreciably higher. Thus far, there have been two sales over $20,000,000, one in Beverly Hills Post Office and the other in Bel Air (both of these are closed escrows). The sales volume in Beverly Hills is up 30% from the same time last year, and in Bel Air, it is up about 10%; in Brentwood it is up approximately the same amount and the same in Beverly Hills Post Office. One of the areas reported on was Santa Monica, and there it was reported that of the 58 active listings, 46 are in escrow! The only area that is suffering is Marina del Rey, with Venice recovering faster than the Marina. You can’t keep a good home down long. Last year brought a dose of real estate reality to many wealthy areas of Los Angeles, including tony San Marino which endured a 7.2% decline in median sales price, erasing gains from the previous two years. And where beach areas have remained strong over the past decade, Hermosa Beach was the big winner and Malibu a big loser. San Diego-based Data Quick pointed out that “looks can be deceiving” — while some areas made some strong gains in 2011, they really were just climbing back to previous levels — not highs, but levels that deteriorated during 2010 and 2009. One of the main reasons for the rise in luxury home prices has been the lack of homes for sale at the top of the price spectrum.
According to Data Quick, Bel-Air and environs had a 14.3% price increase from 2010 to 2011, but it came off a 10.5% loss in the 2009-to-2010 tally. The 147 recorded sales in Bel-Air included the $85 million Spelling mansion, which claimed the highest priced -sale distinction for Southern California for 2011.
In Beverly Hills’s desirable 90210 Zip Code, prices were up 7.3% compared with a 1.7% drop the year before. Malibu was hardest hit with a median sales price drop of 21% to $1.65 million over the previous year. And Santa Monica’s 90402 had 110 existing home sales at a median sales price of $2.141 million, an 8.5% price drop….and Pacific Palisades took a 7.8% hit as well, which has been its third consecutive loss in a row.
All in all, the market appears to be strengthening as we enter 2012. Year-to-date median sales prices will tell our story for the most part….but there can always be a Spelling Mansion hitting the market, too, which influences all of these stats. At the end of the day, your home’s value will be based on what buyers are willing to pay for it.
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What an impressive event….my Uncle’s military funeral
I really didn’t expect a memorial service out of the ordinary….at my age, unfortunately I’ve been to many, but I must share with you the absolutely impressive, moving military funeral given for my Uncle last week. He was 83 and had served as a pharmacist in the US Army in Korea. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1928, Art served as an officer during the Korean War and on getting out of the service in 1953, he worked as a pharmacist in Long Beach, where he passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. At the memorial service, his coffin was draped in the American Flag, and three honor guards walked in perfect unison, smartly turned to face us, and then another soldier played taps. After taps, the honor guard tri-folded the American Flag and gave it to my Aunt as an expression of America’s gratitude for Art’s contributions in the military. The entire ceremony was very moving!
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Amazing spider silk
Spider silk – stronger than steel, tougher than Kevlar – and beautiful
A fear of spiders isn’t uncommon, although often unfounded. I know of far more people who have been bitten by dogs or scratched by a cat than have been bitten by a spider. Sometimes fear can be turned into fascination once we understand more about something.
A fascinating aspect of spiders is the webs they weave – not just the intricate nature of the construction, but the silk used to spin the web, which is the strongest natural or synthetic fiber known. Spider silk is made up of complex proteins. Researchers have been keen to figure out how to replicate spider silk, but have so far only decoded the silk’s DNA for a handful of species of spider. Spiders create different types of silk depending on the application, with some species may create up to 8 different silk types.
The interest in creating spider silk based products for applications such as ropes and protective clothing becomes apparent when you look at the properties of the silk.
According to Wikipedia, spider silk strength is better than that of high-grade steel and is as strong as Kevlar; which is used in bullet proof body armor. It’s very lightweight and it would only take a strand of spider silk weighing around a pound to encircle the entire planet. Some webs are strong enough to capture small birds and bats. Spider silk is able stretch up to 140% of its length without breaking and retains its strength below -40 degrees Celsius.
Spiders are great recyclers too when it comes to their silk. After a couple of days, the web strands lose their stickiness – so the spider eats that section and weaves a new one. While silkworms have been farmed for their silk for thousands of years, there hasn’t been much success in spider farming or harvesting spider silk as they can be cranky little critters who have a tendency to eat one another. However, that doesn’t mean to say there hasn’t been any success.
An example of just how beautiful spider silk can be as a fiber for textiles is captured in this cloth, made from the silk of the golden-orb weaving spider.
An embroidered cape made of spider silk.
Crafted by Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley, 2011
Image credit: Victoria and Albert Museum
An image of the full spider silk cape can be viewed here. I’m not at all a fan or spiders, I found this to be absolutely beautiful. Aside from the amazing workmanship, what you see is the natural color of the silk. According to the accompanying report on the ABC, 1 million female golden orb spiders contributed to the 4 meter (around 13 feet) cape. Spiders were captured in the highlands of Madagascar each morning, harnessed in special equipment and their silk extracted; then returned to the wild. I’m not sure how the spiders felt about the whole ordeal though – and if they are the same golden orb spider we have here in Australia, the handlers would have been risking a nasty bite.
Trivia – there are well over 30,000 species of spider and only 200 species have bites that can cause health problems in humans (allergic persons aside) – less than 1%. Three species of spider go extinct each year.