Los Angeles County South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate $$$ Transacted for October 2007
Local realtors can say all they want about how the pricey beach areas and the westside are immune to a real estate slump, but that was certainly not the case in October, which turned out to be the sickest looking month in quite a while.
Of all the zip codes I cover in southwest Los Angeles County west of the 110 freeway and south of the 10 freeway, the following areas roughly match their dollar volumes from October 2006: 90034 - Palms; 90066 - Mar Vista; 90404 - Santa Monica, and the following areas comfortably exceed their dollar volumes from October 2006: 90045 - Westchester; 90094 - Playa Vista; 90254 - Hermosa Beach; 90402 - Santa Monica; and 90501 - Torrance. Everywhere else, October 2007's dollar volume was noticeably down from October 2006. 90064 - Rancho Park, has been on steroids this year but even that area is starting to turn down.
A lot of realtors must be doing something besides selling real estate in order to make ends meet. In my household we have joked for years about how the beach cities economy relies on people selling each other real estate and teaching each other yoga, but there is an element of truth to it.
It is probably safe to say that the affluent are still affluent, and their sources of mortgage funding, should they want it, are still around. If that is true, and they haven't lost a significant portion of their net worth in some hedge fund or private equity blowup, and they still have the bucks, then maybe some of the affluent areas slumped in October for some reason besides lack of funds. Could it be that a deflationary psychological mindset about the housing market is starting to spread, like a virus?
October looked so bad that I think we're due to see full page NAR ads again about what a great time it is to buy a house. I'm also wondering if more credit will imminently materialize out of thin air to pump some oomph back into this market - after all that seems to have been our solution over recent decades, to throw more credit at whatever financial problem roils the country and the world. And with an election year coming, I'm just going to have to get some barf bags and brace myself for what I expect to hear being spewed out of Washington.
In the charts below, notice the YOY line for the beach cities has now gone negative again. Redondo Beach YOY is still above 0% but pointing down. The entire southwest L.A. County area in general remains sick.
105 beach cities properties were sold in October versus 154 October 2006. 64 Redondo Beach properties were recorded by Melissa Data as sold in October versus 97 October 2006. As for new inventory, I managed to find 82 new properties listed in Redondo Beach for October, which obviously has not done anything to erase any "psychological overhang" of unsold properties, even if they are not still listed. I suppose we'll be hearing about a great spring 2008, with lots of "pent-up buying demand", but so far they haven't talked about "pent-up selling demand."
It's hard to believe that the end of this month will mark the 2 year anniversary of this blog. And it's even harder to believe that I got so fed up with what I was seeing in my neighborhood that I started collecting housing sale data - back in early 2002!
YOY Comparisons
Compares a moving average of $$$ volume to the prior year - a measure of Acute Pain.
Realtors fat and happy... 90094 53.2% Playa Vista 90064 43.6% Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills 90293 37.9% Playa del Rey 90254 23.5% Hermosa Beach 90291 19.2% Venice 90275 8.6% Palos Verdes Estates Not too shabby... 90505 6.8% Torrance 90277 6.3% Redondo Beach (south) Hanging in there... 90277-90278 1.4% Redondo Beach combined 90732 0.6% San Pedro/Rancho PV Losing a grip... 90278 -2.3% Redondo Beach (north) 90008 -5.9% Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park beach cities -7.6% 4 Beach Cities combined 90292 -9.4% Marina del Rey Slip sliding away... 90045 -12.6% Westchester 90034 -13.0% Palms 90503 -15.3% Torrance 90066 -17.4% Mar Vista 90036 -18.3% Park La Brea SW county -18.3% Southwest L.A. County 90266 -18.5% Manhattan Beach 90035 -19.8% West Fairfax 90401-90405 -20.7% Santa Monica combined 90230 -21.2% Culver City 90019 -23.1% Country Club Park/Mid City 90232 -27.0% Culver City 90717 -28.5% Lomita 90250 -29.2% Hawthorne Sliding over a cliff... 90501-90505 -32.1% Torrance Combined 90007 -33.6% South Central 90504 -41.4% Torrance 90056 -42.0% Ladera Heights 90245 -43.2% El Segundo 90016 -43.4% West Adams 90501 -47.5% Torrance Off the cliff, Thelma and Louise style... 90047 -51.8% South Central 90745 -52.1% Carson 90302 -53.0% Inglewood 90044 -56.4% Athens 90260 -58.5% Lawndale 90304 -58.6% Lennox 90249 -58.7% Gardena 90303 -59.6% Inglewood 90062 -61.4% South Central 90301 -62.5% Inglewood 90746 -62.5% Carson 90043 -63.8% Hyde Park, Windsor Hills 90018 -66.0% Jefferson Park 90301-90305 -66.1% Inglewood/Lennox combined 90502 -67.5% Torrance 90037 -70.5% South Central 90305 -78.5% Inglewood 90744 -160.8% Wilmington
"Relative Strength"
A longer-term view of the strength of dollar volume, with 4.6 being the strongest (suffering the least amount of chronic pain) and 0.1 being the weakest (suffering the most chronic pain). Think of it is as the positive area of the YOY graph with the negative area of the YOY graph subtracted out.
90094 4.6 Playa Vista 90305 3.1 Inglewood 90044 2.0 Athens 90034 1.9 Palms 90746 1.8 Carson 90292 1.6 Marina del Rey 90047 1.3 South Central 90062 1.3 South Central 90301-90305 1.3 Inglewood/Lennox combined 90502 1.2 Torrance 90304 1.2 Lennox 90018 1.2 Jefferson Park 90007 1.1 South Central 90303 1.1 Inglewood 90745 1.1 Carson 90302 1.0 Inglewood 90016 1.0 West Adams 90301 1.0 Inglewood 90250 1.0 Hawthorne 90037 0.9 South Central 90043 0.9 Hyde Park, Windsor Hills 90732 0.8 San Pedro/Rancho PV 90019 0.8 Country Club Park/Mid City 90249 0.8 Gardena 90293 0.7 Playa del Rey 90501 0.7 Torrance 90260 0.7 Lawndale 90230 0.7 Culver City SW county 0.7 Southwest L.A. County 90503 0.7 Torrance 90008 0.6 Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park 90291 0.6 Venice 90064 0.5 Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills 90501-90505 0.5 Torrance Combined 90036 0.5 Park La Brea 90254 0.5 Hermosa Beach 90232 0.5 Culver City 90278 0.5 Redondo Beach (north) 90045 0.5 Westchester 90245 0.5 El Segundo 90066 0.4 Mar Vista 90056 0.4 Ladera Heights 90035 0.4 West Fairfax 90277-90278 0.3 Redondo Beach combined 90717 0.3 Lomita 90505 0.3 Torrance 90401-90405 0.3 Santa Monica combined beach cities 0.3 4 Beach Cities combined 90266 0.3 Manhattan Beach 90504 0.2 Torrance 90277 0.2 Redondo Beach (south) 90744 0.2 Wilmington 90275 0.1 Palos Verdes Estates
For details on individual zip codes, visit my regional tracker, or my Google map tool of the same data.
posted by bearmaster at 8:07 PM
1 Comments:
It looks like history is rhyming in a big way right now too. Recall that in my 3 part series about the last Great Housing Slump in Southern California, I mentioned that prescient Fred Sands urged his clients back in 1989 to "do it now" if they want to sell their houses. And then in 1992, Fred Sands wrote another letter to his clients containing a "badly needed dose of reality", telling them to either forget about selling their homes for three years or slash the price and get it sold.
Well Fred Sands has recently addressed a realty conference according to this November 3 L.A. Times story by Peter Y. Hong (Mogul's Advice to Realtors: Don't Keep Your Day Job) and he's telling realtors that if they've been barely been getting by over the last few years to think about going back to doing what they did before real estate. Yes! And he's also telling realtors to consider going to the affluent and westside areas. Buyers in these areas have been less likely to use toxic loans, but still, property values "won't escape unscathed."
Alan Long, another agent at that same conference, also urged slashing prices since rising foreclosures "could cause prices to fall 20% below 2005 levels."
Personally I think that's still too optimistic - that's already happened to some places in Redondo Beach. But at least industry leaders are getting up in front of the throngs now and telling them what they should have been telling them 18 months ago. Oh well.
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