|
ACTIVE YEAR PREDICTED FOR REAL ESTATE MARKET
| |
Laura Eversz
|
While a recent front-page story in the L.A. Times described a four percent rise in median home prices in Southern California in December over 2008, local Realtors say that’s not the case here.
IN ESCROW. National real estate trends haven't effected this busy market, according to area Realtors.
“Hancock Park, Larchmont Village and Windsor Square each saw a significant decrease in price per square foot,” said Keller Williams’ Pete Buonocore.
According to Bruce Walker, of Prudential California Realty, high-end homes, in particular, were affected. “The high end was down 25 percent, with homes priced from a million to $1.6 million down 19 percent. Properties on the lower end of the price scale were down around 12 percent from a year ago.”
Nevertheless, Walker and Buonocore, along with Sue Carr of Coldwell Banker, say last year was a good one.
“We’ve been busy,” said Carr, “and very grateful for an extremely good year.”
Walker had a great year in which he closed a lot of deals, including “quite a few in the Village north of Beverly.” And Buonocore, who says the fourth quarter is generally the slowest, describes the end of last year as “robust … and the best I’ve had in my 10-year career.”
“Our neighborhood has been less impacted than the Westside,” said Carr, who credits the limited number of homes on the market for creating stability.
But we’d all like to see more houses on the market, said Buonocore. “The number of houses for sale in Hancock Park have been at the lowest level since I’ve been in the business. That’s because even though there are plenty of people who owe more than their homes are worth, many here are in no hurry to sell and can afford to keep them longer term until the prices rebound.”
Carr predicts an increase in properties coming on the market in the near future and more opportunities ahead. “There are loads of buyers out there with pent up demands. “Also, money is so expensive to borrow, and there is none available for construction,” said Carr.
She thinks that will definitely impact what people buy. “They’ll be looking for homes in the best condition, because it’s so tough to get a bank loan to remodel.”
As for prices, the consensus is that things have bottomed out and will level off this year. “I don’t think anyone’s thinking the prices will go up,” said Buonocore. “The L.A. Times story was misleading for us because it included statistics from neighborhoods burdened by foreclosures and shorts sales where you have investors and cash customers coming in and buying at wholesale prices.”
But that doesn’t affect this neighborhood at all, he added.
Like Carr, Buonocore points to the “tremendous number of buyers out there. “The buyer pool is very big. And buyers and sellers are finally coming to a consensus on prices.”
He credits the uptick in units sold to the fact that buyers sense the bottom has been hit, and sellers realize prices have come down. “And now with interest rates at historically low levels, we see banks finally loosening credit requirements, so buyers are able to get financing,” he added.
He saw evidence of more good news at a recent presentation by Bank of America. “They’re introducing a new program whereby buyers who are qualified can get 90 percent financing on up to $2 million. What that suggests is that a huge bank is agreeing that the market has bottomed out, or is coming close. So they’re willing to back the real estate market.”
Will we ever return to the heady days where prices increased 20 percent per year?
“I don’t think we’ll ever see that again,” said Buonocore. “Even five years from now, when we’re out of the recession and things are better, I doubt most people will forget. We’ll always have a reminder of this recession, and I’ll bet that people will play things a little more conservatively.”
|
|
Home
Current Issue
