Los Angeles South Bay Beach Cities Housing Bubble

Los Angeles Business Journal: Uptick in volume may not presage rising prices

2011-05-15T15:26:00.000-07:00

Why have I not blogged about the South Bay real estate market in two years? Because it would have been a complete and utter waste of time.

What has positively changed since the earthquakes started hitting the asset markets in 2007 and 2008? Other than a few heroin injections provided by Washington to stimulate the economy, all charged on a gigantic credit card to be repaid by the debt and tax slave labor of you and your children and their children, absolutely nothing. We have been in the eye of the storm. While we have been enjoying the relative calm in the storm's eye, Washington politicians and the financiers who bankroll their campaigns are as corrupt as ever and there are still trainloads of suckers out there who actually believe we are in a recovery.

I still have several of my tea party signs from 2009 in my closet here at home. Since nothing has changed they are still 100% relevant. I would welcome an opportunity to hold these signs up again and even create new ones. In the meantime, the tea party organization has become a joke, seduced by the likes of Sarah Palin, a shill for John McCain, GOP presidential candidate in the 2008 election who actually suspended his campaign at one point to rush back to Washington and vote for a heroin injection. Another tea party seducer has been Newt Gingrich, he of the high and mighty moral ground who left an ex-wife while she was dying of cancer. There may even have been child support issues, though I have not seen confirmation of that. Yep, just the kind of character we need running this country.

I quit the local tea party here long ago, in total disgust. I just don't believe in false idol worship of Ronald Reagan - he of the war on drugs, and of restrictions on how much money you can transfer or carry - because you might be one of those damn drug dealers! He talked a few good lines but he was an actor and he was supposed to say those lines. Nor do I believe in labeling Jimmy Carter a freak simply because he had the audacity to turn down the thermostat in the White House and wear a sweater to save on energy costs. Last week, for the 36th district congressional primary, I turned in my first blank ballot - ever. I regret not having written in, "None of the above."

We so desperately need people with integrity in office with the backbones to go after these bankers that have committed financial fraud, who have wrongly foreclosed on peoples' homes with "mistakes in paperwork", at the same time going after those who have lied on loan applications. Liars who have broken laws need to feel justice, no matter what rung of the ladder they have landed on. We are all supposed to be equal under the law.

Nobody in Washington - not even Ron Paul - is truly sounding this alarm nor taking any concrete steps to go after fraud perpetrators. He is the House Chairman of Domestic Monetary Policies and I have not heard a single word about the actions of Bank of America, Wells Fargo, or other lenders or of any plans to bring these institutions before justice. Dr. Paul may want to blame all our problems on the Federal Reserve, on shifting away from our Constitutional groundings, or on the credit bubble, but individuals, corporations and governments are still responsible for their own fraudulent actions, bubble or no bubble. While reducing the size of government sounds like the right thing to do, how does this idea translate into the more pressing and immediate matter of dealing with maybe millions of angry Americans who may resort to violent action because food costs have soared and they are about to lose their homes? They don't understand credit bubbles and Austrian economics. This country has no sheriff.

Enough of that. Here are the latest figures out of the L.A. Business Journal. Over the last two years, the journal has not been diligent about putting a leader on its front page when there is a residential real estate story. Nobody likes being the announcer of bad news so I think that has been a deliberate choice. The upshot of that is that I don't have LABJ data from the last two years, only whatever pieces I have picked up here and there:

-------------------------- SFR --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Apr     %YOY         Apr    %YOY
                         Sales   Change      Price   Change
L.A County              3,745      -10%    $340,000    -3%
El Segundo       90245      4        0%    $845,000    +9%
Hermosa Beach    90254      7      -13%  $1,355,000   +52%
Manhattan Beach  90266     19      -24%    $963,000   -23%
Redondo Beach    90277     11      +57%    $899,000   -10%
Redondo Beach    90278     14        0%    $652,000    -8%

------------------------ CONDO --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Apr     %YOY      Apr       %YOY
                         Sales   Change    Price     Change
L.A. County              1,433      -6%    $275,000   -11%
El Segundo       90245       3     -25%    $539,000   +32%
Hermosa Beach    90254       4     -50%    $865,000    -3%
Manhattan Beach  90266       9    +200%  $1,215,000   +16%
Redondo Beach    90277      15     +36%    $610,000    +1%
Redondo Beach    90278      25     -17%    $570,000   -15%

I got the impression from the LABJ article that the industry may be one step closer to facing reality. The headlines says "Uptick in Volume May Not Presage Rising Prices." Maybe somebody is finally catching on.

Let's face it. Some people don't recognize reality until the walls come crashing in on them and the water rushes in.

Right now I think is a dangerous time to even consider buying real estate, even though there are a few decent prices elsewhere in the country. Why dangerous? Because desperate governments short of funds do desperate things. That includes local governments. They will do what they damn well please regardless of the laws in the books designed to protect you because they know nobody's going to enforce those laws.

In front of me is an article called "A Homesteaders Journal", from the May/June 2011 edition of Backwoods Home Magazine, written by somebody with 20 ~~undeveloped~~ acres she had not improved out in the middle of nowhere. This is what really caught my eye - last year, her property taxes were $14. In one year, they were increased to $460. That's a 3185% property tax increase in one year. When you are retired and don't have steady income (how are you making out on the interest on your Treasury bills lately?) that sucks.

Another article in front of me is from the January 13, 2011 edition of the Manhattan Beach Reporter. Apparently the Hermosa Beach City Council tried to raise residential parking fees and the residents screamed bloody murder. One resident wrote,

"[Under] what rock have our City Council members been living? Is it possible these individuals are not aware that property values have plummeted and unemployment rates and home foreclosures are at an all time high?"

So in the land of sunshine and strand bicycling and beach parties, not all is well. Some people feel like they are hanging on by a thread. All it will take is another financial tsunami to tip them over.

I have an e-mailbox stuffed with over two years of real estate listings I have yet to enter in my database, plus over two years worth of sales clippings out of the Manhattan Beach Reporter that all need to be entered in my database - when I have the time. Today, I was amazed that I was actually able to import my old local real estate database into a newer version of MySQL on my new computer without a bit of struggle. So I am up and running. I am working at my real job close to 12 hours a day leaving me little time for other pursuits, so I will only state that I will do what I can do for this blog when I can.

Los Angeles County South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate $$$ Transacted through March 2009

2009-04-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

My intent is to publish the dollar volume charts on a quarterly basis. These charts show data through the end of March 2009.

Generally, sales volume has rebounded somewhat. Last year during Q1 sales volume was in the dumpster, so some rebound has been bound to occur.

Dollar volume is climbing up in several areas. When you look at the statistics tables below, you'll notice that the YOY dollar volume has zoomed up past zero in areas such as parts of Torrance; Gardena; Wilmington; Lawndale; Inglewood; Lennox; and Carson. I am stating the obvious when I say that these are not affluent areas of Los Angeles County. I suspect that some falling Ginzu knife shoppers with dreams of becoming landlords (maybe slumlords) are out there shopping. Redondo Beach has climbed back YOY, very close to zero, but this is the "poorest" of the beach cities. In general, YOY dollar volume has not (yet) climbed back for the beach cities, nor for SW Los Angeles County.

YOY Comparisons

These numbers are a YOY comparison of the doubly smooth moving average of dollar volumes. I think of them as "recent pain" (or recent gain) indicators. Notice that I accidentally tallied these backwards. Normally I list these in descending order.

90094         -81.4%       Playa Vista   
90292         -64.6%       Marina del Rey   
90036         -59.8%       Park La Brea   
90501         -59.8%       Torrance   
90007         -56.2%       South Central   
90293         -53.6%       Playa del Rey   
90291         -53.0%       Venice   
90254         -52.4%       Hermosa Beach   
90056         -51.0%       Ladera Heights   
90302         -48.6%       Inglewood   
90062         -48.6%       South Central   
90245         -48.4%       El Segundo   
90019         -44.6%       Country Club Park/Mid City   
90064         -42.4%       Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills   
90301         -42.3%       Inglewood   
90045         -41.3%       Westchester   
90016         -40.8%       West Adams
90066         -39.2%       Mar Vista
90034         -38.1%       Palms
90043         -37.2%       Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90044         -34.8%       Athens
SW county     -32.7%       Southwest L.A. County
90501-90505   -31.3%       Torrance Combined
90266         -30.9%       Manhattan Beach
90018         -30.8%       Jefferson Park
90037         -29.6%       South Central
90008         -28.9%       Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90401-90405   -28.7%       Santa Monica combined
beach cities  -28.5%       4 Beach Cities combined
90505         -25.8%       Torrance
90047         -22.3%       South Central
90275         -20.2%       Palos Verdes Estates
90250         -17.2%       Hawthorne  
90502         -15.9%       Torrance  
90504         -15.5%       Torrance  
90035         -14.1%       West Fairfax  
90717         -12.5%       Lomita  
90278         -10.2%       Redondo Beach (north)  
90277-90278    -8.0%       Redondo Beach combined  
90277          -5.2%       Redondo Beach (south)  
90301-90305    -3.2%       Inglewood/Lennox combined  
90249          -1.7%       Gardena  
90503           2.3%       Torrance  
90732           2.8%       San Pedro/Rancho PV  
90232           3.3%       Culver City  
90230           3.9%       Culver City  
90247           8.6%       Gardena  
90746          15.7%       Carson  
90744          18.7%       Wilmington   
90731          22.4%       San Pedro   
90260          25.0%       Lawndale   
90304          36.7%       Lennox   
90305          59.7%       Inglewood   
90745          69.6%       Carson   
90303         122.2%       Inglewood

Relative Strength

This is a longer-term view of the strength of dollar volume in a given zip code. For this month 4.9 is the strongest (suffering the least amount of chronic pain) and -0.3 is the weakest (suffering the most chronic pain). Think of it is as the area above 0 on the YOY graph with the area below 0 of the YOY graph subtracted out.

90094           4.9  Playa Vista   
90247           2.9  Gardena   
90305           2.3  Inglewood   
90034           1.4  Palms   
90746           1.1  Carson   
90044           1.0  Athens   
90292           0.9  Marina del Rey   
90745           0.6  Carson   
90502           0.5  Torrance   
90304           0.5  Lennox   
90744           0.4  Wilmington   
90301-90305     0.4  Inglewood/Lennox combined   
90047           0.4  South Central   
90303           0.4  Inglewood   
90501           0.3  Torrance   
90007           0.3  South Central   
90249           0.3  Gardena   
90018           0.3  Jefferson Park   
90062           0.3  South Central   
90250           0.3  Hawthorne   
90016           0.2  West Adams   
90732           0.2  San Pedro/Rancho PV   
90302           0.2  Inglewood   
90064           0.2  Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills   
90232           0.2  Culver City   
90301           0.1  Inglewood   
90260           0.1  Lawndale   
90293           0.1  Playa del Rey   
90254           0.1  Hermosa Beach   
90043           0.1  Hyde Park, Windsor Hills   
90230           0.1  Culver City   
90503           0.0  Torrance   
90245           0.0  El Segundo   
90045           0.0  Westchester   
90291           0.0  Venice   
90019           0.0  Country Club Park/Mid City   
90501-90505     0.0  Torrance Combined   
90008           0.0  Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park   
90505          -0.1  Torrance   
90278          -0.1  Redondo Beach (north)   
SW county      -0.1  Southwest L.A. County   
90066          -0.1  Mar Vista   
90035          -0.1  West Fairfax   
90401-90405    -0.1  Santa Monica combined   
90037          -0.2  South Central   
90277-90278    -0.2  Redondo Beach combined   
90036          -0.2  Park La Brea   
90056          -0.2  Ladera Heights   
beach cities   -0.3  4 Beach Cities combined   
90277          -0.3  Redondo Beach (south)   
90275          -0.3  Palos Verdes Estates   
90504          -0.3  Torrance   
90731          -0.3  San Pedro   
90717          -0.3  Lomita   
90266          -0.3  Manhattan Beach

Your South Bay housing bubble blogger, courtesy of the South Bay Tea Party

2009-04-16T15:00:00.001-07:00

Hi everybody!

Recall that last week I posted announcements about the South Bay Tea Party to be held on April 15. The reason why I volunteered to help organize this event was because we need to hold Washington and Wall Street crooks accountable for their toxic contributions to the economic mess we now face - including housing prices that in my opinion are still way too high. We need balance sheets to come clean in order to restore some health and sanity to our asset markets - including our housing markets. Financial fraud, reckless spending, pork, borrowing, and money printing MUST stop.

Here's a report on what happened immediately before and at the South Bay Tea Party.

Yours truly fulfilled her secret fantasy of becoming a sign twirler and stood at the corner of Aviation and Rosecrans on the evening of Tuesday, April 14, fighting the wind and freezing her ass off, advertising this event. I made signs with an Alice in Wonderland theme (she had a famous tea party, you know!) so I dressed up as the Queen of Hearts. One of my signs said "NO bailouts for weasels! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" which unfortunately, was not photographed.

On the day of the event itself, somewhere between 1000 and 1500 people showed up.

The wind was hellacious and did not let up all day, making it just about impossible to put up our banner and hold up signs, but we somehow managed. The sand was blowing into our faces and eyes making things even harder, plus it was quite cold and it got very overcast in the afternoon.

El Segundo Police told us in the morning they got a brief from ACORN saying they might crash our party. The police weren't worried about us - they were worried about ACORN. Ultimately, ACORN and other dissenters did not show up. They probably thought we were too small to mess with.

I ended up out in the parking lot for most of the event helping people register and giving them signs to hold if they wanted. So unfortunately I didn't hear most of the speeches. Tammy Bruce was the guest speaker. There was also a moving speech by a young black man who served in the military, raised in a single-parent household of six kids. I heard some of it, but wasn't able to hear all of it from where I was in the parking lot.

Not a whole lot of press was there, which may have ended up being a good thing. Somebody from USC journalism was there for just about the entire event. Daily Breeze was there, and that reporter in fact interviewed me. I got a kick out of the guy from AP. Turns out he's from Mexico, and he said he left Mexico because of the wacky politics and came here and lamented about how now "this country is being ruined."

Contrary to media reports, this party was not run by any local GOP club. In fact, our organizer told the local GOP chapter when it asked about getting in on the action - thanks but no thanks.

I heard from a friend of a friend who attended a party in NYC that his party "got hijacked by Fox News and the GOP" but that didn't happen here. Our party REMAINED our party. Some of my fellow protesters, staunch Republicans, told me how they've been slamming their phones down on the GOP, vowing not to send another dime to them.

I designed roughly 24 posters for this event. Our living room looks like a cyclone tore through an art supply store. The poster that seemed to really push peoples' buttons the most was my Somali pirates sign. A lot of people, including the two reporters I talked to, took photos of that sign or gave me a thumbs up. The wind was so bad that this strong fellow had to help me hold it up.

Yours truly was also quoted in the Daily Breeze's coverage of this event:

Dockweiler State Beach Tea Party blasts governor's special election, Prop. 1A, by Max Zimbert

1500 people showing up for this event may not seem like much, but let's put that in perspective. I've been a Ron Paul supporter for many years, having donated to his Congressional campaigns on and off since maybe 1998. Before the presidential primaries I registered as a Republican so I could vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. The weekend before the primaries, at the last possible minute, I became a precinct leader and spent that weekend leafletting not only my precinct but helping out another person's precinct. Only then did I realize that there simply were not enough arms, legs, and mouths to spread the idea of limited government reined in by the Constitution. Roughly a year later, our organizer, Nathan Mintz, held his initial meeting with only 2 people. His group of helpers grew to about 12 - including me. Now we had this event, held on a midweek day in freezing windy uncomfortable weather in a location that wasn't exactly obvious or easy to get to. I'd call that progress.

You can view photos we took of the party here. If you like the idea of restoring health to our asset markets - including our housing markets - by stopping reckless borrowing, spending, money printing, and holding politicians accountable for the corruption that runs Washington and Wall Street, join us and sign up at South Bay Tea Party. You can also find us out on Facebook.

I've got the L.A. Business Journal in my backpack and a pile of other stuff to blog about the housing market. I hope to be back in the blogging saddle shortly.

Ruxton Lane news

2009-04-12T20:29:00.001-07:00

This is the third time I've seen the new 27-unit Ruxton Lane condos go on sale. Long time readers remember my visits there and my posts. If you're curious you can review most of this ongoing story in these links. To make a long story short, I noticed this development in the fall of 2007; prices originally started from about $750,000 to $810,000; the units didn't sell; another realtor took over the sale of the development in the spring of 2008, prices were knocked down, the units still didn't sell; the development foreclosed back to the lender. Now Ruxton is back for a third round.

History of the Ruxton development

23-Sep-2007 Mega Developments
15-Dec-2007 More on the Ruxton Lane Developments
13-Feb -2008 Ruxton Lane Saga continues
25-Mar-2008 Ruxton Pacific Development brings in the Big Guns
12-Feb-2009 Catching up South Bay residential projects

It turns out there was a grand opening last weekend. I was happening to head to Target to get supplies for the upcoming tea party protest, saw the Ruxton signs, and decided to take a quick detour to the development to see what was up.

The flags were out flapping in the breeze and the falling Ginzu knife shoppers were out shopping. 1906 sqft units start from $544,000; 1982 sqft units start from $560,000, and 2003 sqft units start from $606,000.

That's at least a 25% price drop from sale attempt #1 in the fall of 2007, and while that is significant, the neighborhood still sucks and the units are still overpriced in my opinion. Remember, we have been in an excessively credit-fueled economy for God knows how long. Some air has leaked out of the bubble, but not much. You've been seeing lots of press in recent days about a possible bottom in the economy and about hope turning up again. It's springtime. This is the season of hope. There is supposed to be more hope at this time of year!

The biggest rationalization I've been hearing about this potential bottom is that "unemployment is a lagging indicator, so employment statistics will turn up last." They have completely missed the boat in even seeing this downturn coming so how the heck will they know when the economy bottoms? I have an idea. When these idiots stop trying to call a bottom then I will start thinking about a bottom.

In the meantime, you can check out this Daily Breeze article on Ruxton. Apparently eleven (41%) of the units have been sold.

I will be standing on the corner of Aviation and Rosecrans on Tuesday night during rush hour to twirl a sign promoting the tea party protest. I MAY be wearing a costume when I do (I'll know by tomorrow night.) Hope some of you can make it on Wednesday.

South Bay Tea Party - "By land and by sea"

2009-04-08T06:07:00.001-07:00

This press release was submitted to me by South Bay Tax Day Tea Party:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friends! Brethren! Countrymen!
“By Land and By Sea” South Bay Tax Day Tea Party Protest
Dockweiler State Beach (off Imperial Highway), El Segundo, CA
April 15, 2009 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

El Segundo, CA April 7, 2009 – The South Bay Tea Party, a bipartisan group of 
concerned local citizens working in conjunction with the national FreedomWorks 
organization, invites all residents of the South Bay and its neighboring communities 
to join us on Wednesday April 15,2009 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m at Dockweiler State Beach 
to peacefully petition our elected officials, and particularly Congresswoman Jane 
Harman who is a self-described Blue Dog Democrat and fiscal conservative, to stop the 
irresponsible bailouts and out of control spending by the Federal Government. Join us
for a unique “by land and by sea” reenactment of the original Boston Tea Party as an
expression of our liberty and a cry of protest that our state and federal 
representatives ignore at their political peril.

In solidarity with Americans attending hundreds of Tax Day Tea Party protests around 
the country the group today announced its strong opposition to government spending in 
Washington and Sacramento and to an increase in taxes that will limit the freedom and 
threaten the livelihood of nearly every American. Nathan Mintz, on behalf of South 
Bay Tea Party, said: “In recent months our elected officials in Sacramento and 
Washington have disregarded the voice of the People and acted with reckless abandon, 
sacrificing the future of our children and our country.”

Tea Party organizers believe that economic and personal liberty are under severe 
attack from California State Legislators, the U.S. Congress and the other branches of 
the Federal Government. California’s Proposition 1A has burdened state residents with 
obscene levels of new taxation. The Federal Government’s Stimulus, recent Omnibus 
Spending Bill, and Budget all passed by congress are borrowing or printing 
unprecedented amounts of money. Yet, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that 
the Stimulus Bill will create few jobs in 2009 and 2010. Instead it will cause 
dangerously high levels of inflation as the Federal Government writes blank checks 
that our children and grandchildren will have to repay.

“We can no longer stand by quietly and allow this to continue unabated,” Mr. Mintz
continues. “Today is the day the silent majority rises up to demand its elected 
officials balance the people's checkbook. The people have had enough. The time to 
voice displeasure with the current political climate, discuss alternative solutions 
and demand constitutionally guaranteed rights is long overdue. That worst of plagues, 
the host of confiscatory taxes levied on the People by the Government, are due this 
day, April 15, 2009, and We the People will no longer remain silent.”

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Website

South Bay Tax Day Tea Party - be there!

2009-04-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

Folks, I know I've been neglecting the local housing data but I got drafted into an organization that's organizing a Tea Party protest for April 15 - and I want housing bubble bloggers to come!

Here is the link to my organization:

South Bay Tax Day Tea Party

I've been going to planning meetings. When I mentioned that I do this housing bubble blog a few guys in the room responded in recognition - then let it all out. They are young, and probably thinking of having families in the not-to-distant future, and they told me of their frustration in watching home prices just bubble up in craziness over the past several years, knowing they'd never be able to afford anything.

Well this Tea Party is partly about rethinking the role of government in our lives (which gets more corrupt and crooked by the day), and in bringing fiscal sanity back to our economy - starting in Washington. We've been on a downhill slide - oh, maybe since 1913. When fiscal and economic sanity and responsibility are restored, and markets are allowed to seek out and realize their true values, then we'll have created an environment where housing values can return to sane levels.

This Tea Party is about you and for you. Please come!

I've been making posters for this event, many of them inspired by Karl Denninger over at Market Ticker. You can see my posters here: Tea Party Posters

Foreclosure cataclysm hits anew in L.A. area

2009-03-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

This story, written by Gregory Wilcox and published in the Daily Breeze on March 11, shows the news catching up to what Mr. Mortgage and a few others have been warning us about now for some time.

Foreclosure.com president Alexis McGee notes that despite efforts by governments to keep foreclosures off the market, the wave of foreclosures is intensifying, and will be further intensified by rising unemployment.

County foreclosures hit 3,921 in February, +69% from January and +58% YOY.

County notices of default hit 9,228 in February, +47% from January and +37% YOY.

McGee believes the loan modification part of the porkulus coming out of Washington will "help tremendously. We're going to see a drop in foreclosures." But McGee doesn't sound completely confident when she goes on to say, "We don't know how many that's going to help."

The L.A. Times blog weighs in with a little more data from RealtyTrac.

1 in 440 homes in the U.S. is in foreclosure in February. In Nevada, it is 1 in 70. In Arizona, it is 1 in 147. In California , it is 1 in 165. Out of the top 10 cities for foreclosures, 6 were in California.

Los Angeles Business Journal: Median Price Falls to $310,000 for L.A. Home Sales

2009-03-12T17:49:00.001-07:00

The Los Angeles housing market continues to be mired in this downturn. According to a March 9 story by Joel Russell in the Los Angeles Business Journal, the median price of a single family residence (SFR) in Los Angeles was down in February -33.8% YOY. Condo prices fell -28%. That puts the median SFR price at $310,000, down from the $585,000 peak in mid-2007 and the median condo price at $289,000, down from the peak of $460,000 in August 2007.

John White, broker-owner of White House Real Estate in Glendora, in effect declared that flipping is dead when he stated, "The attitude is gone that people can buy a home, stay two years and sell it for a $50,000 profit."

Unfortunately, there is much in this article that convinces me we still have a long way to go. White reports having a lot of first-time buyers with incomes between $25,000 and $50,000. At a median home price of around $300,000 and an income of around $50,000, that puts the house at 6X income. It's better than 10X income, but still unaffordable and risky in my opinion, especially when you consider the economic landscape.

Some are claiming that the price drops are "location-sensitive" and they cite drops of "only" 10-15% in well-to-do neighborhoods compared to many times that in lesser neighborhoods. This reminds me of the old Wall Street folklore about how the easy-target dumb money was wiped out in 1929, the smart money was wiped out in 1930 and 1931, and the really smart money was wiped out in 1932. In other words, the effect on the well-to-do areas might not be real obvious yet, but as this economic maelstrom grinds on...

A few people quoted in the article warned that more foreclosures will be coming on the market (something Mr. Mortgage has warned about for quite a while). Realtor Lee Fruchter of Pinnacle Estate Properties in Northridge also weighed in on the porkulus rescue package, stating he thinks it will fail because people don't have sufficient income to qualify or because they are in the process of losing their jobs.

-------------------------- SFR --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Feb     %YOY         Feb    %YOY
                         Sales   Change      Price   Change
L.A County              3,000      +47%    $310,000   -34% 
El Segundo       90245      1      -80%    $693,000   -42%
Hermosa Beach    90254      1      -86%  $2,380,000  +110%  
Manhattan Beach  90266      9        0%  $1,350,000   -14%  
Redondo Beach    90277      6      +50%    $912,000    -9%
Redondo Beach    90278      7      -30%    $595,000   -18%

------------------------ CONDO --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Feb     %YOY      Feb       %YOY
                          Sales   Change    Price     Change
L.A. County                939     +92%    $289,000   -28%
El Segundo       90245       6      N/A    $460,000    N/A
Hermosa Beach    90254       6    +500%    $975,000    +1%
Manhattan Beach  90266       0      N/A         N/A    N/A 
Redondo Beach    90277       8    +167%    $599,000   -25%
Redondo Beach    90278      14     +40%    $690,000   +15%

This price data for individual unit type per zip code is normally too sparse to draw meaningful conclusions about the valuation of your particular housing unit in your zip code, if your home happens to fall into one of the categories listed above. It is better to look at aggregated data IMO.

The most expensive SFRs in February were in Malibu 90265 (-42% YOY); Beverly Hills 90210 (-4%) and 90211 (last year data not available for comparison); Brentwood 90049 (-10%); San Marino 91108 (+55%); Pacific Palisades 90272 (-28%); Los Feliz 90027 (+78%); Manhattan Beach 90266 (-14%); La Canada Flintridge 91011 (0%); and Calabasas 91302 (+19%).

The most expensive condos in February were in Venice 90291 (last year's data not available for comparison); Hermosa Beach 90254 (-3%); Brentwood 90049 (+5%); Redondo Beach 90277 (-25%) and 90278 (+15%); West L.A. 90025 (+18%); Hollywood Hills 90068 (+62%); Arcadia 91006 (+34%); Santa Monica 90405 (-28%); and West Hollywood (-22%).

The areas with the greatest SFR price losses in February were in Palmdale 93591 (-76% YOY); Watts 90002 (-64%); Los Angeles 90011 (-63%); Long Beach 90804 (-63%); Compton 90222 (-62%); West Hollywood 90046 (-61%); Lancaster 93535 (-59%) and 93534 (-57%); Exposition Park 90037 (-58%); Glendale 91206 (-57%).

The areas with the greatest condo price losses in February were in Long Beach 90813 (-68%); Van Nuys 91405 (-65%); Long Beach 90802 (-61%); Paramount 90723 (-53%); Pacoima 91331 (-44%); Panorama City 91402 (-44%); Gardena 90247 (-43%); Encino 91316 (-42%); Reseda 91335 (-39%); Winnetka 91306 (-38%).

Just a few observations.

The median SFR price for Los Angeles County is now down -47% from its peak, and the median condo price is now down nearly -28% from its peak. Just a few short years ago, many market watchers were fairly confident that there wouldn't be much more than a slight hiccup here. I still believe we're going to have to see home prices back in the five digit range again before we see anything near a bottom.

Nationally, we're losing over 600,000 jobs a month. County unemployment is over 10%. The porkulus bill out of Washington may manifest itself into some sort of bear market rebound this year, but it will only temporarily delay a final bottom, which I still believe is years away.

I expect rents to start weakening, if motel room prices stay competitive. Check out this article in International Herald Tribune "Hidden Homeless: U.S. families living in hotel rooms." Note also that the article considers you homeless if you are doubled up in an apartment or another sort of single family dwelling with another household.

Daily Breeze: Los Angeles County jobless rate is now 10.5% - think that'll affect housing prices?

2009-02-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

The January jobless rate increased from 9.2% in December to 10.5%. This is the highest since 1993, when Southern California was being battered by our previous housing downturn. This is also "the largest jump in history. Employment peaked in December of 2007. And it's been basically going down hill ever since," according to California's Employment Development Department representative Patrick Joyce.

The only sector to gain jobs was government, with a measly 300 positions. I have no idea what kinds of government jobs those are. Everything else, including education and health services, showed declines.

Just a few short years ago industry experts were claiming that employment in Los Angeles remained solid so we wouldn't see the housing problems that San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Miami were having. I'll repeat a quote from Dolores Conway of USC's Lusk School of Real Estate, which appeared in the Los Angeles Business Journal in July 2008. (It's relatively recent, but at least she was considering a scenario in which events would continue to spiral downward):

If the bottom falls out of the economy and we have significant job losses, then everything will come down: home prices, rents, everything. That could take quite a while to work through.

If you've been watching the global economic fireworks, you may be well aware that economic projections forecasting continued deterioration usually end up being revised, frequently very substantially. Notice this July 16 Daily Breeze headline which projected Los Angeles County unemployment to hit 6.2%. In December we hit 9.2%. How off the mark was that?!?

Read the current story here.

County unemployment hits 10.5%

Daily Breeze: South Bay home prices continue downward slide

2009-02-27T18:43:00.000-08:00

Muhammed El-Hasan at the Daily Breeze reported on South Bay home prices today, saving me work (thanks Muhammed!).

The story sub-headline notes:

Median decline is smaller than in rest of county but is part of trend.

I detect just hint of desperation here, not by the author of this story so much as for whom he is writing. Everybody wants to think this spiral downward is affecting everybody else's homes, in other parts of Los Angeles County, California, and the nation, but not theirs.

Realtor Adolph James was interviewed for this story and he is being honest. He notes that in the client area he serves, around Mira Costa High School, the typical number of listings he would have for January is maybe 10 or 12. This time it was about 40.

He's still looking for a bottom, only this time it's been pushed out to mid-2010. One of my bottom-hunter rules is that the industry has to stop looking for a bottom before I'll start looking for a bottom.

James says "we've had years where [real estate] has moved 13, 14, 15% [in one year]. We're giving it back now." If blog readers have seen my recent Redondo Beach charts, you'll notice we've had recent years where the median price has shot up in excess of 30%, not just 15%.

Sales have been so bad that many areas in the South Bay have been left off the statistics, because they didn't generate the minimum number of sales.

Click on the image to read the whole story.

Update on the Foundry; civil unrest prediction updates

2009-02-26T20:11:00.000-08:00

I got an email tonight from Standard Pacific that says they sold over 20 homes in the first four days of showing (out of 87 homes). That is a slightly brisker pace than I was expecting, but by no means was I expecting these units to go unwanted. There are still lots of falling Ginzu knife shoppers out there.

 Homebuyers Across the South Bay and Beyond Agree -
The Foundry is the Smartest Move in the South Bay!

Dear Susan,

We told you last week that The Foundry in Torrance is unquestionably the South Bay's 
best value, offering more quality and style for the price than anything else in the 
area.

Homebuyers across the South Bay and beyond must agree as over The Foundry Courtyard 
Rendering for Web2500 visitors have toured the model homes since our Grand Opening 
last Saturday and over 20 homes have been reserved in that same short time!  
Unbelievable, but true!

The real magic of The Foundry is in the details, beginning with contemporary 
kitchens featuring java, cognac or white cabinetry and sleek granite countertops 
with decorative full tile backsplashes that are designer-selected for each home. 
Gourmet touches continue with a complete collection of stainless steel Whirlpool 
Gold appliances, including refrigerator with ice-maker. Equally stylish are master 
baths with stone slab countertops and tile showers and secondary baths with marble 
countertops.

A true urban oasis, The Foundry overlooks Wilson Park, a 40-acre natural wonder, 
where fresh produce and flowers are found at the twice-weekly Farmers Market.

Adding to the appeal of this cool new address with prices starting in The Foundry 
Courtyard Rendering for Web2the low $400,000s, is a fantastic package of grand 
opening extras that Standard Pacific Homes is offering free to all homebuyers for a 
limited-time, including a Whirlpool Gold stainless steel refrigerator, Whirlpool 
Duet Sport washer and dryer, a custom window covering package and a custom flooring 
package.

To join in the grand opening celebration at The Foundry, travel the 405 Freeway and 
exit southbound on Crenshaw Boulevard. Continue to Jefferson Street and turn left. 
Models are open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Mondays, when models are open 
at 1 p.m.

Additional information is available by calling (310) 222-8765 or visiting 
www.TheFoundrySouthBay.com.

We look forward to seeing you soon. 

Eric and Kayla
The Foundry Sales Team

Civil unrest updates:

Mike Morgan blogged today about"unbelievable spikes in crime" to hit when the weather warms up. Take note.

Jim Rogers has (probably) been watching the videos and slideshows of anti-porkulus protests, and he also has been weighing in on the possibility of riots.

Jim Rogers on civil unrest in the United States

None of this means, of course, that there will be a riot hitting the beach cities or South Bay next week. That is highly unlikely. If you haven't read it, see my post from earlier this month.

When you have 30 minutes of free time, kick back and watch this Twilight Zone episode "The Shelter" for a sample "worst case" civil unrest scenario:

Twilight Zone - The Shelter

Standard Pacific's Foundry Open House

2009-02-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

We went and took a model tour of The Foundry at 10 AM today and I thought I'd share my impressions.

First of all, between these units and whatever is planned at 360 South Bay, the Foundry stands an infinitely better chance of succeeding. Standard Pacific's Foundry is targeted to a demographic in a way very similar to the way West Millenium's Parkview Court was targeted - to older (maybe wealthy) retired Asians who would view the close proximity to the local Korean Presbyterian church, Wilson Park, and the Farmers Market as hugely desirable amenities. In addition, open house is coming at the best time of the year, on the eve of spring buying season. I don't like condo marketing brochures that use the word "cool" and unfortunately, The Foundry's marketing brochure contains it, but in spite of that, there is a demographic in place that may enable the project to succeed in spite of itself. 360 at South Bay, on the other hand, has been trying to pass itself off as Manhattan Beach property or El Segundo property (along with ridiculously steep prices) when in fact it is in Hawthorne - this is a disaster brewing unless the builder greatly overhauls its plans.

Anyway, back to the 10 AM Foundry open house. There was a modest group of people right there at opening time, mainly of Asian background, ready to take the tour. I observed a mix of some young adult singles, some young couples with small children, some older people.

My significant other said that when you walk around outside the units in the hallways it "feels like a hotel." We checked the lighting fixtures and were relieved to see that at least there were compact florescent bulbs in them. (Someday maybe I'll tell you the story about how we had to persuade our condo association to use them in order to cut our electric bill - this was back in the early 90's.)

There are eight plans: A, A with mezzanine, B, B with mezzanine, C, C with mezzanine, D, and D with mezzanine. The mezzanine units have high ceilings and a tight spiral staircase leading up to a loft. The realtor thought there were 7 A-mezzanine, 1 C-mezzanine, and 2 D-mezzanine units (I don't recall B-mezzanine). The C and D-based plans have office space. In some of the units (I think it was model C), the office can be closed off with sliding glass shoji-screen style doors. I don't recall if the offices in model D could be closed off that way. Model D units come with 2 decks, the remaining have one deck.

The mezzanine units generally have more light, but the lofts above didn't particularly impress me. The extra light was probably due to the higher ceilings and extra window space. Generally I tend to be rather suspicious of high ceilings due to the potential for wasting energy on heating up space I don't really use.

Overall, these are efficiency units, which are not necessarily bad if you are an older retired lady, gent, or maybe an older retired couple living alone. I've lived in a few apartments not much smaller than that of plan A. There isn't a lot of space in the living room for, say, working out, and the place doesn't come with a gym room (though there is a lap pool). I do like how in the master bathrooms the toilets are separated off from the rest of the bathroom behind a closed door. All homes have 2 bedrooms and 2 baths and come with Whirlpool appliances. And some of the units do get views of the courtyard or the Farmers Market area or even Palos Verdes - something besides the roof on top of Parkview Court.

The other day I griped about $200 a month HOA fees as being steep. Well, expect to pay $317 to $363 a month to do the gardening around this place, maintain the elevators, change the occasional lightbulb, sweep the hallways (there's LOTS of hallway space here, virtually all of it not in front of your unit!), and maybe clean the pool.

The realtor giving us the tour did mention tax credits but also mentioned that there are some caveats to the credit - that you have to live in the place a certain amount of time, etc, to avoid having to pay back the credit. And Standard Pacific has gone out of its way to discourage speculation - a buyer must sign contracts agreeing to live in the unit at least two years initially. They are encouraging the building of a community, she said.

What blew my mind is that she also mentioned how Village on Oak, a juxtaposed Standard Pacific project, is planning to build the Laurel division in 2010 and 2011. Yes, Standard Pacific is still planning to build more units!

The Foundry signage outside says "From the high $400,000's" but the pricing information given to me, hot off the press, was as follows.

Feature      A      A       B       B       C       C        D       D 

                  w/mezz          w/mezz          w/mezz          w/mezz
Sqft        1096   1243    1290    1462    1469+   1619     1517    1681

Price       $379K  $432K   $412.5K $472.6K $445.1K $490.9K $465.1K $542.3K

So they shaved a tiny bit off the low-end asking price.

I sensed substantial interest from my fellow tourists. One lady sounded disappointed that nobody would be allowed to move in until after May 1.

Overall, I left feeling slightly underwhelmed. Though I doubt there will be bidding wars, the units will probably sell over time. (We noticed when we left an hour later that the crowd of tourists had thinned out substantially after that initial 10 AM rush. When we toured Village on Oak Acacia and Bayberry a few years back, there was a more consistent trickle.) The major problem is price. You know how I feel about price levels here in So Cal so I won't go there. Then there is the steep HOA fee for stuff that doesn't affect you. Then there is the density. There are 86 attached homes. When I am renting a relatively cheap apartment I can accept living like an ant in an anthill, but I wouldn't want to be on the dock for something in the neighborhood of half a megabuck for that privilege, even though we go to that Farmers Market across the street every Saturday morning. But not everyone feels that way. To each his own.

Redondo Beach median price data from January 2002

2009-02-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

First I want to tell readers that I will NOT be going into work (UCLA) on Saturday the 21st after all. So YES, I will be going to the grand opening of The Foundry, as it is right there next to the Torrance Farmers Market, where we go every Saturday morning. Hope to maybe see a few bubble blog readers there.

A blog reader has asked for data for other cities, and I poked around on CAR's website and found this housing data link. You'll find Excel workbooks (and html pages) of median prices by California city for each month of 2008, 2007, and 2006.

In addition, where it says "CITY MEDIAN HOME PRICES", there is a master workbook with data going back to January 2002. I took a look at it tonight to see if I could put a chart together for Manhattan Beach, but for some reason several of the recent home values (for example, December 2008) were simply filled in as N/A. When you go back and look at the California city chart for December 2008, you'll see that Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, and El Segundo do not even appear on the chart, which could explain the N/A for Manhattan Beach in the master workbook. I do not fully understand the absences on the December 2008 city chart, since the Los Angeles Times zip code chart showed some data for SFRs and condos in Manhattan Beach 90266. Perhaps there is a requirement that a certain minimum number of units be sold before the data makes it on to the city chart. There is no explanation given on any of these charts, so I am left in the dark.

Statistically it would make sense that a certain number of housing units have to be sold before you can calculate a meaningful median price. (This has been my major gripe about the Los Angeles Times zip code charts - but hey, they've got to report something!) The scary thought is that if the housing market were to slow down so much that nothing registered statistically, what are these reporting agencies going to do, publish charts full of N/A's? Since the spring buying season is around the corner, I'm not expecting this to immediately be a problem, but...

In spite of these problems, Redondo Beach data is alive and well. There were no problems at all scraping out data from January 2002. I am republishing these charts so you'll be able to see better the tremendous runup we've experienced here.

That's all for now. Hope to see some of you in Torrance at the Foundry on Saturday morning!

2008 Redondo Beach Short Sales

2009-02-19T22:06:00.001-08:00

2008 Redondo Beach short sales, compiled from data out of Zillow, Manhattan Beach Reporter, and Los Angeles County Tax Assessor. Dates are approximate. Zillow and MBR data do have inaccuracies, plus I may have introduced more errors so the accuracy and completeness of this data are by no means assured.

2008-01-07 2005-09-15  -15%  1902 Spreckels Lane
2008-01-21 2005-10-15   -5%  1717 Clark Lane
2008-01-21 2007-08-29   -7%  1801 Felton Lane
2008-01-22 2006-11-15   -7%  2702 Carnegie Lane
2008-02-01 2005-03-31   -3%   911 Beryl Street
2008-02-08 2004-08-06  -14%  2403 Voorhees Avenue
2008-02-14 2005-03-08   -8%   514 N. Francisca Avenue
2008-02-18 2004-05-19   -2%   315 Pearl Street
2008-02-18 2005-08-12   -3%  2807 Carlsbad Street
2008-02-26 2006-04-15  -32%   440 Calle Miramar
2008-03-03 2005-12-09  -11%  1524 Carver Street
2008-03-14 2005-10-15  -15%   625 Esplanade
2008-03-17 2005-03-15   -6%   208 Camino Real
2008-04-07 2005-12-13  -16%  1030 Avenue A
2008-04-08 2005-09-15  -13%  2110 Vanderbilt Lane
2008-04-09 2005-06-15   -4%   108 S. Francisca Avenue
2008-04-15 2007-11-27    0%  1810 Grant Avenue
2008-04-21 2005-07-15  -27%  1206 Rindge Lane
2008-04-24 2007-11-06   -6%   410 N. Paulina Avenue
2008-05-05 2006-06-30   -1%   320 S. Broadway
2008-05-08 2004-08-20  -19%   212 Avenue A
2008-05-12 2005-09-15   -6%  1617 Wollacott Street
2008-05-12 2006-11-15   -8%  2916 Gibson Place
2008-05-14 2006-11-15  -10%   234 S. Guadalupe Avenue
2008-05-23 2005-09-28   -3%  1114 Harper Avenue
2008-06-03 2004-11-15   -9%  2207 Perkins Lane
2008-06-04 2005-02-01  -21%  2209 Warfield Avenue
2008-06-12 2007-03-07  -47%  1709 Perkins Lane
2008-06-16 2007-01-03   -2%  2512 Vanderbilt Lane
2008-06-16 2005-05-12   -8%  1509 Stanford Avenue
2008-06-16 2006-04-15  -44%   807 N. Lucia Avenue
2008-06-16 2006-07-15  -11%  2120 Dufour Street
2008-06-19 2006-09-15  -42% 18403 Mansel Avenue
2008-06-23 2006-08-15  -14%   112 Via El Chico
2008-06-23 2007-03-14    0%  1709 Goodman Avenue
2008-06-30 2005-11-15  -15%  1219 Ynez Avenue
2008-07-03 2003-07-15   -3%   404 Avenue G
2008-07-07 2007-02-21   -1%  1636 Goodman Avenue
2008-07-07 2008-01-28  -23%   419 Anita Street
2008-07-14 2007-03-28   -6%   200 S. Catalina Avenue
2008-07-18 2005-05-13  -21%  2408 Phelan Lane
2008-07-18 2005-09-27   -9%  1516 Ford Avenue
2008-07-21 2004-04-29   -2%  2110 Rockefeller Lane
2008-07-21 2005-08-16  -29%   510 The Village
2008-07-23 2005-11-15   -6%   531 Esplanade
2008-07-28 2005-11-15  -10%  2109 Plant Avenue
2008-07-28 2005-06-17   -5%  2317 Harriman Lane
2008-07-28 2004-04-15   -1%  2503 Rindge Lane
2008-08-04 2004-10-15    0%   102 N. Irena Avenue
2008-08-04 2005-09-15  -26%  1702 Harper Avenue
2008-08-04 2006-03-21  -27%  1506 Harper Avenue
2008-08-08 2004-09-15   -1%   506 N. Helberta Avenue
2008-08-14 2006-02-15   -3%  2002 Nelson Avenue
2008-08-15 2006-01-01   -9%   650 The Village
2008-08-18 2005-06-15  -31%  2615 183rd Street
2008-08-21 2005-11-09  -42%  2408 Rockefeller Lane
2008-08-25 2005-09-23  -39%  1633 Steinhart Avenue
2008-08-27 2005-05-18  -27%  1920 Gates Avenue
2008-08-28 2007-04-05    0%  1301 S. Catalina Avenue
2008-08-29 2005-12-09  -20%   110 S. Guadalupe Avenue
2008-09-08 2005-11-15  -13%  2006 Plant Avenue
2008-09-22 2006-06-15  -11%   720 Meyer Lane
2008-09-22 2005-02-15  -27%  2518 185th Street
2008-09-22 2004-09-15    0%  1728 Ruxton Lane
2008-09-29 2007-02-27   -9%   620 The Village
2008-09-29 2005-03-15   -7%  1611 Wollacott Street
2008-09-29 2005-09-15  -15%   824 Camino Real
2008-09-29 2004-12-15   -6%   506 N. Lucia Avenue
2008-10-07 2005-05-17   -4%  2402 Graham Avenue
2008-10-10 2008-03-05  -30%   754 Avenue A
2008-10-13 2006-09-15    0%  2409 Spurgeon Avenue
2008-10-13 2005-03-15  -23%   620 N. Paulina Avenue
2008-10-17 2006-02-15  -22%   900 Camino Real
2008-10-20 2006-03-15  -24%  1638 Harper Avenue
2008-10-27 2006-10-11   -2%  2224 Plant Avenue
2008-10-29 2006-11-15    0%   803 Emerald Street
2008-11-03 2005-07-15   -4%   208 S. Irena Avenue
2008-11-03 2006-04-15  -19%  1720 Wollacott Street
2008-11-03 2005-08-15  -35%  2604 Harriman Lane
2008-11-04 2006-07-15  -20%  2317 Huntington Lane
2008-11-04 2007-07-30  -10%   606 Avenue D
2008-11-14 2004-05-15   -2%   218 N. Lucia Avenue
2008-11-24 2006-07-15  -12%  2904 Blaisdell Avenue
2008-11-24 2005-11-15  -22%  1709 Perkins Lane
2008-11-24 2006-06-15  -13%  2208 Earle Court
2008-12-01 2006-09-15  -27%  2607 Ripley Avenue
2008-12-08 2007-03-16  -15%  1207 Harkness Lane
2008-12-14 2005-11-08   -7%   314 Avenue F
2008-12-14 2008-06-03    0%  2207 Perkins Lane
2008-12-18 2007-08-21  -12%   710 Elvira Avenue
2008-12-19 2006-10-15  -16%  2703 183rd Street
2008-12-23 2006-07-20  -57%   911 Emerald Street
2008-12-24 2004-08-11  -18%   220 S. Prospect Avenue
2008-12-31 2004-05-28   -2%  1720 Rockefeller Lane
2008-12-31 2007-06-19   -4%   405 Sierra Vista Drive
2008-12-31 2004-04-22   -5%  2603 Gates Avenue

Click the link below to view the map. As you can see there is a LOT more short sale activity than real foreclosure activity ongoing. Maybe I am imagining it, but the Golden Hills section (in the south part of North Redondo) seems to be especially dense with short sales - that area also seemed dense in the foreclosure maps of distress.

View Larger Map

CAR/DQNews 2008 Summary for Redondo Beach

2009-02-17T07:07:00.000-08:00

I've pretty much got my listing and sales database caught up, just in time for the deluge of spring listings.

However, I'm desperately trying to strike a balance between 1) blogging, and 2) life, so keep in mind that I'm not intending to blog nearly as much as I used to.

Also, it's pretty indicative that all is Not Well when Shorewood, the biggest realtor in the area, has not taken the effort to post sales data on its website since July 2008 sales - and that was in October, after I did some mild nudging. I have a cordial relationship with their data person, who unfortunately has been very ill. But you'd think his company would offload his responsibility on to somebody else to keep its website up-to-date.

Since Shorewood's data is not so readily available, I won't for now be publishing preliminary monthly estimates and then comparing them to Shorewood's data later in the month. Unless the company's data becomes available again and I end up with tons of free time...

Anyway, here are the charts summarizing median price activity for Redondo Beach across 2008. My significant other made some interesting comments about these charts last night. He noted the initial double top in 2005, then an initial decline in 2006 and then the "blow off" in 2007, followed by a decline and the relative leveling off in 2008. I surmised that the 2007 blowoff top was due to the decline in the sales of lower end properties while sales of higher end properties merrily continued, thus inflating the median price. In 2008, there was a bit of to-and-fro, back-and-forth price activity, but after initially punching through to nearly $650,000, there was rather steady price support at the $675,000 level. The leveling off in 2008 is causing the YOY line, in turn, to climb upwards again.

The double top in 2005 shortly followed the beach cities inventory to sales ratio bottom (indicating very tight inventory). The ratio bottomed in late spring or early summer 2005. I derived that ratio from Shorewood inventory and sales data, but I won't resume publishing it unless Shorewood data comes back to life.

I regularly see short sales at 2004 price levels (2008 short sales will be the topic of my next post.) Now the question on everyone's mind is - where do we go from here? Will President Porkulus save the day and encourage the falling Ginzu knife shoppers to foolishly continue living beyond their means and overpaying for real estate? Will valuation reality be delayed another few years?

By the way, California Association of Realtors (CAR) redid its website last year, and its link system makes a heck of a lot more sense now. I encourage you to check out the CAR newsstand. You can find 2008 historical prices for cities in California by following the link structure

http://www.car.org/economics/historicalprices/2008medianprices/xxx2008medianprices/

Where xxx is the three letter abbreviation of a month.

Beach Cities maps of distress

2009-02-16T13:12:00.000-08:00

RealtyTrac has improved its mapping capability somewhat since the previous (and first) time I posted maps of distress. Now, instead of saying Too many properties on map when it gets overloaded, it gives a summary count of distressed properties in each area.

I did a rather sloppy incomplete job the first time I posted these maps, ignoring extreme south Redondo Beach. So now I think these pretty much cover El Segundo, Manhattan, Hermosa, and Redondo Beach.

I don't think there is really any truly up-to-date freely accessible foreclosure tracker out there. Not that it's really the fault of any of these tracker companies. I just spent my Valentine's weekend getting caught up on listing and sales data from September, and the information, to put it mildly, is in chaos. Manhattan Beach Reporter often makes errors printing sales price data, and I constantly have to check it against Zillow, which has a whole mess of problems on its own.

It would be nice if these maps also showed short sales, which are also a form of financial distress, though not as severe as foreclosure.

El Segundo

El Segundo appears to be holding very steady compared to the other beach cities.

Manhattan Beach

Note the area north of Artesia, west of Aviation, east of Sepulveda. This is probably the *worst* section of the city and it may be starting to show. I've been reading reports in the local papers about crime in this area too.

North Redondo

TRW tract is now problem free - do I believe that? That happens to be my favorite section of north Redondo, just a few blocks away from me. Perhaps it is a more stable area, not as flipper-prone. However from reviewing the listing and sales data I have noticed this pricing scam where somebody buys a distressed property at a reduced price and then tries to sell it at a pumped up price with a blueprint for constructing a new house. There's one of those in the TRW tract and I've seen this happen a few times now.

Hermosa - Redondo

The south end of north Redondo is obviously a problem.

South Redondo (Avenues)

South Redondo - Torrance (Hollywood Riviera)

I would argue that in terms of distress density, north Redondo is continuing to lead the way and probably will remain so, as there have always been (as long as I can remember) some truly shabby areas.

Here is Lawndale, for comparison. This area is immediately east of the area shown on the north Redondo map:

Beach Cities - a repeated warning

2009-02-15T20:12:00.000-08:00

First of all, I hope you are a regular reader of Mr. Mortgage. I consider him one of the top reliable authorities on the state of the real estate market here in California. He is in the process of relocating his website so make sure you are on his email list if you aren't already. When his new website is up I will update the link I maintain in the sidebar.

Second, I have added a new link to the sidebar Mike Morgan: Behind Enemy Lines. I strongly suggest that you bookmark it and check it frequently. Mike Morgan is a Florida realtor. I consider the information he publishes as high quality as that of Mr. Mortgage or that of Karl Denninger of Market Ticker.

Change in how homebuyers perceive value

One opinion I have stated on this blog repeatedly (I am a bit of a nag about it) is that psychologically, what a homebuyer perceives as being valuable and worthwhile in a property changes between housing boom and housing bust. The amenities and features of a property that a homebuyer thought nothing of paying for in 2005 or 2006 can turn into liabilities during a downturn. Few upscale condo buyers were put off paying $200 a month or more in HOA fees while condo values were zooming up 20% or more a year. Maybe living in the McMansion with the running-water fountain in the front yard, the new kitchen granite countertops, and the energy wasted with all those tiny incandescent bulbs lighting the fortress was no big deal - the home was appreciating 20% a year, the 401k was doing OK, and the owner "felt" rich, so why not!?! In a downturn a market participant's idea of what constitutes good value will change. This change in perception can and will add further pressure to prices. Price levels are ultimately driven by psychology.

Social Unrest and the potential impact on property values

Read Mike Morgan's recent post on Turbo Tax Cheat Timmy in which he states that the United States "could see riots" this summer, and his post Obama Deal with Family A, B, and C in which he opines that what is going down in Washington right this minute is a "recipe for violence."

Another opinion I have stated a number of times in this blog is that an incredible backlash could accrue against those living ostentatious, consumptive, affluent lifestyles and now there are industry experts out there saying the same thing. IF such a backlash does erupt and manifest itself as violence in the area, then by logical extension that backlash will eventually reach out and adversely impact the beach cities. I cannot reach any other conclusion.

My September 10, 2007 post Stage being set for social unrest may be worth reviewing. If we are truly headed on this path toward civil unrest, then I sure as heck don't want to snap up a bubbleminium at 40% off the peak price this spring thinking I got a "bargain." Ideally I would want to be as far away as possible from such properties and continue looking like just another poor slob sitting on the bus on my way to work.

On a lighter note, today I took these photos of the Foundry in Torrance. I moved the camera from west to east. On the far left of the second picture you can see the Parkview Court project, and in the background of the last photo you can see the back of the Village on Oak project. I am glad I periodically rant and rave about social armageddon coming our way, because it continually forces me to reconsider what these sparkling new construction projects are really worth.

Catching up on South Bay residential development projects

2009-02-12T22:37:00.000-08:00

I figure the South Bay, specifically the beach cities area, is about 18 months to 2 years behind the rest of California and the nation psychologically in terms of how the real estate crash is progressing. Remember that just a few short years ago we were hearing that prices would never correct more than 10 or 15%. Well we've had that and more. Even now, some are still saying that prices will never crash here. To that I say, "We shall see."

Overall, I still sense denial. I think many are somehow hoping the new pork that's being passed in Washington will somehow trickle down and encourage yet another wave of suckers to buy still-overpriced real estate. And if that happens and we get some kind of price flattening, I expect that any real correction will be delayed another year or two. I've heard stories about how Florida banks holding foreclosures are refusing to cut prices in the hopes of somehow benefiting from pork money. The California state legislature has put off cutting spending because it is holding out for pork.

I am trying to catch up on the state of various development projects. One blog reader alerted me to this September 19, 2008 Daily Breeze story by Kristin Agostoni - "Work likely to resume on RB complex", which I will reproduce here in case the story vanishes. Note the date on the story - that was when the financial markets were embarking on major turmoil, and the full impact had not yet been felt:

Contractors vanished several weeks ago from a partially built senior-housing complex 
in north Redondo Beach, leaving behind a hulking structure covered in scaffolding.

The sluggish real-estate market has led to delays for The Montecito, a 48-unit, 
four-story development of homes and ground-floor retailers at the busy intersection 
of Artesia Boulevard near Green Lane.

Less than two miles away on Ruxton Lane, the same can be said for a nearly finished 
complex of 27 town houses that was put up for auction this week.

The company developing The Montecito, Watt Communities of Santa Monica, expects to 
see construction resume by early next month, ending a work stoppage that began 
roughly six weeks ago, said Webb Parker, the company's vice president of sales and 
marketing.

"We have to offer these homes at lower prices than we've planned on," Parker said 
last week. "We just had to restructure all of our financing on the property.

"We've been delayed. We've been delayed like every other builder, and the market has 
contributed, unfortunately," he said.

The development company says its move-in schedule has been pushed back to March as 
officials renegotiated the financial package with their lender. The units could start 
selling in November or December, he said.

Parker declined to elaborate on the terms of the deal. The lowest-priced condos - one 
bedroom with around 900 square feet - will likely start around $410,000, while a few 
years ago they were expected to sell in the $500,000 range, he said.

The Montecito - which will offer a mix of one- and two-bedroom units, some with dens 
- was approved in 2004 for buyers 55 and up, with the provision that five of the 48 
units are set aside for low- to moderate-income buyers.

"We're kind of excited about it now that we got it worked out," Parker said.

Councilman Steve Diels, whose district includes the structure rising across from the 
north branch library, said he's been told the owners have on-site security and that 
the Fire Department patrols the property.

"My main concern was to make sure it remains safe, because right now it looks like a 
vandalism target," he said.

While The Montecito is back on track, it is unclear what the future holds for the 
27-unit project on Ruxton Lane near the Southern California Edison right-of-way.

Visible from Inglewood Avenue, the Ruxton Pacific complex of Spanish-style town homes 
has wrought-iron fencing, new walkways, grass and young bougainvillea vines. None of 
the units is occupied.

A notice of default was filed in May, records show, and the property was subject to a 
foreclosure sale Monday.

In brief interviews this week, Manhattan Beach developer Steve Legare said he didn't 
attend the auction but was told the property reverted to the lender, Alliance Bank. 
Officials there could not be reached.

The units weren't selling even when the prices dropped, Legare said. A news release 
from March advertises the three-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom homes at $679,000, "a savings 
of up to $70,000 off the original prices," it states.

Ruxton Pacific is "99 percent done," Legare said.

"It was a good project. We just ran out of money. We tried to sell them, and at the 
time they didn't sell."

"It was a good project but they didn't sell" ?!?? Huh?

Now here is the best I know about these projects.

The Foundry (Torrance)

According to the email notice I got today, there is an open house on February 21. Normally we go to the Farmers Market on Saturday mornings and so we'd be right there for open house, but on that one particular day I may have to go in to work at UCLA for a "radiology retreat." So unless something otherwise changes I am not planning on attending. If that changes I'll say so.

I can tell you that this project seems to have taken forever to complete, with the wood frames exposed to the weather for quite a while. Like other projects I consider it is way too packed in for my taste and I still consider it overpriced.

Cool Homes. Hot Buy.
The Foundry on 2/21.

Dear Susan,

The good times are just getting started at The Foundry in Torrance, where beautiful 
model homes and a gracious courtyard will open for oohs and ahs on Saturday, February 
21st.

Come see an utterly chiconomic collection of hip homes priced from the The Foundry 
Rendering 1 for Weblow $400,000s.  That's right-we're serious- the low $400,000s for 
a new home in a desirable South Bay location. Included designer details- kitchens 
with stainless steel appliances, sleek granite countertops and full tile 
backsplashes. Baths with cool brushed nickel fixtures.  Cabinetry and doors with the 
perfect urban brushed nickel hardware.  Even the interior and exterior light fixtures 
are fun!

A study in style and innovation; all homes have two spacious bedrooms and baths. Some 
homes also include room for an office or guests, and some top-floor homes have a 
dramatic mezzanine and spiral staircase.

Come see for yourself and visit The Foundry Grand Opening on 2/21!

Eric and Kayla
The Foundry Sales Team

360 South Bay (Hawthorne)

Here was the state of things a year ago. At that time there were a few structures on the land that was otherwise left as one big dirt wasteland:

My post from a year ago

And here's an insightful comment a year ago from a beach cities realtor about this awful project:

Insightful commentary

To tell you the truth, I haven't been paying attention to what has been happening to the land, but did notice recently that it looks like some foundations are built. I have no idea how long they've been there. I checked the website and nothing seems to be different.

Villa Allegra (Westchester)

I think these were originally supposed to launch in 2008. The website now says spring of 2009, with prices starting in the $800,000's.

Luxury townhomes right up against Sepulveda Blvd, in Los Angeles Unified School District. I'm sorry,but there is no way I think these can be worth anything near $800,000!

The Montecito

More piles of box condos for the 55+ crowd.

All the website says is "Coming 2009. Pricing not yet available."

I live less than a mile directly north of this development, and it looks like it's been on hold forever.

Ironically, one of the "winners" I see in this South Bay development mess, believe it or not, is the owner of the Hawthorne mall. The Daily Breeze ran a story on February 1, 2009 - "Plans to revive old Hawthorne mall stall" - about how the owners and the Hawthorne city council have been divided for years as to what to do with it. The reason the owners could be "winning", in my opinion (if you could call it that), is because they didn't pour gobs of money into constructing yet more condos right at the real estate peak.

I have been diligently working on updating my properties database. Stay tuned.

L.A. Business Journal: Median Home Prices fall 35% in January: "Nothing and no one is untouchable"

2009-02-09T20:33:00.001-08:00

According to a February 9 story by Francisco Vara-Orta in the Los Angeles Business Journal, the median price of a single family residence (SFR) in Los Angeles County took a "jaw dropping" 35% hit in January YOY. Condo prices fell 26%. That puts the median SFR price at $320,000, down from the $585,000 peak in mid-2007. Condos peaked at $460,000 in August 2007.

Michael Nourmand, a Beverly Hills realtor who serves the tonier westside, states "Nothing and no one is untouchable in this economic climate," then describes how six multi-million dollar escrows were lost in the days after the September financial market meltdown. He says "it's hard to nail down a figure but you are seeing about 15% softness in the Westside housing market."

In other tony areas that in boom times drew in a lot of people but are now choking on foreclosures, price drops have been steep. One area of North Hollywood has seen a median home price plunge from $1.2 million to $654,000 within 12 months.

Although Los Angeles County SFR sales came in at 3,108, down 8% YOY, in a number of markets recent sales volume has been starting to trend up, thanks to lower prices. But even the higher sales volumes are well below sales volumes during the peak years. In 2004 and 2005, Los Angeles County typically sold 8,000 to 11,000 homes each month. Lancaster is enjoying the best sales volume it has experienced in 35 years.

USC's Delores Conway at the Lusk Center for Real Estate reminds us that January is normally a very slow month and does not give an accurate market picture. She notes that unemployment is rising in the financial services industry and that the westside housing markets could see more pressure. She further adds that although there has been some correction already, "now we have the recession and unemployment putting pressure on the market. What's certain is the uncertainty."

-------------------------- SFR --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Jan     %YOY         Jan    %YOY
                         Sales   Change      Price   Change
L.A County              3,108      -35%    $360,000   -35% 
El Segundo       90245      2      -80%    $492,000   -48%
Hermosa Beach    90254      2      -86%  $2,380,000  +110%  
Manhattan Beach  90266     10      -55%  $1,694,000    -2%  
Redondo Beach    90277      6      -54%    $870,000   -12%
Redondo Beach    90278     11        0%    $612,000   -18%

------------------------ CONDO --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Jan     %YOY      Jan       %YOY
                          Sales   Change    Price     Change
L.A. County              1,030      +4%    $310,000   -26%
El Segundo       90245       3      N/A    $410,000    N/A
Hermosa Beach    90254       6    +500%    $975,000    +1%
Manhattan Beach  90266       1     -67%  $1,299,000   +27% 
Redondo Beach    90277       6     -14%    $651,000   -15%
Redondo Beach    90278       7     -61%    $710,000    +3%

The most expensive SFRs in January were in Beverly Hills 90210 (+36% YOY); Pacific Palisades 90272 (+9%); Brentwood 90049 (+48%); Malibu 90265 (-19%); Santa Monica 90402 (-24%); Manhattan Beach 90266 (-2%); Rancho Park 90064 (+48%); Hancock Park 90004 (+28%); Encino 91436 (+28%); West Hollywood 90069 (-10%).

The most expensive condos in January were in Hermosa Beach 90254 (+1% YOY); Venice 90291 (no 2008 data for comparison); Arcadia 91006 (no 2008 data for comparison); Redondo Beach 90278 (+3%); West Hollywood 90046 (+35%); Torrance 90503 (+27%); West Hollywood 90069 (+16%).

The areas suffering the greatest SFR price losses in January were Koreatown 90006 (-66% YOY); Palmdale 93591 (-64%); North Hollywood 91602 (-62%); Inglewood 90302 (-62%); Compton 90222 (-61%); Watts 90002 (-61%); Los Angeles 90011 (-61%); South Los Angeles 90001 (-59%); Long Beach 90813 (-59%); Willowbrook 90059 (-57%).

The areas suffering the greatest condo price losses in January were Long Beach 90807 (-60%); Carson 90745 (-55%); Paramount 90723 (-55%); Encino 91316 (-53%); Azusa 91702 (-51%); Norwalk 90650 (-50%); Canoga Park 91304 (-48%); Panorama City 91402 (-47%); Van Nuys 91405 (-46%); Koreatown 90005 (-45%).

Los Angeles County South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate $$$ Transacted through January 2009

2009-02-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

SURPRISE! Bet you thought you'd never see these charts again, did you?!

I wish I could tell you that prices have been plummeting in the South Bay and it's time to scoop up bargains, but it ain't so Joe. I wouldn't quite use the word "plummet" to describe what's been happening. I'll know more when I look at price data in detail, but so far it looks like beach city area prices have been flat to edging down. Compared to what happened in prior years, the beginning to the end of 2008 was relatively flat.

Spring is coming and we'll definitely see a rebound in sales volume, because there are still plenty of Falling Ginzu Knife Shoppers out there. At that time I believe we'll see further price declines as higher transaction volume will give us more honest pricing and more homes marked to market.

In case you missed it, check out the Los Angeles Times' Peter Hong's February 2 article "L.A.'s Westside succumbs as housing goes south". Chris Thornburg at Beacon Economics got the dynamics absolutely right. The more affluent homeowners are initially able to hold out longer without cutting asking prices and can afford to wait, but eventually if they want to sell their properties they have to eat humble pie too.

By the way, is it just me or are we seeing more For Rent signs around? If I'm right, that's a sure sign that some sellers have been giving up and trying to rent out their properties. If the job market continues to deteriorate (and I have no reason to believe it won't continue to deteriorate) I think asking prices, rents, everything will spiral down the toilet.

Take a look at Redondo Beach sales volume. It was about 30 units in January. In January 2002 it was around 120 units. Sales volume has declined 75% from 2002. You think there are some realtors out there who are scrambling?

YOY Comparisons

These numbers are a YOY comparison of the doubly smooth moving average of dollar volumes. I think of them as "recent pain" (or recent gain) indicators.

Since 2008 was so relatively flat compared to the hyperactivity of prior years, on many of these charts you'll see the YOY line start curving up again in what looks like a rebound. Remember, 0% means that the dollar volume is unchanged from prior years.

For some areas, the line has vaulted past 0%. I suspect the areas where the YOY line has spiked up are places where the falling Ginzu Knife Shoppers have been trying to fulfill their flipping dreams or rich landlord dreams. It's known, for example, that well-heeled buyers with $1 million have been scooping up 10 houses at a time in north Los Angeles County, hoping to sell for a profit.

By the way, don't worry about reports that foreign buyers are coming in and scooping up real estate. One of the beautiful things about major deflationary contractions in asset markets is that there is no discrimination. All ethnic backgrounds and genders are treated the same, i.e., they all get burned, by golly.

Notice how even Playa Vista (90094), which defied gravity for sooooo long, is now showing substantial YOY declines.

90249         59.2%   Gardena   
90744         42.9%   Wilmington   
90505         20.0%   Torrance   
90304          4.1%   Lennox   
90746          2.6%   Carson   
90232          0.4%   Culver City   
90056          0.0%   Ladera Heights   
90277         -0.4%   Redondo Beach (south)   
90230         -3.6%   Culver City   
90034         -4.6%   Palms   
90503         -7.4%   Torrance   
90035        -11.9%   West Fairfax   
90018        -13.7%   Jefferson Park   
90043        -14.1%   Hyde Park, Windsor Hills   
90066        -14.4%   Mar Vista   
90501-90505  -19.5%   Torrance Combined   
beach cities -20.6%   4 Beach Cities combined   
90301-90305  -20.8%   Inglewood/Lennox combined   
SW county    -24.1%   Southwest L.A. County   
90401-90405  -28.0%   Santa Monica combined   
90275        -28.8%   Palos Verdes Estates   
90266        -28.9%   Manhattan Beach   
90007        -31.5%   South Central   
90036        -31.8%   Park La Brea   
90254        -32.2%   Hermosa Beach   
90731        -33.1%   San Pedro   
90291        -33.3%   Venice   
90245        -35.4%   El Segundo   
90302        -36.1%   Inglewood   
90292        -36.1%   Marina del Rey   
90278        -36.8%   Redondo Beach (north)   
90008        -38.1%   Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park   
90293        -39.4%   Playa del Rey   
90277-90278  -39.7%   Redondo Beach combined   
90247        -40.0%   Gardena   
90064        -42.6%   Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills   
90305        -43.0%   Inglewood   
90502        -44.3%   Torrance   
90045        -45.3%   Westchester   
90062        -46.1%   South Central   
90504        -48.1%   Torrance   
90717        -48.7%   Lomita   
90260        -49.2%   Lawndale   
90019        -50.5%   Country Club Park/Mid City   
90501        -51.4%   Torrance   
90745        -52.9%   Carson   
90303        -52.9%   Inglewood   
90250        -53.1%   Hawthorne   
90094        -56.1%   Playa Vista   
90732        -57.6%   San Pedro/Rancho PV   
90047        -61.0%   South Central   
90301        -63.7%   Inglewood

Relative Strength

This is a longer-term view of the strength of dollar volume in a given zip code. For this month 5.3 is the strongest (suffering the least amount of chronic pain) and -0.3 is the weakest (suffering the most chronic pain). Think of it is as the area above 0 on the YOY graph with the area below 0 of the YOY graph subtracted out.

Note that Playa Vista remains at the top of the list. If the YOY declines persist, we'll start to see that number edge down.

90094          5.3    Playa Vista   
90247          2.8    Gardena   
90305          2.2    Inglewood   
90034          1.5    Palms   
90044          1.3    Athens   
90292          1.3    Marina del Rey   
90746          1.1    Carson   
90047          0.7    South Central   
90007          0.6    South Central   
90062          0.6    South Central   
90502          0.6    Torrance   
90302          0.5    Inglewood   
90745          0.5    Carson   
90501          0.5    Torrance   
90016          0.5    West Adams   
90293          0.5    Playa del Rey   
90018          0.4    Jefferson Park   
90250          0.4    Hawthorne   
90301-90305    0.4    Inglewood/Lennox combined   
90301          0.4    Inglewood   
90304          0.4    Lennox   
90064          0.4    Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills   
90254          0.4    Hermosa Beach   
90744          0.4    Wilmington   
90303          0.3    Inglewood   
90045          0.3    Westchester   
90008          0.3    Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park   
90019          0.3    Country Club Park/Mid City   
90291          0.3    Venice   
90043          0.2    Hyde Park, Windsor Hills   
90245          0.2    El Segundo   
90732          0.2    San Pedro/Rancho PV   
90232          0.2    Culver City   
90037          0.2    South Central   
90230          0.2    Culver City   
90249          0.1    Gardena   
90036          0.1    Park La Brea   
90260          0.1    Lawndale   
90066          0.1    Mar Vista   
90503          0.0    Torrance   
90278          0.0    Redondo Beach (north)   
90501-90505    0.0    Torrance Combined   
90505          0.0    Torrance   
SW county      0.0    Southwest L.A. County   
90035          0.0    West Fairfax   
90401-90405    0.0    Santa Monica combined   
90056         -0.1    Ladera Heights   
90277         -0.1    Redondo Beach (south)   
90266         -0.1    Manhattan Beach   
90277-90278   -0.2    Redondo Beach combined   
beach cities  -0.2    4 Beach Cities combined   
90275         -0.2    Palos Verdes Estates   
90504         -0.3    Torrance   
90717         -0.3    Lomita   
90731         -0.3    San Pedro

People have asked me how far I think the market will fall. I'll repeat my earlier prediction from umpteen years ago (gosh is this blog really over 3 years old?): from the peak, I suspect there will be a 70-95% drop. My projection includes lower transaction costs.

It is my belief that in severe contractions, the market brings about efficiencies so that market participants can more quickly and more cost-effectively perform transactions. Economic contractions aren't just about pain - we actually do get some benefits out of them. If you don't believe me, keep in mind that freight rates for containers shipped between Asia and Europe recently hit zero.

I'm not holding my breath expecting this decline to finish this year. President #44 and Kalifornicate-ia politicians are bound and determined with pork packages and legislation to kick the can up the road and delay the pain as much as possible. This will take a few years to play out.

Here is an example of what I think is still grossly overvalued. Look at this flyer for condos in Koreatown. They were originally offered at $879,000 according to the flyer. Now they are being auctioned, starting at $419,000. An earlier version of this flyer had the starting bid at $445,000. I think these would still be overvalued if the opening bids were halved. I honestly don't think the value is there unless they fall into the five figures, considering the general area, the burden of HOA fees, the likelihood that these condos aren't very green and self-sufficient in energy, etc. In other words, the fancy amenities that were such must-haves during a boom are probably now more a detriment.

By the way, use the regional tracker if you want to look up a particular zip code.

Quick note on housing valuations in general

2009-01-29T20:51:00.001-08:00

I have no idea when I will get back to this blog. I've been diligently clipping Redondo Beach home sales out of the local papers. I've got a stack of Los Angeles Business Journals sitting here in my study and I've more or less been saving data out of DQNews. I haven't been keeping up my homes for sale database as that is quite labor intensive. One of these days, after work slows down a bit, and after I get my taxes done, and I attend to the million other things I have to attend to...

A bearish friend pointed me to an article that discusses historical home prices in terms of the values of precious metals. (This is not specific to Redondo Beach but rather deals with national averages.) I'm sure some of you who used to read this website are wondering how you will know when a bottom is in. This article suggests one valuation metric.

I have a reasonably good idea of when I think the market will bottom and when to begin purchasing. The monetary metals are used to perform mental calculations of value or the pricing mechanism. Currently, an average American home costs about $220,000, 18,333 ounces of silver or 248 ounces of gold. I will begin looking for real estate deals, both commercial and residential, when an average American house is around 500-1,000 ounces of silver or 75-80 ounces of gold.

Run To Gold - Real Estate Conference

So for 80 oz of gold at a somewhat current value of $900/oz, the current national average housing price would have to be somewhere around $72,000 before Trace Mayer would take the plunge. So home prices would have to drop by an additional 66%. Either that, or Trace Mayer would take the plunge if gold rocketed up to $2,750/oz. If this reasoning is correct, I would expect some combination of the two.

Just some food for thought.

DQNews: Los Angeles Beach Cities Resale Activity for August 2008

2008-10-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to some of you for your emails asking where the heck I am. I have been so busy at work that not only have I not been keeping up the blog but we had to cancel our vacation. Trust me, I'd rather be insanely busy than not have a job at all. Technically, I am a California *state* employee working in the UCLA School of Medicine. But the fiscal and economic future of California is not looking good so I don't know what that says about my future. My position is normally funded by NIH grants, not state budget, so that offers me a bit of protection at least for now.

I am doing a rush job here trying to catch up on data. Once I get through a big finance meeting at work at the end of October, I'll be a bit more relaxed and can devote some time to this again.

It's been easy to let this blog slide as it's been like watching a boring little tugboat sink whereas the spectacle we are witnessing in the global financial markets is like watching the Titanic sink and the Lusitania get torpedoed.

In addition to what I've been going through, my contact at Shorewood Realtors who normally updates the Shorewood website with monthly data has been seriously ill, which I pray is not terminal. I've contacted Shorewood and they are doing their best to fill the gaps, but between losing their data man and witnessing the price action in these markets it's been difficult maintaining their data at the moment.

I've been talking about mass psychology on this blog almost since I started it in late 2005. What's happening to peoples' 401k accounts and stock investments is going to have a profound impact on their desire to speculate in the housing market. I'll try to talk about this more in detail later after I get caught up.

Anyway, here's the August home sale story.

Here's the Southland data for August. Sales volume remains generally up over a year ago although the L.A. Business Journal story suggests that volume is starting to slide a bit again.

                  Sales Volume              Median Price
All homes      Jul-07     Jul-08     %Chng      Jul-07     Jul-08      %Chng
Los Angeles    6,809      6,592      -3.2%    $547,500   $400,000     -26.90%
Orange         2,391      2,799      17.1%    $640,000   $461,000     -28.00%
Riverside      2,769      4,116      48.6%    $399,000   $260,000     -34.80%
San Bernardino 2,008      2,521      25.5%    $355,000   $230,000     -35.20%
San Diego      3,106      3,431      10.5%    $489,000   $364,000     -25.60%
Ventura          784        870      11.0%    $582,500   $420,000     -27.90%
SoCal         17,867     20,329      13.8%    $505,000   $348,000     -31.10%

Here are the detailed RESALE statistics for the beach cities and some of the surrounding zip codes (prices are in 1000's):

                         SFR   MEDIAN    %YOY    CONDO  MEDIAN   %YOY  
COMMUNITY         ZIP    SALES   SFR      CHG    SALES  CONDO     CHG
LA/Westchester    90045   20    $700     -6.5%     1     $413   +16.3%
El Segundo        90245    4    $795    -13.8%     5     $450   -27.3%
Hawthorne         90250   23    $375    -28.2%     1     $425   -11.3%  
Hermosa Beach     90254    8    $920    -24.0%     6   $1,095    -6.4%  
Lawndale          90260    8    $365    -33.6%     2     $405    -9.7%  
Manhattan Beach   90266   36  $1,163    -31.2%     9   $1,029   -40.2%  
Palos Verdes Pen. 90274   17  $1,275    -12.1%     5     $580     N/A  
Rancho P.V.       90275   17  $1,053    -10.0%     8     $350   -55.4%   
Redondo Beach     90277    8    $900    -18.2%    20     $615   -23.1%   
Redondo Beach     90278   18    $620    -22.3%    24     $673    -4.9%

L.A. Business Journal: Median Home Prices Persist in Steady Decline (August)

2008-10-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

According to a September 8 story by Charles Proctor in the Los Angeles Business Journal, home sales in Los Angeles County started sliding again in August after enjoying a bit of a summer bounce. Sales volume was down -23% YOY, and prices are down -30%. The county's median home price in August was $404,000, the lowest since April 2004. And the median condo price fell to $380,000, -17% YOY.

In the north end of the county (Lancaster and Palmdale) falling Ginzu knife investors continued to scoop up "bargains" (with cash) because prices have fallen to around $100,000. Investors are plunking down $1 million on 10 homes and planning to rent them out until prices reach $150,000.

Cash isn't just limited to lower-priced areas. Agents are reporting bigger cash down payments. A $525,000 home in Long Beach that got three offers finally went to a buyer with a $200,000 down payment. Paul Habibi at UCLA Anderson School says that banks are being far too conservative in their financing. Buyers qualified to put 5% down on properties saw rates jump to 20% while in escrow, thus killing the deals. The loan market appears to be continuing its contraction.

-------------------------- SFR --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Aug     %YOY         Aug    %YOY
                         Sales   Change      Price   Change
L.A County              3,134      -24%    $404,000  -30% 
El Segundo       90245      4      -43%    $728,000  -42%
Hermosa Beach    90254      8      -50%    $832,000  -36%  
Manhattan Beach  90266     14      -62%  $1,452,000  -10%  
Redondo Beach    90277      2      -87%    $926,000  -24%
Redondo Beach    90278     12      -45%    $728,000   -9%

------------------------ CONDO --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Aug     %YOY      Aug       %YOY
                          Sales   Change    Price     Change
L.A. County              1,171      +0%    $380,000   -17%
El Segundo       90245       3    +200%    $720,000    +4%
Hermosa Beach    90254       5      67%  $1,105,000   -37%
Manhattan Beach  90266       6     500%    $999,000   +15% 
Redondo Beach    90277      12     -14%    $481,000   -30%
Redondo Beach    90278      24     -11%    $751,000   +12%

The most expensive homes (SFRs) in August were in Santa Monica 90402 (+197% YOY); Calabasas 91302 (+68%); Malibu 90265 (+197%); Playa del Rey 90293 (+27%); Bel-Air 90077 (-4%); Pacific Palisades 90272 (-8%); Pasadena 91105 (+72%); Beverly Hills 90211 (-53%); Palos Verdes Estates 90274 (+9%); Manhattan Beach 90266 (-10%).

The most expensive condos in August were in Bel-Air 90077 (no change - median price $1,400,000); Pacific Palisades 90272 (+102%); Venice 90291 (+32%); Manhattan Beach 90266 (-37%); Palos Verdes Estates 90274 (no change - median price $1,038,000); Hermosa Beach 90254 (+97%); Brentwood 90049 (+35%); Santa Monica 90403 (-10%); Redondo Beach 90278 (+12%); El Segundo 90245 (+4%).

The areas suffering the greatest SFR price losses in August are Westwood 90024 (-73%); Little Rock 93543 (-59%); Beverly Hills 90211 (-53%); Palmdale 93591 (-53%); Hawaiian Gardens 90716 (-53%); Pomona 91768 (-52%); Pasadena 91103 (-52%); Lancaster 93534 (-52%); Inglewood 90302 (-51%); and Compton 90220 (-51%).

The areas suffering the greatest condo price losses in August are Tarzana 91356 (-47%); Panorama City 91402 (-46%); North Hills 91343 (-42%); Van Nuys 91405 (-41%); Sherman Oaks 91403 (-40%); Long Beach 90813 (-40%); Marina del Rey 90292 (-40%); West Hollywood 90069 (-36%); Torrance 90501 (-36%); Mid-City 90019 (-32%).

Keep in mind that most of these figures are tallied on very low sales, so I would take huge spikes or extreme collapses with a grain of salt.

Los Angeles County South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate $$$ Transacted for August 2008

2008-09-07T20:26:00.001-07:00

Shorewood has not yet published their end-of-month data for July so I'll give them a nudge. Check back on this blog for an end-of-July update.

In the meantime, on to August. The summer season by all appearances continued its bounce, though vastly subdued from earlier years. Dollar volume is down across all four beach cities. Sales volume compared to a year ago seems weakest in south Redondo Beach (90277).

Zip      Sales    Sales    Dollar Volume    Dollar Volume
         2008     2007    2008($1000's)    2007($1000's)

90245       9        8        $5,877            $9,216          
90254      18       19       $19,566           $24,643          
90266      29       31       $44,428           $64,828
90277      17       29       $19,510           $31,430
90278      46       49       $33,028           $38,465

YOY Comparisons

These numbers are a YOY comparison of the doubly smooth moving average of dollar volumes. I think of them as "recent pain" (or recent gain) indicators.

Culver City is showing a little bit of resilience this summer. Everything else is down YOY.

90232           0.4% Culver City
90035         -11.9% West Fairfax
90245         -17.6% El Segundo
90501         -26.3% Torrance
90401-90405   -28.0% Santa Monica combined
90275         -28.8% Palos Verdes Estates
90056         -31.3% Ladera Heights
90007         -31.5% South Central
90045         -32.0% Westchester
90034         -34.8% Palms
90292         -36.1% Marina del Rey
90278         -36.8% Redondo Beach (north)
90746         -38.1% Carson
90505         -38.7% Torrance
90066         -39.5% Mar Vista
90277-90278   -39.7% Redondo Beach combined
90247         -40.0% Gardena
90501-90505   -40.6% Torrance Combined
beach cities  -40.7% 4 Beach Cities combined
90291         -41.6% Venice
90230         -41.6% Culver City
90266         -41.8% Manhattan Beach
90064         -42.6% Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90305         -43.0% Inglewood
90277         -43.2% Redondo Beach (south)
90502         -44.3% Torrance
SW county     -44.5% Southwest L.A. County
90503         -46.9% Torrance
90249         -47.5% Gardena
90254         -47.7% Hermosa Beach
90504         -48.1% Torrance
90717         -48.7% Lomita
90260         -49.2% Lawndale   
90744         -49.2% Wilmington   
90019         -50.5% Country Club Park/Mid City   
90745         -52.9% Carson   
90303         -52.9% Inglewood   
90250         -53.1% Hawthorne   
90008         -53.9% Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park   
90302         -54.2% Inglewood   
90062         -54.5% South Central   
90043         -54.6% Hyde Park, Windsor Hills   
90094         -56.1% Playa Vista   
90301-90305   -56.5% Inglewood/Lennox combined   
90732         -57.6% San Pedro/Rancho PV   
90293         -59.1% Playa del Rey   
90036         -59.4% Park La Brea   
90047         -61.0% South Central   
90731         -62.3% San Pedro
90301         -63.7% Inglewood
90016         -63.8% West Adams
90018         -69.9% Jefferson Park
90304         -72.7% Lennox
90044         -72.9% Athens
90037         -80.7% South Central

Relative Strength

This is a longer-term view of the strength of dollar volume in a given zip code. For this month 5.3 is the strongest (suffering the least amount of chronic pain) and -0.2 is the weakest (suffering the most chronic pain). Think of it is as the area above 0 on the YOY graph with the area below 0 of the YOY graph subtracted out.

Last month's calculations of Relative Strength contains errors.

90094           5.3 Playa Vista   
90247           2.8 Gardena   
90305           2.4 Inglewood   
90034           1.5 Palms   
90044           1.3 Athens   
90292           1.3 Marina del Rey   
90746           1.2 Carson   
90047           0.7 South Central   
90502           0.6 Torrance   
90301-90305     0.6 Inglewood/Lennox combined   
90007           0.6 South Central   
90062           0.6 South Central   
90501           0.5 Torrance   
90302           0.5 Inglewood   
90304           0.5 Lennox   
90016           0.5 West Adams   
90293           0.5 Playa del Rey   
90745           0.4 Carson   
90018           0.4 Jefferson Park   
90250           0.4 Hawthorne   
90301           0.4 Inglewood   
90064           0.4 Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills   
90254           0.4 Hermosa Beach   
90744           0.3 Wilmington   
90732           0.3 San Pedro/Rancho PV   
90303           0.3 Inglewood   
90045           0.3 Westchester   
90008           0.3 Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park   
90019           0.3 Country Club Park/Mid City   
90291           0.3 Venice   
90043           0.2 Hyde Park, Windsor Hills   
90245           0.2 El Segundo   
90232           0.2 Culver City   
90037           0.2 South Central   
90230           0.2 Culver City   
90249           0.1 Gardena   
90503           0.1 Torrance   
SW county       0.1 Southwest L.A. County   
90501-90505     0.1 Torrance Combined   
90036           0.1 Park La Brea   
90260           0.1 Lawndale   
90066           0.1 Mar Vista   
90278           0.0 Redondo Beach (north)   
90505           0.0 Torrance   
90401-90405     0.0 Santa Monica combined   
90035           0.0 West Fairfax   
90277-90278    -0.1 Redondo Beach combined   
90731          -0.1 San Pedro   
beach cities   -0.1 4 Beach Cities combined   
90056          -0.1 Ladera Heights   
90717          -0.1 Lomita   
90277          -0.1 Redondo Beach (south)   
90266          -0.1 Manhattan Beach   
90504          -0.2 Torrance   
90275          -0.2 Palos Verdes Estates

I'm keeping my eye on the upcoming tsunamis as reported by Mr. Mortgage. I recommend that any active housing market watcher do the same.

Standard & Poors: Los Angeles area median housing price down -25.3% for June 2008

2008-09-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

The Case-Shiller Index was released for June 2008.

According to the index, the Los Angeles area median home price was down -25.3% from June 2007, and down -1.4% from May 2008. The entire Composite-20 metropolitan index was down -15.9% YOY for June. To view the full report, visit Standard and Poors (PDF file). S&P's home price website is here.

CAR/DQNews Report July 2008 Report for Redondo Beach

2008-08-27T15:38:00.001-07:00

DQNews has released its housing market data for July 2008 for California cities. The CAR link is here.

The median July sale price for a Redondo Beach home (new or existing, SFR or condo) was $752,000, down -10.5% YOY. DataQuick's statistic is based on 59 sales, which is a good number of records with which to calculate such a statistic. This calculation is better than the zip code / property type breakdown calculation which DataQuick also reports and which I complain about regularly. The former is an aggregation of new and existing home sales, SFRs and condos, in 90277 and 90278. The latter is relatively meaningless.

My preliminary calculation for July came in on the nose at $752,000, based on 49 records. That's a first!

Here is how the beach cities look.

Area               Sales      Median Price       Year Ago      Pct Change
El Segundo            6         $666,000       $1,254,500         -46.91%
Hermosa Beach        12       $1,032,500       $1,185,000         -12.87%  
Manhattan Beach      32       $1,774,727       $1,628,500          +8.98%
Redondo Beach        59         $752,000         $840,250         -10.50%    
(they don't add up)
Beach Cities         84         $972,500       $1,006,500          -3.38%

I would trust the numbers for Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, and Beach Cities more than for El Segundo or Hermosa Beach alone.

Beach Cities is an aggregation of South Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, El Segundo, and Playa del Rey. Redondo Beach, shown in the chart above, is both the north and south parts of the city.

Los Angeles Beach Cities Resale Activity for July 2008

2008-08-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

I am so sorry I am running so behind on my regular posts. Work is keeping me extremely busy and in my personal life I am preparing for a vacation in early October in southern Idaho and northeast Nevada to check out possibilities in future places to live.

I'll keep this short. Here are the detailed RESALE statistics for the beach cities and some of the surrounding zip codes (prices are in 1000's):

                         SFR   MEDIAN    %YOY    CONDO  MEDIAN   %YOY  
COMMUNITY         ZIP    SALES   SFR      CHG    SALES  CONDO     CHG
LA/Westchester    90045   20    $693     -5.8%     5     $337    N/A
El Segundo        90245    4    $741    -55.1%     2     $480    N/A
Hawthorne         90250   26    $496     -7.3%     4     $349   -17.9%  
Hermosa Beach     90254   10  $1,033    -17.7%     4     $898   -17.8%  
Lawndale          90260   12    $390    -15.7%     2     $305    23.0%  
Manhattan Beach   90266   27  $1,780     -3.0%     5   $1,740    77.8%  
Palos Verdes Pen. 90274   23  $1,301    -12.5%     5     $715    10.0%  
Rancho P.V.       90275   43  $1,050    -13.9%     4     $519   -15.0%   
Redondo Beach     90277    8    $850    -24.7%    10     $560   -19.9%   
Redondo Beach     90278   21    $755      4.6%    17     $759    15.7%

DQNews: Southland home sales post annual gain -- prices drop again

2008-08-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

DQNews has published Southland home sales numbers for July. Sales are the highest in more than a year as falling Ginzu knife shoppers rushed out to scoop up "bargains." OK - not my words - but we're still in "Happy Days Are Here Again" bear market bounce mode which I expect to fizzle as the summer selling season wanes. 20,329 new and existing SFRs and condos were transacted in July, up YOY, though down -23% from the historical July average since DataQuick started tallying sales in 1988.

DataQuick acknowledges an ongoing "fire sale" of newer affordable properties. The firm says that we are not seeing such levels of distress in higher end homes, (If Mr. Mortgage's assessment is accurate, we could be seeing much higher levels of distress in higher end neighborhoods by the end of next year, as Alt-A and A level mortgage defaults kick in.)

The July Southland median home price is down -2.0% from June and down -31.1% YOY.

In June foreclosures were an upwardly revised 41.8% of all sales; in July foreclosures were 43.6% of all sales. Southland buyers committed themselves to a typical monthly payment of $1,632, down from $1,671 in June, and down from $2,447 YOY. Foreclosures remain pegged at record levels, ARM financing is at an all-time low, and non-owner occupied buying activity is flat to possibly "emerging", according to DataQuick.

County           Sales    Sales      %YOY      Median      Median      %YOY
                 July 07  July 08     Chg      July 07     July 08      Chg
Los Angeles      6,809    6,592      -3.2%     $547,500    $400,000   -26.90%
Orange           2,391    2,799      17.1%     $640,000    $461,000   -28.00%
Riverside        2,769    4,116      48.6%     $399,000    $260,000   -34.80%
San Bernardino   2,008    2,521      25.5%     $355,000    $230,000   -35.20%
San Diego        3,106    3,431      10.5%     $489,500    $364,000   -25.60%
Ventura            784      870      11.0%     $582,500    $420,000   -27.90%
SoCal           17,867   20,329      13.8%     $505,000    $348,000   -31.10%

Annette Haddad took over Los Angeles Times' DataQuick report for July. In her report dated August 19, she reports the rise in sales is driven in part by buyers attending auctions. One economist quoted in the article notes "the price mechanism is working." He issues the caveat that although higher sales are "great", there are many more foreclosures coming down the pipe and so more discounts "may be" coming.

Be sure to check out that L.A. Times article for stories of knife-shoppers, and then carefully read Mr. Mortgage's latest reports.

L.A. Business Journal: Home prices fall, buyers moving in

2008-08-12T17:35:00.000-07:00

According to this story by Howard Fine in the August 11-17 edition of the L.A. Business Journal, median home prices are plummeting and the falling Ginzu knife shoppers are out in droves picking up condos in areas that have been particularly hard hit. Sales volume is approaching 2005 levels, and according to Bob Stickney, a Lancaster realtor, about 25% of buyers have no intention of living in the property, they just want to scoop up a property below $120,000 and less than 15 years old, no questions asked. OK, well the story didn't call them falling Ginzu knife shoppers - I did - but you get the idea.

At the same time, sales volume in high-end areas has fallen substantially YOY and prices are weakening too.

It's this surge in low-end activity in the hard-hit areas that is primarily driving the median price down further in July, according to the article "more than normal." A year ago the opposite situation was true - high-end sales were propping up the median price. Only now Steve Cauley at the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA says this is "skewing" home prices. I don't know if he was publicly noting skewed home prices when the market was running on high-end fumes last year.

So this might be helpful to bargain hunters and first-time homebuyers, but Chris Thornberg of Beacon Economics notes that this just exacerbates the problems that some neighborhoods are having with lots of foreclosures and falling prices. In areas with middle-class homes, the market is not moving, except largely for distressed sales where "the bottom feeders are coming in" according to Thornberg.

According to Stickney, the Lancaster realtor, most of the recent buyers were renters looking to buy their first home and the rent-mortgage equation is now showing that it may be more economical to own. Stickney and other realtors were greatly surprised by the speed that buyers came out of the woodwork. That's probably likely to happen when rent = mortgage. However, I once heard a story from a wealthy man who bought a townhome in Houston after the 1980's oil bust, and he told me that people were so traumatized by the regional economic decline that they were refusing to buy even when rent was lower than mortgage. (The townhome he bought was so cheap he was able to put it on a credit card!) So for now I assume that what's happening in Antelope Valley does not mean the bottom has been reached yet.

Central Valley, the Inland Empire, and north Santa Barbara are experiencing a similar phenomenon according to Robert Kleinheinz of the California Association of Realtors.

It isn't just Joe Average out there catching falling knives. Real estate investment banks are raising funds to buy foreclosed properties. A lot of this money is coming from - urp! - pension fund advisers.

Mike Nourmand, a Beverly Hills realtor, estimates that prices in the million dollar area are off about 10% YOY. Loan underwriting standards are now far stricter, and in cases where sellers are giving "credit" for minor improvements and repairs on properties, the credits are getting factored into the selling price.

-------------------------- SFR --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    July     %YOY        July    %YOY
                          Sales   Change      Price   Change
L.A County              4,535       -17%    $420,000  -28% 
El Segundo       90245      9       +50%    $942,000  -26%
Hermosa Beach    90254     10       -60%  $1,135,000  -19%  
Manhattan Beach  90266     20       -29%  $1,795,000   -1%  
Redondo Beach    90277     13       -19%    $820,000  -24%
Redondo Beach    90278     22         0%    $745,000   +2%

------------------------ CONDO --------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    July     %YOY     July       %YOY
                          Sales   Change    Price     Change
L.A. County              1,704      +6%    $395,000   -12%
El Segundo       90245       7     +75%    $495,000    -9%
Hermosa Beach    90254       7     133%  $1,595,000   +83%
Manhattan Beach  90266       7     400%    $999,000   +15% 
Redondo Beach    90277      15     -40%    $800,000    -1%
Redondo Beach    90278      25       0%    $665,000   -18%

(It's amazing how 90278 sales volumes came out identical to 2007.)

The most expensive homes (SFRs) in July were in Santa Monica 90402 (-17% YOY); Malibu 90265 (+19%); Pacific Palisades 90272 (+6%); Manhattan Beach 90266 (-1%); Beverly Hills 90212 (-35%); Bel-Air 90277 (+34%); Brentwood 90049 (-9%); San Marino 91108 (+18%); Calabasas 91302 (+10%); and Palos Verdes Estates 90274 (-6%).

The most expensive condos in July were in Manhattan Beach 90266 (+83%); Mid-Wilshire 90036 (+92%); Venice 90291 (+18%); South Figueroa 90007 (YOY not available - current median now $1,003,000); Beverly Hills 90211 (-22%); Malibu 90265 (YOY not available - current median now $815,000); Pacific Palisades 90272 (+19%); Redondo Beach 90277 (-1%); Sierra Madre 91024 (YOY not available - current median now $765,000); and Hollywood Hills 90068 (+73%).

The areas suffering the greatest SFR price losses in July are Westwood 90024 (-67%); Signal Hill 90755 (-64%); Beverly Hills 90210 (-59%); Watts 90002 (-52%); Long Beach 90802 (-51%); South Los Angeles 90003 (-48%); L.A. 90011 (-47%); Panorama City 91402 (-47%); Palmdale 93591 (-47%); and Compton 90221 (-46%).

The areas suffering the greatest condo price losses are Westlake Village 91361 (-48%); Windsor Square 90020 (-42%); North Hills 91343 (-41%); North Hollywood 91601 (-39%); Newhall 91321 (-39%); Canoga Park 91304 (-37%) and 91303 (-36%); Long Beach 90815 (-37%); Hawthorne 90250 (-37%); Van Nuys 91405 (-36%).

Be sure to read the July sales report from Mr. Mortgage. Stay tuned.

Preliminary look at July 2008 Redondo Beach housing market data

2008-08-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

I have had a few stark reminders recently of why I don't want to own property where I currently live, in north Redondo, and why my significant other and I plan to eventually move out of Southern California.

On a very recent Saturday night we attended a potluck in downtown Manhattan Beach. It was the night that a volleyball tournament had taken place. We were running a little late, and on Manhattan Beach Blvd our car followed four police cars with lights flashing into downtown. There was obviously a lot of rowdy activity going on. From the spa where we were attending the potluck, we caught a glimpse of one drunken bozo staggering around with nothing but his underwear briefs on. Most of the other loud drunken revelers still had their clothes on. I looked at my significant other and said to him, "People pay several million dollars to live here and they put up with this kind of idiotic behavior?!?" Maybe I'm just too old or I am not the type to appreciate this magnificent beach lifestyle.

As I sit here in the study of my apartment with the window open to try to cool down this room, I can hear somebody two doors away yelling and swearing. The close proximity to our neighbors has been annoyance on many occasions and has literally kept me awake at night.

Anyway, back to the data.

My working set of data is pulled mostly out of Manhattan Beach Reporter, with a few out of Zillow. I have 49 records for July, which comes up short, so let's hope I have a good representative set of data.

Sales are continuing to mark to market all these price cuts I've been recording for so many months, which is good. It's when sales dry up that we don't know what is going on in the heads of buyers and sellers in terms of their perception of valuations. When I calculated median and average Redondo Beach sale price for July 2007 I had 78 records and I came up with median and average price of $860,000 and $880,279, respectively. For July 2008 I have $752,000 and $786,136. My July 2008 median sale price is down -12.5% YOY. I think there is a good chance we will continue to see YOY prices slide when the official numbers come out later this month from DataQuick - however, if this market is currently driven by higher end sales, we may see an increase from June.

Sale Price

STAT      JAN 2008   FEB 2008   MAR 2008   APR 2008   MAY 2008    JUN 2008   JUL 2008
records         25         25         35         40         61          50         49
MEDIAN    $795,000   $755,000   $789,000   $756,000   $742,000    $704,000   $752,000
AVERAGE   $932,117   $831,500   $961,714   $833,000   $775,589    $754,000   $786,136
MIN       $449,900   $520,000   $585,000   $420,000   $269,900    $420,000   $449,500
MAX     $2,130,000 $1,590,000 $2,100,000 $2,425,000 $1,430,000  $1,351,000 $1,725,000

Sales by Square Footage

For July 2007 I calculated the median square footage of a sold property at 1762 and the average at 1838. For July 2008 my calculations came in at 1892 and 1956, respectively. Both numbers are up substantially, lending credence to the idea that higher-end sales have been driving the market very recently.

DOM (Time on Market)

My July 2007 calculation of time on market was a median 68 days and an average 104 days. For July 2008 I come up with 138 and 204, respectively. This has edged up from my prior month calculations. The "tale of two markets" continues, with literally two axes in the graph - one for the home sellers who sold relatively quickly, and one axis for those whose properties have been sitting on the market for literally years now. I doubt the median and the average are reflective of the typical current homeseller's experience. Either the property has been sitting on the market for ages and has had its price reduced substantially, or the nervous homeseller has entered the market with a very competitive price and succeeded in getting the property sold relatively quickly.

Percent Reductions

And how much did sellers have to lower their asking prices in order to make their sales? For July 2007, I calculated a median reduction of 1.91% and an average reduction of 3.87%. For July 2008, I have calculated a median reduction of 7.41% and an average reduction of 8.75% for sold properties. There is virtually no change from June.

Asking Price History

Median asking price for properties entering the market in July (or for which I have reductions still recorded for July) seems to have taken a sharp turn up, to $799,000. Hope springs eternal. After all, this is supposed to be THE best time of year for this housing market. My feeling is these sellers will experience the same disappointment at not getting their dream asking prices as a lot of other sellers are experiencing. Be sure to read Mr. Mortgage's blog and watch his videos for an explanation of what's coming down the California pipeline.

July Short Sales

Out of 49 sale records I have recorded, I show 11 short sales, but one prior sale record is highly questionable, so let's call it 10. Ten short sales is exceeding 20% of the sales I have recorded.

If I throw out the questionable record for Anita Street, the average short sale difference I recorded is 9%.

I have not yet discovered a short sale from a prior sale in 2003.

SALE      PRIOR SALE       %      ADDRESS
DATE          DATE       RED
2008-07-28 2005-06-17  -5.0% 2317 Harriman Lane B
2008-07-23 2005-11-15  -6.0% 531 Esplanade 304
2008-07-21 2004-04-29  -2.0% 2110 Rockefeller Lane 2
2008-07-07 2007-02-21  -1.0% 1636 Goodman Avenue
2008-07-18 2005-05-13 -21.0% 2408 Phelan Lane A
2008-07-07 2008-01-28 -23.0% 419 Anita Street A
2008-07-28 2005-11-15 -10.0% 2109 Plant Avenue B
2008-07-28 2004-04-15  -1.0% 2503 Rindge Lane
2008-07-18 2005-09-27  -9.0% 1516 Ford Avenue
2008-07-14 2007-03-28  -6.0% 200 S. Catalina Avenue 101
2008-07-21 2005-08-16 -29.0% 510 The Village 307

Los Angeles County South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate $$$ Transacted for July 2008

2008-08-05T19:56:00.001-07:00

I apologize for taking a little longer than usual to get the monthly dollar volume charts up, but work demands have forced me to drop a number of extracurricular activities, plus I wanted to take the time to grow these charts. They contain over six years of data, and since I want you to be able to see the bubble full-blown and the ensuing fallout from the burst, I don't want to lop off the year 2002.

Nothing has really changed. The summer bounce continues. You can check out the YOY July comparison here in this table. El Segundo (90245) had a good month relative to last year. Hermosa Beach (90254) and South Redondo (90277) had especially horrible months relative to last year. North Redondo's (90278) sales volume matched last year's, but dollar volume is down. Manhattan Beach (90266) is down from last year.

Zip      Sales    Sales    Dollar Volume    Dollar Volume
         2008     2007    2008($1000's)    2007($1000's)

90245      16       10       $11,952            $9,430          
90254      17       27       $15,861           $41,499          
90266      27       31       $45,360           $54,095
90277      28       41       $25,340           $39,278
90278      47       47       $33,041           $35,579

YOY Comparisons

These numbers are a YOY comparison of the doubly smooth moving average of dollar volumes. I think of them as "recent pain" (or recent gain) indicators.

Culver City is showing a little bit of resilience this summer. Everything else is down YOY.

90232            6.2%      Culver City
90035        -18.3%      West Fairfax
90245          -23.6%      El Segundo
90302          -29.3%      Inglewood
90292          -31.3%      Marina del Rey
90045          -32.9%      Westchester
90275          -35.0%      Palos Verdes Estates
90034          -38.7%      Palms
90505          -39.5%      Torrance
90254          -41.4%      Hermosa Beach
90401-90405    -42.1%      Santa Monica combined
90501          -43.4%      Torrance
90064          -43.7%      Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90291          -45.2%      Venice
90717          -45.2%      Lomita
90746          -45.9%      Carson
90066          -47.0%      Mar Vista
90008          -47.3%      Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90502          -47.5%      Torrance
90305          -47.6%      Inglewood
90501-90505    -47.9%      Torrance Combined
90277          -48.2%      Redondo Beach (south)
beach cities   -48.3%      4 Beach Cities combined
90277-90278    -49.1%      Redondo Beach combined
90007          -49.5%      South Central
90504          -49.7%      Torrance
90278          -49.9%      Redondo Beach (north)
SW county      -50.0%      Southwest L.A. County
90094          -50.0%      Playa Vista
90230          -51.1%      Culver City
90056          -51.1%      Ladera Heights
90249          -51.4%      Gardena
90266          -54.0%      Manhattan Beach
90019          -55.0%      Country Club Park/Mid City
90260          -55.2%      Lawndale
90745          -55.3%      Carson
90250          -55.6%      Hawthorne
90503          -56.7%      Torrance
90301-90305    -58.0%      Inglewood/Lennox combined
90247          -60.9%      Gardena
90036          -61.6%      Park La Brea
90303          -61.9%      Inglewood
90062          -62.5%      South Central
90047          -63.4%      South Central
90293          -63.7%      Playa del Rey
90732          -64.3%      San Pedro/Rancho PV
90016          -65.0%      West Adams
90731          -66.7%      San Pedro
90043          -66.9%      Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90301          -68.1%      Inglewood
90044          -74.8%      Athens
90018          -79.6%      Jefferson Park
90037          -80.0%      South Central
90304          -81.6%      Lennox
90744         -147.5%      Wilmington

Relative Strength

This is a longer-term view of the strength of dollar volume in a given zip code. For this month 5.4 is the strongest (suffering the least amount of chronic pain) and -1.6 is the weakest (suffering the most chronic pain). Think of it is as the area above 0 on the YOY graph with the area below 0 of the YOY graph subtracted out.

90094         5.4  Playa Vista
90247         2.9  Gardena
90305         2.5  Inglewood
90034         1.6  Palms
90044         1.4  Athens
90292         1.3  Marina del Rey
90746         1.2  Carson
90047         0.7  South Central
90502         0.7  Torrance
90301-90305   0.7  Inglewood/Lennox combined
90062         0.6  South Central
90007         0.6  South Central
90302         0.6  Inglewood
90501         0.6  Torrance
90304         0.6  Lennox
90016         0.5  West Adams
90018         0.5  Jefferson Park
90293         0.5  Playa del Rey
90745         0.5  Carson
90250         0.5  Hawthorne
90301         0.5  Inglewood
90064         0.4  Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90254         0.4  Hermosa Beach
90732         0.4  San Pedro/Rancho PV
90303         0.4  Inglewood
90045         0.3  Westchester
90008         0.3  Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90019         0.3  Country Club Park/Mid City
90291         0.3  Venice
90043         0.3  Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90037         0.3  South Central
90245         0.2  El Segundo
90230         0.2  Culver City
90232         0.2  Culver City
90249         0.2  Gardena
90503         0.2  Torrance
SW county     0.2  Southwest L.A. County
90036         0.2  Park La Brea
90501-90505   0.2  Torrance Combined
90260         0.1  Lawndale
90066         0.1  Mar Vista
90278         0.1  Redondo Beach (north)
90505         0.0  Torrance
90401-90405   0.0  Santa Monica combined
90731         0.0  San Pedro
90035         0.0  West Fairfax
90277-90278   0.0  Redondo Beach combined
beach cities  0.0  4 Beach Cities combined
90056        -0.1  Ladera Heights
90717        -0.1  Lomita
90277        -0.1  Redondo Beach (south)
90266        -0.1  Manhattan Beach
90504        -0.1  Torrance
90275        -0.2  Palos Verdes Estates
90744        -1.6  Wilmington

Just for fun, look at the July 2007 numbers and it'll be obvious that these numbers have been sagging for the past year.

View individual zip codes in the regional tracker here.

Other measures of Los Angeles beach cities market activity, June 2008

2008-07-31T19:39:00.001-07:00

Shorewood has graciously sent me its June statistics.

According to the realty firm, the average DOM for sales in the four beach cities was 53, which is the highest June DOM since I've started keeping track of Shorewood's DOM numbers, which go back to July 2004.

My calculation of DOM (time on market) for Redondo Beach starts the counter from when a property is first listed, not from its last relisting before it is sold. So my calculations for June were a median 127 days and an average 182 days. If you check my prior postings, you'll see that there are really "two markets", with one set of sellers pricing aggressively and selling relatively quickly, while another set of sellers lets their properties sit on the market, for literally years. My calculated median and average fall in the middle of the extremes and probably aren't representative of the experience of your typical Redondo home seller.

In terms of sales relative to inventory, inventory rose and sales declined when compared to a year ago. I-S/S is still very high. June 2007 saw 582 properties for sale and June 2008 saw 720. June 2007 saw 181 sales and June 2008 saw 116 sales. It's not reflected in the Moving Average yet, but there is a possibility that I-S/S has bottomed for the summer, and could climb from here. We shall see.

Beach cities median sale price appears to be zigzagging its way down, with a zig (up) for June.

Take a look at Shorewood's press release, and you'll see that sales in all price categories are down when compared to June 2007. Then take a look at homes for sale by price range, and you'll see that the inventory of lower-end homes has more than doubled and tripled. The higher-end range has not piled on anything close to that in inventory, according to Shorewood's numbers. Indeed, Shorewood reports that it was the higher-end homes that appeared to drive the June market, which does not bode well for the market, as the bubble zing that was so prominent in this market in 2004-2006 just isn't there.

A query of my Redondo database for unsold homes $2,000,000 and over shows 29 records, with some original list dates going back nearly 2 years. As you'll see in my July dollar volume report, I think the high end is already starting to fall off a bit, but we'll get to that in due time.

Standard & Poors: Los Angeles area median housing price down -24.5% for May 2008

2008-07-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

The Case-Shiller Index was released for May 2008.

According to the index, the Los Angeles area median home price was down -24.5% from May 2007, and down -1.9% from April 2008.

The entire Composite-20 metropolitan index was down -15.8% YOY for May. To view the full report, visit Standard and Poors (PDF file). S&P's home price website is here.

The housing bulls will pin much hope on the fact that seven areas in the national index (Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, Portland) were flat to slightly up from April. However, all areas are down YOY.

L.A. Land says that readers are arguing convincingly that the month to month decline is decelerating. Of course some permabulls believe this means that recovery is right around the corner in 2009. I've been listening to and reading Mr. Mortgage and personally I think we are just entering the eye of the hurricane and much more agony lies ahead, due to Neg-Am and Alt-A problems that have yet to fully impact our financial system.

By the way, U.S. Representative Jane Harman voted for the Foreclosure Prevention Act (the bailout bill) which gives the IRS powers to snoop into our credit card records. I most definitely will not be voting for her this fall.

CAR/DQNews Report June 2008 Report for Redondo Beach

2008-07-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

DQNews has released its housing market data for June 2008 for California cities. The CAR link is here.

The median June sale price for a Redondo Beach home (new or existing, SFR or condo) was $672,500, down -15.4% YOY. DataQuick's statistic is based on 64 sales, which is a good number of records with which to calculate such a statistic. This calculation is better than the zip code / property type breakdown calculation which DataQuick also reports and which I complain about regularly. The former is an aggregation of new and existing home sales, SFRs and condos, in 90277 and 90278. The latter is relatively meaningless.

My preliminary calculation for June was high at $704,000, based on 50 records. However I did at least sense that sales had picked up enough that some of the many markdowns I've been observing in the market would be realized, and the price trend was headed further down.

Here is how the beach cities look.

Area               Sales      Median Price       Year Ago      Pct Change
El Segundo           10         $710,000         $909,750         -21.96%
Hermosa Beach        15       $1,035,000       $1,205,000         -14.11%  
Manhattan Beach      36       $1,942,500       $1,300,000         +49.42%
Redondo Beach        71         $672,500         $794,500         -15.36%    
(they don't add up)
Beach Cities         98         $956,500         $960,000          -0.36%

Here are some other selected areas of interest to us.

Area               Sales      Median Price       Year Ago      Pct Change
Beverly Hills       25        $1,580,000      $1,697,500           -6.92%
Malibu               5        $2,700,000      $1,800,000          +50.00%
Palos Verdes Es     19        $1,351,500      $1,542,000          -12.35%
Palos Verdes Pn     48        $1,070,000      $1,261,000          -15.15%
South Bay          379          $617,500        $687,500          -10.18%
Westchester         28          $777,000        $762,500           +1.90% 
West Los Angeles   132          $751,250        $755,000           -0.50% 
Westside            65          $994,500        $720,000          +38.13%

Los Angeles Beach Cities Resale Activity for June 2008

2008-07-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

Long time readers know that these DataQuick statistics, broken out by zip code and housing unit type are my least favorite statistics because statistical validity is not supported by such small sales numbers. The only charts with any validity here are the ones for Los Angeles County. Note the smooth lines on the county charts, as opposed to the jerky lines on the beach city zip code charts. That's because there are thousands of data points for the county, as opposed to a handful for each zip code.

There is nothing sacred about median price. It doesn't really help you determine what your own home is worth (the best thing helping you there is probably comparable sales), and these charts say nothing about how far inventory is getting marked down, or how much inventory there is for that matter.

Here are the detailed RESALE statistics for the beach cities and some of the surrounding zip codes (prices are in 1000's):

                         SFR   MEDIAN    %YOY    CONDO  MEDIAN   %YOY  
COMMUNITY         ZIP    SALES   SFR      CHG    SALES  CONDO     CHG
LA/Westchester    90045   25    $774      1.5%    N/A     N/A     N/A
El Segundo        90245    8    $907    -13.6%     3     $585     4.8%
Hawthorne         90250   23    $430    -17.3%     2     $363   -13.0%  
Hermosa Beach     90254    9  $1,350      4.1%     5   $1,289    12.2%  
Lawndale          90260    7    $358    -33.1%     3     $400    18.7%  
Manhattan Beach   90266   27  $1,900     46.2%     6   $1,010   -57.0%  
Palos Verdes Pen. 90274   20  $1,475     -4.8%     2     $598   106.0%  
Rancho P.V.       90275   27  $1,024     -5.4%     4     $488   -23.3%   
Redondo Beach     90277   13    $870     -9.4%    14     $609   -23.9%   
Redondo Beach     90278   25    $685     -7.7%    15     $650    -7.2%

Daily Breeze (print edition): Region's jobs outlook is bleak for housing, finance and manufacturing

2008-07-16T15:54:00.001-07:00

This morning I walked two big dogs by the north Redondo Beach post office and as I stopped to mail some letters (bailout protest letters to Senators Feinstein and Boxer, by the way) I found these headlines screaming at me from a newspaper machine:

THE NATION

4.4%

Projected rise in inflation in 2008, the highest since 1990.

1.7%

Projected rise in gross domestic product, the lowest since 2002.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY

0.1%

Projected job growth for 2008, the lowest since 2003.

6.2%

Projected unemployment for 2008, the highest since 2004.

ECONOMY IN DECLINE

Let's see what bubblelicious things the paper has to say.

According to this July 16 headline story by Muhammed El-Hassan, Jack Kyser, a local economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, says of our local economy that "it is severely stressed." But he claims that Los Angeles County is doing better than our sister counties of Orange, Riverside, San Bernadino, and Ventura which "are all in recession."

Los Angeles County is expected to gain 8,500 new jobs in health services. The government is expected to add 6,000 jobs (perhaps to beat down those unruly customers standing in line at failed banks); science and technical jobs will add 5,000. But the housing market will cut loose of 10,000 jobs; finance and insurance will lose 5,000 jobs; manufacturing will lose 5,000 jobs. Aerospace will lose only a very small number of jobs - due to problems in the airlines industry related to high fuel prices. The increasing government focus on satellite technology will otherwise boost local aerospace.

I am a little skeptical of the job creation numbers for the simple reason that, even though housing prices are back down to roughly 2004, they remain sky high. And I'm certainly glad that satellite technology will contribute more to the area. With the clothing boutiques; aromatherapy shops; fortune tellers; yoga studios, and what-not in the area I really was starting to wonder just what this local economy does.

International trade has taken hits. Container traffic is expected to drop by 4.5% at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. Employment in the motion picture and television industry is expected to drop 3.8%, largely due to the writers strike. Hmm, that's quite a switch from what was happening just a few years ago. A rebound in this field is expected.

Anyway, Jack Kyser says things will be pretty bad until 2010. (And I think he's a bit of an optimist.)

A related Associated Press article by Alex Viega, also on the front page of the Daily Breeze (and online, although probably temporarily) details the plight of a Torrance resident named Doug Gylfe who, despite a 23% drop in Torrance home prices, still can't afford a home. In 90505, where Gylfe lives, the median price of a home in 2006 was $830,000. It is now $636,000 and it is still unaffordable.

The article argues that any attempt to rescue the market merely props up prices and continues to make unaffordability an issue. Edward Leamer at UCLA chips in and says, "The folks who sat on the sidelines, they should feel legitimately annoyed that the more speculative folks who bought homes they couldn't afford are going to be bailed out by the federal government. And these other folks who acted responsibly and didn't get in over their head and decided they didn't want to buy the home, they are not getting any benefit."

The article discusses some of the initiatives that Congress is considering. And it reminds us that the traditional benchmark is that housing costs should not exceed 28% of a household's gross monthly income.

I find it interesting that an old guideline is now being trotted out. It's part of a contraction trend back to more conservative valuations and measurements.

Remember how I was saying in an earlier post that a particular housing industry watcher left herself some wiggle room when she stated:

"If the bottom falls out of the economy and we have significant job losses, then everything will come down: home prices, rents, everything. That could take quite a while to work through."

That particular industry observer may be happy in the not-to-distant future that she left herself an out.

Remember it wasn't so long ago that some of these observers were trying to tell us that Los Angeles and California won't slump because of the strong employment base. We shall see.

Stay tuned.

DQNews: Southland home sales drag along bottom

2008-07-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

DQNews has published Southland home sale numbers for June. June's sales were the highest in 10 months, but the lowest June on record, since DataQuick started keeping track in 1988. 17,424 new and existing SFRs and condos were transacted in June, compared to a historical June average of 28,488, and a maximum of 40,156 sales in June 2005.

The Inland Empire is the only area where sales have increased YOY, and it's easy to see why. That area was the first to melt down and so has experienced a greater overall decline than the other areas, so buyers think they are getting bargains.

The Southland median June home price was down -4.1% from May.

Prior to the credit crunch hitting last August, some 40% of southland sales were financed with jumbo loans. Today the figure is 16.3%, which edged up very slightly from May. And remember that the conforming loan limit has been raised and is no longer $417,000.

In May foreclosures were 39.2% of all sales; in June it was 41.1%. Southland buyers committed themselves to a typical monthly payment of $1,671, down from $1,713 in Ma7, and down from $2,430 YOY. Foreclosures remain pegged at record levels, ARM financing is at a 6 year low, and non-owner occupied buying activity is low, according to DataQuick. Recall that the L.A. Business Journal said that it had been seeing an increase in such activity, so perhaps it is wearing off.

Peter Hong at the L.A. Times reports in this July 17 story (Southern California home sales and prices keep falling) that prices are down to 2004 levels, which pretty much correlates with what I've been seeing in short sales in Redondo Beach.

Somebody thought to ask Chris Thornberg of Beacon Economics his opinion. He says that affordability is not there yet and prices need to drop 40% below the peak before incomes match prices.

Peter Green at USC's Lusk School of Real Estate has decided prices have fallen far enough and he's out shopping for falling Ginzu knives. He figures if prices fall another 10% that's OK with him. I'd love to know how he's so sure it'll stop there. Will he end up like Professor Irving Fisher in 1929, who said that stocks reached a permanently high plateau and then ended up having Yale university buy his house to prevent his homelessness since he lost so much money in the stock market crash?

Perhaps of interest to beach-area residents, prices in these and other affluent areas are showing "sharp declines" and I am in fact seeing substantial markdowns here. But I can tell you they've hit the 40% level and I think there is room for much more in the way of markdowns, beyond what Peter Green or Chris Thornberg are saying.

DataQuick blames the situation on the tight credit conditions, noting that even "well-qualified household" aren't getting mortgage loans.

County           Sales    Sales      %YOY      Median      Median      %YOY
                 June 07  June 08     Chg      June 07     June 08      Chg
Los Angeles      7,580    5,678     -25.1%     $545,000    $415,000   -23.90%
Orange           2,641    1,930     -26.9%     $645,000    $495,000   -23.30%
Riverside        3,359    3,757      11.8%     $400,000    $275,000   -31.30%
San Bernardino   2,190    2,215       1.1%     $365,000    $240,000   -34.20%
San Diego        3,510    3,077     -12.3%     $495,500    $370,000   -25.30%
Ventura            886      767     -13.4%     $582,000    $420,000   -27.80%
SoCal           20,166   17,424     -13.6%     $502,000    $355,000   -29.30%

Preliminary look at June 2008 Redondo Beach housing market data

2008-07-10T20:46:00.000-07:00

My working set of data is pulled mostly out of Manhattan Beach Reporter, with a few out of Zillow. I have 50 records for June, which comes up a bit short, so let's hope I have a good representative set of data.

Sales volume is continuing to climb, which is good as the volume will mark to market all these price cuts I've been recording for so many months. When I calculated median and average Redondo Beach sale price for June 2007 I also had 50 records and I came up with $782,500 and $833,090, respectively. My June 2008 median sale price is down -10% YOY. I think there is a good chance we will continue to see prices slide when the official numbers come out later this month from DataQuick.

Sale Price

STAT      DEC 2007   JAN 2008   FEB 2008   MAR 2008   APR 2008   MAY 2008    JUN 2008
records         26         25         25         35         40         61          50
MEDIAN    $782,500   $795,000   $755,000   $789,000   $756,000   $742,000    $704,000
AVERAGE   $832,827   $932,117   $831,500   $961,714   $833,000   $775,589    $754,000
MIN       $486,500   $449,900   $520,000   $585,000   $420,000   $269,900    $420,000
MAX     $1,500,000 $2,130,000 $1,590,000 $2,100,000 $2,425,000 $1,430,000  $1,351,000

Sales by Square Footage

For June 2007 I calculated the median square footage of a sold property at 1762 and the average at 1838. For June 2008 my calculations came in at 1752 and 1787, respectively. Median square footage is very nearly the same, while average square footage has been pulling back, which might be an indication of big high-end luxury properties hitting a slump, so more smaller low-end homes are being sold relative to high-end homes than a year ago.

DOM (Time on Market)

My June 2007 calculation of time on market was a median 90 days and an average 117 days. For June 2008 I come up with 127 and 182, respectively. This is up just very slightly from my prior month calculations. The "tale of two markets" continues, with literally two axes in the graph - one for the home sellers who sold relatively quickly, and one axis for those whose properties have been sitting on the market for literally years now.

Percent Reductions

And how much did sellers have to lower their asking prices in order to make their sales? For June 2007, I calculated a median reduction of 3.40% and an average reduction of 3.89%. For June 2008, I have calculated a median reduction of 7.47% and an average reduction of 8.65% for sold properties.

I am really seeing some quick and substantial markdowns on new properties in south Redondo. In spite of the fire sale that's been going on down there, there is still a glut of properties, obviously. Some of these markdowns are in the neighborhood of nearly 40%. And you know what? The prices are STILL high.

Some listings are coming on aggressively priced so as to outrun any price decline. Therefore I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few more properties sell OVER their original asking prices.

Current Asking Prices, by Month

I am not sure I should keep publishing this chart, because I found some flaws in how I calculate it. The problem is the way I store the price reductions. Unfortunately, old price changes that are stored in number fields get overwritten as I update these number fields with new price changes. The old price changes get preserved in a text field, but I would have to literally process through my database and parse out these text fields in order to record each and every price change for this trend graph. For now, let's hope that I at least have the general trend right.

June Short Sales

Out of 50 records that I recorded, 20% of them were short sales. I don't know if they were all plain vanilla short sales or there was something wacky going on that wouldn't ordinarily be recorded as a normal, arm's length transaction. But here they are. The properties at 1709 Perkins, on Mansel, and on North Lucia look especially suspicious. If anybody knows anything in particular about these properties, feel free to post a comment!

If I throw out those three records as wacky outliers and take an average of the six remaining records, the average short sale I recorded is 7.5%. Keep in mind this is on a very small data set. I would be curious to know if anyone is aware of short sales in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and El Segundo, or is it just Redondo that is buckling under here.

I have not yet discovered a short sale from a prior sale in 2003.

SALE      PRIOR SALE       %      ADDRESS
DATE          DATE       RED

2008-06-03 2004-11-15   -9.0   2207 Perkins Lane B
2008-06-12 2007-03-07  -47.0   1709 Perkins Lane 2 
2008-06-16 2005-05-12   -8.0   1509 Stanford Avenue
2008-06-16 2006-04-15  -44.0   807 N. Lucia Avenue 2
2008-06-16 2006-07-15  -11.0   2120 Dufour Street 2
2008-06-16 2007-01-03   -2.0   2512 Vanderbilt Lane C 
2008-06-19 2006-09-15  -42.0   18403 Mansel Avenue 2
2008-06-23 2006-08-15  -14.0   112 Via El Chico
2008-06-23 2007-03-14    0.0   1709 Goodman Avenue
2008-06-30 2005-11-15  -15.0   1219 Ynez Avenue

L.A. Business Journal: Condo Market Bouncing Back?

2008-07-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

That's the headline in a Howard Fine story on the front page of the July 7 print edition of the Los Angele Business Journal. The skeptical bear in me says NO, but let's see what the article says.

The article says that June sales were good, "exceeding the seasonal surge, especially in condos." This was more than double what was sold in May, and the largest number since July 2007.

This was still down 4% YOY. And, according to Home Data, the 3,332 new and existing homes sold in June was a 30% increase over May, but down -28% YOY.

So why the big jump? PRICE. According to Dolores Conway of USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate, "prices are down far enough now that people who have been sitting on the sidelines are now jumping back in." The median SFR price is now down to the lowest it has been since October 2004, falling to $429,000. As one agent says, "The bargain hunters have come out in force."

In addition to price, there are increasingly large amounts of foreclosure properties available on the market. New condominium projects are STILL being built and coming on to the market, some at steeply discounted prices. The flipping dream remains, with buyers increasingly looking to buy and rent out their condos. Finally, gas prices are compelling buyers to seek properties (these days, mainly condos) closer to urban centers. The lower dollar has attracted foreign buyers. These are all factors in the bounce.

According to Bill Toth of Windermere/Bill Toth Associates in Burbank, "the market improvement always starts at the bottom, when properties become more affordable and people who has sat on the fence jump in. That's what we're starting to see now."

But it's not just the bottom-of-the barrel scrapings that are getting sold. Near waterfront condos in Long Beach are "selling briskly" and starting around $500,000.

Foreign buyers have been buying condos in Marina del Rey.

Properties near major sources of transportation are doing relatively well. Thanks to the Gold Line, the Pasadena market has enjoyed a bounce.

Rents are still edging up, and investment buyers have been coming out and buying condos because they can rent them out more quickly now. Conway at USC says there isn't a whole lot more room for prices to fall to return to the historical norm of being in line with monthly rents. "The cost of home ownership is starting to approach the cost of average rent."

-------------------------- SFR ----------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    June     %YOY        June    %YOY
                          Sales   Change      Price   Change
L.A County              3,332       -28%    $429,000  -25% 
El Segundo       90245      7       -30%    $675,000  -29%
Hermosa Beach    90254      8       -73%  $1,000,000  -16%  
Manhattan Beach  90266     23       -41%  $1,610,000   +4%  
Redondo Beach    90277     10       -23%    $918,000   +7%
Redondo Beach    90278     18       -33%    $806,000   +8%

------------------------ CONDO ----------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    June     %YOY       June       %YOY
                          Sales   Change    Price     Change
L.A. County              1,254      -4%    $386,000   -12%
El Segundo       90245       3     200%    $639,000    -9%
Hermosa Beach    90254       7     250%  $1,035,000   +36%
Manhattan Beach  90266       5     400%    $999,000   +15% 
Redondo Beach    90277      20     +25%    $640,000   -25%
Redondo Beach    90278      23     -28%    $580,000   -21%

The most expensive homes (SFRs) in June were in Westwood 90024 (+171% YOY); Santa Monica 90402 (+23%); Malibu 90265 (+35%); Beverly Hills 90210 (+3%) and 90211 (+19%); San Marino 91108 (+32%); Hancock Park 90004 (+131%); Manhattan Beach 90266 (+4%); Bel-Air 90077 (+66%); and Marina del Rey 90292 (+11%).

The most expensive condos in June wre in Venice 90291 (+42% YOY); Palos Verdes Estates 90274 (+317%); South Park 90015 (YOY comparison not available, median price $1,100,000 on three sales); Hermosa Beach 90254 (+36%); Manhattan Beach 90266 (+15%); Beverly Hills 90211 (-20%); Santa Monica 90405 (-3%); Marina del Rey 90292 (-4%); West Hollywood 90038 (YOY comparison not available, median price $725,000 on three sales); and Rancho Palos Verdes (-17%).

The communities with greatest SFR price losses in June were Littlerock 93543 (-59% YOY); Brooklyn Heights 90033 (-58%); Koreatown 90066 (-57%); Burbank 91501 (-52%); Hollywood Hills 90068 (-51%); Signal Hill 90755 (-50%); City College area 90029 (-50%); Woodland Hills 91364 (-48%); La Habra 90631 (-47%); and Lancaster 93535 (-45%).

The communities with the greatest condo price losses in June were Westlake 90057 (-52% YOY); Canoga Park 91304 (-50%); Covina 91722 (-50%); Palms 90034 (-45%); Gardena 90247 (-44%); Long Beach 90814 (-43%); Tujunga 91042 (-42%); Phillips Ranch 91766 (-41%); Windsor Square 90020 (-41%); and Canyon Country 91351 (-39%).

Wow, it almost sounds like 2005 or 2006 again, doesn't it? YOU WANNABE REAL ESTATE MOGULS NEED TO BUY YOUR INVESTMENT CONDOS AND RENT 'EM! Little mention of tighter credit conditions except that conforming loan limits were raised. No mention of the tidal wave of foreclosures that has YET to hit California (catch up on Mr. Mortgage's reports if you have not done so.) One month of good sales and Happy Days Are Here Again. Chris Thornberg? Who's he? It's not until the very last paragraph of this article that Conway mentions any possible alternative scenarios with a negative outcome - "If the bottom falls out of the economy and we have significant job losses, then everything will come down: home prices, rents, everything. That could take quite a while to work through."

It sounds to me like this decline has ushered in a whole new wave of suckers who have conveniently forgotten that many of the foreclosures sitting on the market now were once bought by starry-eyed wannabe homeowners who bought at the same prices back in 2004 and after. And there are still some "stupid" mortgages available (I've discussed in previous postings the FHA loan specifications I've seen floating around my neighborhood.)

By the way, if you subscribe to Elliott Wave publications, then you'll know that in a recent Financial Forecast, it was reiterated that foreign buyers are often the ones left "holding the bag" in asset markets (with real estate being the focus of the moment). The locals usually have more of an advantage. The recent EWI Finanicial Forecast warned that "As the thirst for cash becomes all-consuming, the bath water, the baby, the tub, the bathroom, and the whole house will be made available for sale; that is, if the house is worth anything. That is why it is important to resist the too-early urge to snap up assets with even the most impeccable credentials." And why the thirst for cash? The catalyst according to this recent issue is that hedge funds have been facing withdrawals, although tightening credit conditions has been a general factor.

Los Angeles County South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate $$$ Transacted for June 2008

2008-07-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

The late spring-summer bounce is still underway, and I'm sure you'll hear local realtors trumpeting a bounce in sales as if to mean the market has recovered. But any local industry discussion of the markdowns needed to achieve those sales are pretty much limited to two words: psychological adjustment. Realtors have yet to acknowledge that the slowdown has hit the south bay. They will only say that well-priced properties sell quickly, which to some extent is true. What they don't say is that you have to have been fortunate enough to have bought your property before 2003 and not have taken out any debt against it that you are able to price your property very competitively and still close the sale coming out ahead. As far as I can tell from the ads in the Manhattan Beach Reporter, they don't discuss their expertise in working out short sales with your lender.

But sales remain pretty much well below last year's levels. South Redondo (90277) barely managed to eke out a sales volume above that of June 2007, but since the average sale price has dropped significantly, dollar volume remains down. El Segundo (90245) almost hit last year's June sales volume. Sales volume remains way down in north Redondo (90278), Manhattan Beach (90266), and Hermosa Beach (90254).

Zip      Sales    Sales    Dollar Volume    Dollar Volume
          2008     2007    2008($1000's)    2007($1000's)

90245      10       11        $6,970           $11,418           
90254      15       32       $21,795           $41,120           
90266      28       40       $46,900           $68,440
90277      30       29       $21,120           $26,506
90278      41       59       $27,839           $46,197

YOY Comparisons

These numbers are a YOY comparison of the doubly smooth moving average of dollar volumes. I think of them as "recent pain" (or recent gain) indicators.

Even Playa Vista is starting to show a little weakness. I think this is the first time that everything I show in this list is down

90232           -10.3% Culver City
90302           -15.5% Inglewood
90254           -21.1% Hermosa Beach
90045           -24.4% Westchester
90292           -26.5% Marina del Rey
90245           -27.9% El Segundo
90094           -30.3% Playa Vista
90035           -32.2% West Fairfax
90034           -36.4% Palms
90275           -38.3% Palos Verdes Estates
90008           -38.9% Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90064           -40.4% Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90501           -42.4% Torrance
90502           -43.2% Torrance
90505           -45.9% Torrance
90504           -46.2% Torrance
90066           -46.8% Mar Vista
90401-90405     -46.8% Santa Monica combined
90305           -47.5% Inglewood
90717           -49.7% Lomita
90501-90505     -49.9% Torrance Combined
SW county       -50.6% Southwest L.A. County
beach cities    -50.7% 4 Beach Cities combined
90291           -50.8% Venice
90745           -53.2% Carson
90277           -53.4% Redondo Beach (south)
90260           -53.6% Lawndale
90746           -53.9% Carson
90277-90278     -54.9% Redondo Beach combined
90250           -55.3% Hawthorne
90249           -55.3% Gardena
90278           -56.0% Redondo Beach (north)
90019           -56.1% Country Club Park/Mid City
90230           -56.5% Culver City
90016           -56.6% West Adams
90301-90305     -58.2% Inglewood/Lennox combined
90266           -60.4% Manhattan Beach
90007           -60.4% South Central
90503           -62.3% Torrance
90036           -62.5% Park La Brea
90293           -62.8% Playa del Rey
90732           -64.0% San Pedro/Rancho PV
90047           -65.0% South Central
90301           -66.0% Inglewood
90056           -67.0% Ladera Heights
90247           -68.0% Gardena
90731           -68.1% San Pedro
90043           -68.5% Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90044           -71.0% Athens
90062           -71.3% South Central
90037           -72.1% South Central
90303           -76.1% Inglewood
90018           -78.7% Jefferson Park
90304           -83.1% Lennox
90744          -175.0% Wilmington

Relative Strength

This is a longer-term view of the strength of dollar volume in a given zip code. For this month 5.4 is the strongest (suffering the least amount of chronic pain) and -1.5 being the weakest (suffering the most chronic pain). Think of it is as the area above 0 on the YOY graph with the area below 0 of the YOY graph subtracted out.

We are getting more areas now falling at 0 and below.

90094           5.4 Playa Vista
90247           2.9 Gardena
90305           2.5 Inglewood
90034           1.6 Palms
90044           1.5 Athens
90292           1.3 Marina del Rey
90746           1.3 Carson
90047           0.8 South Central
90502           0.7 Torrance
90301-90305     0.7 Inglewood/Lennox combined
90062           0.7 South Central
90007           0.7 South Central
90304           0.6 Lennox
90501           0.6 Torrance
90302           0.6 Inglewood
90018           0.6 Jefferson Park
90016           0.6 West Adams
90293           0.6 Playa del Rey
90745           0.6 Carson
90301           0.5 Inglewood
90250           0.5 Hawthorne
90064           0.5 Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90732           0.5 San Pedro/Rancho PV
90254           0.5 Hermosa Beach
90303           0.4 Inglewood
90008           0.4 Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90045           0.4 Westchester
90019           0.4 Country Club Park/Mid City
90043           0.4 Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90291           0.3 Venice
90037           0.3 South Central
90245           0.3 El Segundo
90230           0.3 Culver City
90249           0.2 Gardena
90503           0.2 Torrance
SW county       0.2 Southwest L.A. County
90036           0.2 Park La Brea
90501-90505     0.2 Torrance Combined
90232           0.2 Culver City
90260           0.2 Lawndale
90066           0.1 Mar Vista
90278           0.1 Redondo Beach (north)
90505           0.1 Torrance
90401-90405     0.1 Santa Monica combined
90731           0.1 San Pedro
90277-90278     0.0 Redondo Beach combined
beach cities    0.0 4 Beach Cities combined
90035           0.0 West Fairfax
90056           0.0 Ladera Heights
90717           0.0 Lomita
90266           0.0 Manhattan Beach
90277           0.0 Redondo Beach (south)
90504          -0.1 Torrance
90275          -0.2 Palos Verdes Estates
90744          -1.5 Wilmington

Expect the bear market bounce to continue at least through July, which has started off strong.

To look at charts for specific zip codes, click here or here.

Other measures of Los Angeles beach cities market activity, May 2008

2008-07-01T04:17:00.000-07:00

Shorewood has published its May statistics.

According to the realty firm, the average DOM for sales in the four beach cities was 55, which is the highest May DOM since I've started keeping track of Shorewood's DOM numbers, which go back to July 2004.

In my calculations of median and average DOM for Redondo Beach sales, my notion of time on market is different from Shorewood's. The realty firm uses a strict interpretation, starting a counter from the last time a property is relisted before it is sold. My calculation of DOM looks at the time the property first enters the market and tallies all the time the property waits before it is finally sold. So it probably is no surprise that my calculation for Redondo Beach of average time on market is 173 days (nearly 6 months), which is skewed by homes sitting on the market for close to two years, and homes which enter the market priced very competitively and sell relatively quickly.

In terms of sales relative to inventory, sales edged up in May and inventory edged down. I-S/S is still very high. May 2007 saw 513 properties for sale and May 2008 saw 699. May 2007 saw 173 sales and May 2008 saw 135 sales.

Beach city median price appears to be showing some cracks, no doubt due to weakness in the high end and luxury market. Check Shorewood's press release by price category and you'll see that all price category sales are down below last year except for categories of homes sold under $750,000.

Shorewood doesn't like talking about price declines much, referring to the decline as a "psychological adjustment." The firm goes on to say that one month of decline is not necessarily the start of a trend, noting that foreclosures haven't impacted the beach cities the way they have other markets. The press release does not even mention weakness in the high-end market.

The firm does not discuss short sales at all. And as for foreclosures impacting the beach cities, my thoughts on that are "give it time."

Daily Breeze: High-end homes lagging

2008-06-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

Muhammed El-Hasan at the Daily Breeze regularly writes business news, and he's keeping tabs on the South Bay housing market. Let's see what he's saying right now in this June 28 article (link may expire).

The South Bay's real estate market had been relatively insulated from the worst of 
the region's downturn.

That changed in the past two months, with the median price of a single-family home 
sold in May at $675,000, down 6.6 percent over May of last year, according to the 
South Bay Association of Realtors, which released a housing report Friday.

In April, the median price dropped 10.6 percent, year over year, to $625,000, the 
association said.

The association's figures represent the South Bay, excluding the Palos Verdes 
Peninsula and Inglewood, which have their own real estate associations.

The median is the middle price in which half of homes sold for more and half for 
less. Changes in home prices and sales volume often are calculated year over year to 
account for seasonal trends.

"The downturn in the real estate market over the past 18 months has hit many areas of 
Los Angeles County very hard," said Carol Olney, the association's president, in a 
statement. "As has been the case in other declining markets, real estate in the South 
Bay remained somewhat insulated from the depreciation experienced in these other 
areas. This changed, however, over the past two months."

The sales volume also dropped significantly. The median price for a single-family 
home was down 22.8 percent year over year in May, with an annual drop of 36.3 percent 
in April, the report says.

Previously, home sales in high-end neighborhoods had helped prop up the median price. 
That was because high-priced home sales did not fall as severely as sales in the less 
expensive inland areas.

But April and May brought a greater slump at the high end, as the low-end and 
midrange markets began to see sales improve because of a boost in federally-insured 
mortgage limits and the nation's economic stimulus package that provided tax rebates, 
Olney said in a followup interview.

In addition, since the low-end market has seen a more severe drop in prices, 
homebuyers now see those houses as a better bargain, she said.

"Putting them together, it means that the lower end of the market has life again," 
she said.

High-end homes are still helping to prop up the local housing market, Olney said. 
This dynamic is seen in a telling statistical disparity in which the average sales 
price for a single family home was much higher than the median, for both May or 
April.

For condominiums and townhouses, the change in sales volume showed a huge disparity 
between May and April.

For May, condo and townhouse sales "showed no change" compared with May of last year,
the report says. But that market saw a severe year-over-year drop of 53 percent in 
sales in April.

The median price of a condo and townhouse in May fell only 2.1 percent to $563,000. 
The median for April fell 3.9 percent to $537,000.

Changes in federal mortgage insurance policies also help explain the May improvement 
for condos and townhouses, Olney said.

Also, many homebuyers see condos and townhouses as a better deal because they are 
less expensive per square foot than houses and are often newer, Olney said.

"Condos are so much stronger, which is really unusual. In every other down market, 
single-family homes have kept their value better than condos," Olney said.

muhammed.el-hasan@dailybreeze.com

You can also find Muhammed at Inside So Cal Biz Waves.

Beach Cities maps of distress

2008-06-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

I fixed the RealtyTrac foreclosure map link in the sidebar. You can click it here (for some reason only IE works on my machines).

When the map comes up, you'll see a note that says Too many properties on map. Use the + and - tools in the upper left corner to zoom in and out.

To the left you'll also see a map key. Just keep in mind that R=resale and F=for sale by owner do not necessarily imply financial distress. It's the remaining symbols that, in my opinion, are more interesting.

Here's a map of my neighborhood in extreme north Redondo. My favorite section of north Redondo, the TRW Tract, is just a few blocks east of me. The boundary between Redondo Beach and Lawndale is Inglewood Avenue, and you can see even on that thin sliver of Lawndale that the symbols are much thicker east of Inglewood Avenue. Compared to Lawndale, there is relatively little financial distress - but it is increasingly popping up.

It's a shame there is no Hermosa Beach bubble blogger. So I'll post this distress map of Hermosa, which encompasses a northern portion of south Redondo. The triangular section bounded by Ripley Avenue-190th, Pacific Coast Highway, and Artesia Blvd has a greater distress density than Hermosa (west of PCH).

And here's Manhattan Beach. There is a smattering of distress activity. There is a gated community north of Marine that I have never set foot in - notice I have that labeled, as there are two distressed properties in there.

Here's El Segundo, with a similar smattering of activity.

Now for comparison, look at the distress density in a portion of Lawndale.

Housing bulls were telling us not long ago that property values would never decline more than 10-15% in the beach cities (read the comments in the link). Well we've sliced through that level. I've seen a few properties sell in excess of 20% markdown from the peak, and I see inventory with even greater price reductions.

As this decline is still young, I'll try and repost pictures periodically.

Standard & Poors: Los Angeles area median housing price down -23.1% for April 2008

2008-06-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

The Case-Shiller Index was released for April 2008.

According to the index, the Los Angeles area median home price was down -23.1% from April 2007, and down -2.2% from March 2008.

The entire Composite-20 metropolitan index was down -15.3% YOY for April. To view the full report, visit Standard and Poors (PDF file). S&P's home price website is here.

The fun-to-read LALand ( La La Land? ) blog at the L.A. Times posts a brief blurb here, noting that the rate of decline has accelerated. Not even a morsel for the housing bubble bulls to spin this time around.

CAR/DQNews Report May 2008 Report for Redondo Beach

2008-06-21T07:18:00.000-07:00

DQNews has released its housing market data for May 2008 for California cities. The CAR link to May 2008 median home prices in California is here.

The median May sale price for a Redondo Beach home (new or existing, SFR or condo) was $733,000, down -3.9% YOY. DataQuick's statistic is based on 71 sales, which is a good number of records with which to calculate such a statistic. This calculation is better than the zip code / property type breakdown calculation which DataQuick also reports and which I complain about regularly. The former is an aggregation of new and existing home sales, SFRs and condos, in 90277 and 90278. The latter is relatively meaningless.

My preliminary calculation for May was just a touch high at $742,000, based on 61 records. However I did at least sense that sales had picked up enough that some of the many markdowns I've been observing in the market would be realized, and the price trend was headed further down.

Here is how the beach cities look.

Area               Sales      Median Price       Year Ago      Pct Change
El Segundo           16         $670,000         $800,000         -16.25%
Hermosa Beach        10       $1,094,000       $1,074,000          +1.86%  
Manhattan Beach      29       $1,600,000       $1,455,000          +9.97%
Redondo Beach        71         $733,000         $763,000          -3.93%    
(they don't add up)
Beach Cities        101         $850,000         $985,000         -13.71%

Here are some other selected areas of interest to us.

Area               Sales      Median Price       Year Ago      Pct Change
Beverly Hills       17        $1,775,000      $1,437,500          +23.48%
Malibu               8        $1,457,500      $2,000,000          -27.13%
Palos Verdes Es     22        $1,370,000      $1,490,000           -8.05%
Palos Verdes Pn     55        $1,125,000      $1,212,500           -7.22%
South Bay          391          $592,000        $704,000          -15.91%
Westchester         16          $737,000        $825,000          -10.67% 
West Los Angeles   123          $730,000        $759,000           -3.82% 
Westside            49        $1,325,000        $899,000          +47.39%

Los Angeles Beach Cities Resale Activity for May 2008

2008-06-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

The DataQuick median price statistics for existing homes are my least favorite statistics for the housing market because they mislead people into thinking there is something sacrosanct about the median prices that they publish when broken down by zip code and housing unit type. And nothing can be further from the truth.

How can you conclude from the sale of one condo in the Palos Verdes Peninsula area that the median price of a condo in that area has appreciated +53% in one year? The answer is: you can't. Nor can you conclude that the median price of a condo in Manhattan Beach is now down -28% in one year, based on the sale of two condos. There simply isn't enough sale data here to conclude anything about the condominium markets in those areas.

Consider this. In some recent months in some areas, NO units have been sold. So by logical extension, the median price should be reported as ZERO. That's much too scary a thought for the masses to handle, so the paper simply reports a N/A when 0 sales occur.

By now it should be clear that median sale price has meaning only when there are sales, and there are enough sales to be representative of the general population of potential homes for sale, but it still has a rather tenuous meaning. If we sold only high-end luxury homes last year and then sold mostly 1 bedroom senior condos this year, we're comparing diamonds to iron ore. Naturally the median price of rocks sold will plummet. It works the other way too. You tear down the old iron-ore postwar houses and erect bloated diamond bubbleminiums, then the median price will zoom. That was going on here for years, during the good old bubble days. So we have not had sales that are good representative samples of the entire population of homes for sale.

The only way I would trust a median price measurement around here would be to crawl into a time machine and take a set of homes, say, back in 2000 and sell them. Make sure you've got a good mix of diamond homes and iron ore homes and everything in between. Maintain them, but don't remodel them by expanding their square footage. Now sell that same set of homes every year in 2001, 2002, 2003 and so forth, all the way up to the present. What are those original homes worth now?

What many people don't realize is that sales volume in the beach cities was gradually starting to descend here even during the bubble days. It wasn't yet a problem for the industry because the industry pros were collecting fatter commissions due to the higher commanding prices of all those diamonds. Dollar volume transacted was continuing to climb ever higher and that did not peak until about three years ago. Coincidentally, the ratio of inventory to sales (I-S)/S) was at its tightest ever, hitting zero at about that same time dollar volume peaked. It's been well above zero ever since.

Inventory to sales; dollar volume; history of asking prices; price reduction percentages - these are some of the trends I follow regularly on this blog. I think this additional information gives you many more pieces of the housing market puzzle. If my dataset is so small as to risk statistical validity, I try and point that out.

Speaking of local papers, the Manhattan Beach Reporter has fumbled their home sales report for two weeks in a row now. Last week, the paper reprinted the home sales from the prior week. An email from the paper said they'd fix it this week. So what happens this week? The paper didn't report home sales at all. I don't know yet how I am going to track June sales if the paper won't come through.

Having said that, here are the May charts of median prices on existing homes sold. The only charts that have validity are the Los Angeles County charts. But they aren't very helpful in determining what your neighbor's house might be worth, today.

Here are the detailed RESALE statistics for the beach cities and some of the surrounding zip codes (prices are in 1000's):


                         SFR   MEDIAN    %YOY    CONDO  MEDIAN   %YOY  
COMMUNITY         ZIP    SALES   SFR      CHG    SALES  CONDO     CHG
LA/Westchester    90045   15    $777     -4.4%     2     $333     0.0%
El Segundo        90245   13    $695    -18.2%     7     $550    -0.9%
Hawthorne         90250   20    $402    -26.4%     2     $300   -29.1%  
Hermosa Beach     90254    6  $1,018    +10.1%     3   $1,170    -0.8%  
Lawndale          90260    5    $447    -18.4%     1     $430    -0.9%  
Manhattan Beach   90266   26  $1,411     -2.9%     2   $1,135   -28.8%  
Palos Verdes Pen. 90274   26  $1,440     -7.2%     1     $590   +53.2%  
Rancho P.V.       90275   27  $1,137     +3.8%     9     $540    -8.0%   
Redondo Beach     90277   12  $1,090     +5.3%    27     $663   -17.6%   
Redondo Beach     90278   21    $739     -4.1%    14     $645    -4.4%

DQNews: Southland home sales back to record low; median price slips again

2008-06-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

Well so much for the "home sales highest in eight months" headline from April. Southern California home sales in May did see a seasonal bounce but it was the worst May in 20 years. The median price on new and existing houses and condos for May was down -27% YOY. And it's clear the falling Ginzu knife shoppers were fueling the May sales.

The L.A. Times' Roger Vincent notes that May sales volume was 36.5% lower than Dataquick's historical May average for sales volume.

Of the May sales, 37.4% were for properties that had been foreclosed upon within the prior year. That compares to a revised 36.2% for April, and compares with 5.5% for May 2007.

A large proportion of properties that sold in May were previously sold in the 2004-2006 timeframe. Of all Southland sales, roughly 42% were short sales, selling for less than their prior sale price. The percent reduction averaged about 34%.

Once again, sales volume gained YOY in Riverside County, where foreclosure activity has been especially heavy and houses are considered more relatively affordable.

Prior to Day of Reckoning in August 2007, jumbo loan financing accounted for almost 40% of So Cal mortgages. For May that number was 15.8%. Southland buyers committed themselves to a typical monthly payment of $1,664, down from $1,716 in March, and down from $2,364 YOY. Foreclosures remain pegged at record levels, ARM financing is at a 6 year low, and non-owner occupied buying activity is increasing.

County          May-07   May-08   % Chng       May-07      May-08     % Chng
Los Angeles     7,426     5,445    -26.7%     $550,000    $422,000    -23.30%
Orange          2,675     2,266    -15.3%     $635,000    $485,000    -23.60%
Riverside       3,307     3,444      4.1%     $406,000    $290,000    -28.60%
San Bernardino  2,220     2,075     -6.5%     $361,750    $250,250    -30.80%
San Diego       3,385     2,979    -12.0%     $492,000    $380,000    -22.80%
Ventura           861       708    -17.8%     $590,000    $435,000    -26.30%
SoCal          19,874    16,917    -14.9%     $505,000    $370,000    -26.70%

A June 16 L.A. Times story by Roger Vincent called "Southern California Housing Market Still Under Siege" quotes realtor Lynette Williams who notes that buyers are being much more aggressive with their offers now, knowing that if they wait long enough the seller will very possibly lower the asking price.

The voiceless victims of Los Angeles foreclosures

2008-06-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

Ed Boks, director of the City of Los Angeles Animal Services division, reports that what the animal shelters are experiencing is unprecedented.

Dogs and cats surrendered for landlord, moving, and foreclosure: up 21%.

Dogs and cats taken in by L.A. Animal Services in May 2008: up 22%.

Dogs and cats euthanized by L.A. Animal Services: up 31%.

Pets left in the cold (CNN video)

South Bay's Weathergirl Bandit might have robbed banks because of her mortgage

2008-06-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I missed this one. Apparently a woman dubbed the "weathergirl bandit" has been robbing banks here in the South Bay. She was named the weathergirl bandit because she would always chat with the bank tellers about the weather before demanding money.

According to this Daily Breeze article, Felicia Ellen Jones pleaded guilty today.

The "Weathergirl Bandit" -- a 45-year-old Los Angeles woman who held up several South
Bay banks earlier this year -- pleaded guilty today to a pair of federal bank robbery 
counts.

Felicia Ellen Jones entered her plea before U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts, who 
is scheduled to sentence her on Sept. 17 in downtown Los Angeles.

Jones, who has been in custody since March 22, faces up to 40 years behind bars and 
fines totaling $500,000, though it is unlikely that she will receive a sentence that 
severe.

Jones pleaded guilty to heists committed Feb. 29 and March 19 at U.S. Bank branches 
in Manhattan Beach. Prosecutors allege she also held up a Union Bank branch in 
Hermosa Beach on March 5, and a Citizens Business Bank branch in Manhattan Beach on 
March 11, making off with more than $10,300 from all four holdups.

Jones' attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Michael Schafler, was not immediately 
available for comment.

The FBI and Manhattan Beach police arrested Jones after receiving tips from anonymous 
callers who said they recognized Jones in bank surveillance images shown on 
newscasts.

Agents and detectives successfully negotiated the surrender of Jones, who agreed to 
meet authorities at a designated location in Los Angeles, accompanied by her 
attorney, according to the FBI.

Jones was dubbed the "Weathergirl Bandit" because she was friendly and would chat 
with tellers and ask them about the weather before robbing the banks, the FBI 
reported.

My first thought was that she was struggling under a mortgage payment, though the article did not provide any evidence of that. My second thought was that we were darn lucky this time, because she did not kill anybody.

I poked around a little bit and found this March 23 story off of the Inside SoCal blog. Although I found other articles in which the defendant said she needed money for a drug habit and to pay bills, a comment here in this article caught my attention:

 GG said:

I know Felicia Ellen Jones, She is a wonderful person. She has three wonderful kids. 
She got caught up in this world. This is sad news to her friends and family. I will 
pray for her. Sometime people are push to do certin things. I know she was having 
trouble with her house payment, and life in general. Keep the Faith Felicia
Things will get better, I know it is dark but the light will come.

Perhaps it's time to revisit Fun with Dick and Jane. The Christmas 2005 comedy starred Jim Carrey and Tia Leone. It was about a married couple who, upon seeing the husband left holding the bag after his firm collapses in an Enron-style implosion, exacts revenge by stealing - first in robberies at local businesses, then eventually targeting Dick's company bosses.

The original 1977 comedy starred George Segal and Jane Fonda. Dick ended up unemployed and the couple ended up committing armed robberies in order to make ends meet.

In early 1977, Fun with Dick and Jane was funny. But the dollar crisis hitting in 1979 (about 2 years later) was not. We know it to be true that Congress is irresponsible with money, but the fact was that things got so bad that Congress was probably worried about getting paid, like most of us working folk, and finally got religion and Volcker ended up tightening the reins.

Fast forward to the 2000's, when Fun with Dick and Jane is updated in late 2005 but again showing a couple in financial crisis. It is now more than 2 years later after this movie was released and we find it Not Funny that we are standing on the edge of a dollar precipice again, with commodity prices having shot up sharply and a Federal Reserve out of control.

I am simply making a socionomic observation that a story about a family in financial crisis that is meant to be funny shows up in the popular culture via the movies, shortly before real economic disaster threatens us. That tells me that in terms of our fiscal and economic wellbeing, we weren't taking things very seriously back in 1977 (and 2005).

L.A. Business Journal: County home sales, median price drop in May

2008-06-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

The median Los Angeles County SFR home price in May was $435,000, with 2,556 both new and existing SFR homes sold, according to a story by Deborah Crowe in June 9 edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal.

The median SFR home price peaked in spring and summer of 2007 at $585,000 and is now down to $435,000, now down -28% from that peak, -26% YOY, and -5% from April. Sales volume was down -44% YOY and -12% from April. Note: L.A. Business Journal tweaks the sales volume compiled by Home Data to reflect differences in the number of selling days in the month.

Economist Chris Thornberg notes that in May 2007, strong sales of high-end properties kept the median price up. "Last year, the first cracks in the housing market showed up at the low end." But slower sales and lower prices are now hitting the high-end areas too. "Sales have slowed across the board." Thornberg, who has been well ahead of most economists in predicting the California bust, now thinks the Los Angeles County median price could hit $300,000 before the situation levels off.

Note to falling Ginzu knife shoppers: If Thornberg is correct, that's down AN ADDITIONAL -31% from current price levels, and down -49% from the peak.

Thornberg goes on to say, "While it's painful in the short run for people who thought they were home rich, it's a necessary thing because prices are simply too high. It ultimately will improve the ability for businesses to operate in Los Angeles - because people can afford to live here." He states that the median income of county homeowners is $74,000. "There's no way you can justify the $585,000 house median in Los Angeles."

There's high end, and there is HIGH end. Even though sales have been slowing, mega-high-end properties still are commanding high prices.

In addition, some markets still seem to be holding up better than others. Sales in trendy areas like West Hollywood, Miracle Mile, and the Westside are doing relatively well. But there are caveats. According to Michael Nourmand, of Nourmand & Associates Realtors of Beverly Hills, the owners of Westside condos who have been convinced to lower their expectations are are the ones who have been selling their condos. "As in single family, the high end is doing better than the low end of the market, but everyone is having to lower their prices."

Developers of condo conversions and new construction in downtown Los Angeles are now converting their properties to rentals to "ride out" the downturn. Nourmand notes that only the Ritz Carlton condo and hotel project is under development, because is in a high demand area near the Staples Center.

-------------------------- SFR ----------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    May     %YOY        May    %YOY
                          Sales   Change      Price   Change
L.A County              2,556       -55%    $435,000  -26% 
El Segundo       90245      5       -50%    $850,000   +2%
Hermosa Beach    90254      7       -76%  $1,365,000   +9%  
Manhattan Beach  90266     15       -69%  $1,600,000   -6%  
Redondo Beach    90277     11       -59%    $910,000  -15%
Redondo Beach    90278      9       -71%    $740,000   -5%

------------------------ CONDO ----------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    May     %YOY       May       %YOY
                          Sales   Change    Price     Change
L.A. County                584     -65%    $395,000   -10%
El Segundo       90245       4       0%    $512,000    -7%
Hermosa Beach    90254       0     N/A         N/A     N/A
Manhattan Beach  90266       1     -80%    $700,000   -22% 
Redondo Beach    90277       9     -55%    $757,000    -2%
Redondo Beach    90278      14     -65%    $650,000    -5%

Keep in mind that for almost all the statistics listed below, price changes have occurred on lower volume when compared to last year, and in many cases may be on such low volume as to render the statistic meaningless.

The most expensive homes (SFRs) in May were in Santa Monica 90402 (-8% YOY); West Hollywood 90069 (+49% YOY); Beverly Hills 90210 (+41%); Malibu 90265 (-24% YOY); San Marino 91108 (+67%); Manhattan Beach 90266 (-6%); Brentwood 90049 (-15%); Pacific Palisades 90272 (-5%); Burbank 91501 (+102%); Hermosa Beach 90254 (+9%).

The most expensive condos were in Venice 90291 (+5%); Santa Monica 90403 (N/A - no condo sales in May 2007); Brentwood 90049 (+15%); Redondo Beach 90277 (-2%); Marina del Rey 90292 (-8%); South Robertson district 90035 (+12%); Torrance 90505 (+41%); Redondo Beach 90278 (-5%); Arcadia 91006 (+7%); and Rancho Park 90064 (-17%).

The areas with the greatest SFR price losses in May were in Torrance 90501 (-66%); West Adams 90018 (-60%); Willowbrook 90059 (-52%); Valley Village 91607 (-48%); Palmdale 93591 (-45%); Crenshaw district 90016 (-45%); Culver City 90230 (-45%); Panorama City 91402 (-45%); Lancaster 93534 (-44%) and 93535 (-44%).

The areas with the greatest condo price losses were in Pasadena 91107 (-52%); Canyon Country 91351 (-47%); Canoga Park 91304 (-46%); Panorama City 91402 (-42%); Van Nuys 91405 (-42%); North Hills 91343 (-42%); Winnetka 91306 (-39%); San Gabriel 91776 (-38%); Torrance 90503 (-36%); and Santa Monica 90405 (-36%).

Maybe other local economists are too shell-shocked at the moment, but I find it rather telling that Chris Thornberg is the only economist extensively quoted for this May article. Thornberg has been much better than most local industry watchers in anticipating the magnitude and scope of this decline, but it has been my opinion that even he is a little optimistic. I don't think most economists' estimation of a decline here factors in the socioeconomic upheaval that is brewing. The upheaval will not be good and will eventually cause some *desirable* areas to be perceived as *undesirable*.

As for mega-high-end properties retaining their values, this sounds like tsumani victims weathering the disaster on very high ground. We don't know yet just how high this tsunami will reach.

Preliminary look at May 2008 Redondo Beach housing market data

2008-06-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

My working set of data is pulled mostly out of Manhattan Beach Reporter, with a few out of Zillow. I have 61 records, which exceeds Melissa Data's count for May, so I may be overlapping slightly with April or June.

Sale Price

Sales have been picking up a bit, which is good, as we need to continue realizing the price cutting that has been happening over the past year. In May 2007 I calculated statistics with 71 records. Median sale price was $778,500, and average was $846,226. May 2008 median sale price is down from a year ago by about 4.7% So I think there is again a good chance we will see YOY declines in the DataQuick numbers when we obtain those later this month.

STAT      NOV  2007   DEC 2007   JAN 2008   FEB 2008   MAR 2008   APR 2008   MAY 2008
records         37         26         25         25         35         40         61
MEDIAN    $832,500   $782,500   $795,000   $755,000   $789,000   $756,000   $742,000
AVERAGE   $933,956   $832,827   $932,117   $831,500   $961,714   $833,000   $775,589
MIN       $379,000   $486,500   $449,900   $520,000   $585,000   $420,000   $269,900
MAX     $2,500,000 $1,500,000 $2,130,000 $1,590,000 $2,100,000 $2,425,000 $1,430,000

Sales By Square Footage

In May 2007 I calculated the median square footage of a sold property at 1806 and the average at 1911.

Here are May 2008 sales broken out by square footage. This time median square footage is 1824 and average is 1803. Average is falling, so I might take that as a sign that sales of high-end luxury homes may not be the sure thing they were a year ago.

DOM (Time on Market)

My May 2007 calculation estimated median DOM at 88 days (nearly 3 months) and average DOM at 122 days (just over 4 months). For May 2008 I calculated a median DOM of 122 days (just over 4 months) and an average DOM of 173 days (just short of 6 months). Last year's DOM distribution was not the two-headed distribution that we have now, in which one group of sellers manages to get their homes sold in, say, 80 days, and another group of sellers get their properties sold in something close to a year. Last year that latter group was not nearly as big as it is now, and this group is increasingly weighing on DOM and lengthening it.

It would probably be accurate to say that if somebody wants to sell their home now and prices their new listing extremely competitively, they stand a decent chance of selling the property within 80 days. But I think it is going to get tougher as more short sales - and eventually foreclosures - hit the market. There may come a day when price cutting becomes "a way of life" as it did in the early 90's downturn - and homes don't get sold.

Some sellers have been trying to sell their homes for about 2 years, though you won't read that in any of the local realty press. There are a number of sellers who listed 2 years ago, couldn't get their price, gave up for a while, then tried again. I count that as one attempt to sell. Builders of new construction are about as guilty of this as existing home owners. You would think that builders would be more practical about things, lower prices, clear away their inventory, and move on, instead of hanging on to a piece of property for 2 years, but I guess not.

Percent Reductions

And how much did sellers have to lower their asking prices in order to make their sales? For May 2007, I calculated a median reduction of 2.13% and an average reduction of 3.71%. For May 2008, I have calculated a median reduction of 7.24% and an average reduction of 8.25%. Reduction percentages are moving back toward their January highs, which I would think is abnormal for the spring selling season. Unfortunately I don't have a history of asking price and sale price comparisons going back several years, so I can only guess that "percent reduction" would have been hovering at or below 0% during the bubble boom!

Current Asking Prices, By Month

I modified my query for generating an asking price history, by month, so it looks different from the chart I published in May. What I said last month about the data getting more accurate as time progresses remains true, however I am still not sure about the *accuracy* of my query so I may adjust it again.

May Short Sales

Sale Date         Prior Sale     % Decline      Property
2008-05-12       2006-11-15          -8.0      2916  Gibson Place        
2008-05-12       2005-09-15          -6.0      1617  Wollacott Street    
2008-05-08       2004-08-20         -19.0       212  Avenue A             
2008-05-14       2006-11-15         -10.0       234 S. Guadalupe Avenue A 
2008-05-05       2006-06-30          -1.0       320 S. Broadway  B

Just over 8% of sales in May were short sales. This may not seem like much, but this is the beach cities after all, which according to conventional folklore is *immune* to the market problems the rest of California is experiencing. It is practically heresy to even consider the possibility that the beach cities could experience foreclosures. But time has proven to be definitely on the side of the housing bears.

According to Scott Gold at the L.A. Times, in Temecula, it is estimated that as much as 15% of sales are foreclosures, and neighbors of foreclosed homes are spray-painting the dried burnt lawns of these homes green to make them look like they are cared for. I'm not making that up! If the economy continues spiraling down, we may start seeing more actual foreclosures with spray-painted lawns in the beach cities in another year to two years.

Los Angeles County South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate $$$ Transacted for May 2008

2008-06-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

Take a good look at some of these area graphs around spring-summer 2007 and you'll notice something important. In many areas, dollar volume started declining before Financial Armageddon Day last August. In fact, some areas started their dollar volume decline even before Bear Sterns started making noise last June.

Why is this important? Because dollar volume was declining even before the credit crunch hit, it's just that the credit crunch has greatly accelerated the decline. This leads me to believe that this decline would have continued on its course, though perhaps a slower one, even without the added catalysts of the financial problems of Countrywide, Bear Stearns, and the disintegration of hundreds of sub-prime lenders that have deservedly gone bust. Perhaps the masses are slowly changing their minds about real estate as such a great investment.

I've been thinking about possible scenarios that could halt this slide. While credit conditions remain tight, there remain new terms such as the higher conforming loan limits that gets the borrower a better rate on more credit, and loopholes like FHA terms that are big enough to drive a gas-guzzling SUV through. So there is some credit available. Are potential buyers finagling these opportunities?

Could buyers siphon money out of their 401Ks and IRAs to fund their home purchases? Would they be willing to do so? I am not yet aware of any evidence that buyers have collectively decided to do so or even that they want to do so.

Clearly, one financial condition that changes the picture is the cost of renting meeting or exceeding the cost of owning. Here in the South Bay, we are still a long way from tipping the scales. Every day I've been recording price cuts out of Zip Realty. Instead of so many niggling $10,000 or $15,000 price cuts every few weeks, it occurred to me that the "sensible" thing for a seller to do would be to cut the price in one swoop to the point where somebody could rent the property for roughly the same amount as monthly mortgage payments (30 year fixed), taxes, and insurance. We would see some major activity were that to occur - assuming, of course, that buyers had the cash reserves for a down payment - and that's a risky assumption.

Price cut activity has been heavy. Some properties have seen substantial markdowns. Assuming that the economy is deteriorating, that prices ran up on a credit bubble for many many years, and that Joe and Jill Consumer may be slowly changing their minds about the perceived values of the homes they see for sale, I question how effective these niggling price cuts will continue to be.

There is another thing on the graphs (below) that are noteworthy. The beach cities, in terms of dollar volume, now look to be suffering a greater decline than Southwest Los Angeles County as a whole. One of my recent posts did cite an article that quoted an industry analyst who noted that the "coastal areas" have been taking a hit. Oh my. The beach cities are supposed to be "immune" to the turmoil hitting the other areas, aren't they?

Keep in mind that May figures have been cut short, by the way Melissa Data records its sales. So the last few days of sales in May will show up in June figures. I am seeing a bounce, but I think it is a seasonal bounce, not so much a bubble bounce. There are still plenty of falling knife shoppers out there...

YOY Comparisons

These numbers are a YOY comparison of the doubly smooth moving average of dollar volumes. I think of them as "recent pain" (or recent gain) indicators.

Notice that even Playa Vista has simmered down a bit. Other than 90094, everything else is down.

90094          38.6%    Playa Vista
90254         -10.9%    Hermosa Beach
90045         -18.6%    Westchester
90034         -27.0%    Palms
90245         -27.8%    El Segundo
90302         -31.5%    Inglewood
90292         -32.1%    Marina del Rey
90501         -32.2%    Torrance
90275         -34.6%    Palos Verdes Estates
90064         -36.1%    Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90035         -36.7%    West Fairfax
90502         -38.5%    Torrance
90504         -39.2%    Torrance
90505         -39.3%    Torrance
90008         -41.9%    Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90232         -43.0%    Culver City
90066         -43.5%    Mar Vista
90501-90505   -44.7%    Torrance Combined
90401-90405   -45.8%    Santa Monica combined
90016         -46.5%    West Adams
90291         -47.6%    Venice
SW county     -49.0%    Southwest L.A. County
90249         -49.8%    Gardena
90277         -50.0%    Redondo Beach (south)
beach cities  -50.5%    4 Beach Cities combined
90717         -51.9%    Lomita
90036         -53.1%    Park La Brea
90260         -54.2%    Lawndale
90745         -54.4%    Carson
90293         -54.5%    Playa del Rey
90250         -55.2%    Hawthorne
90277-90278   -56.6%    Redondo Beach combined
90056         -56.7%    Ladera Heights
90019         -57.2%    Country Club Park/Mid City
90305         -58.2%    Inglewood
90732         -59.4%    San Pedro/Rancho PV
90746         -59.5%    Carson
90230         -60.1%    Culver City
90278         -61.0%    Redondo Beach (north)
90266         -61.7%    Manhattan Beach
90503         -62.3%    Torrance
90301-90305   -62.6%    Inglewood/Lennox combined
90301         -62.8%    Inglewood
90007         -63.2%    South Central
90044         -64.9%    Athens
90043         -66.0%    Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90037         -66.3%    South Central
90047         -66.6%    South Central
90247         -67.1%    Gardena
90731         -70.2%    San Pedro
90062         -70.3%    South Central
90018         -72.4%    Jefferson Park
90304         -83.7%    Lennox
90303         -84.2%    Inglewood
90744        -152.8%    Wilmington

Relative Strength

This is a longer-term view of the strength of dollar volume in a given zip code. For this month 5.5 is the strongest (suffering the least amount of chronic pain) and -1.3 being the weakest (suffering the most chronic pain). Think of it is as the area above 0 on the YOY graph with the area below 0 of the YOY graph subtracted out.

We are getting more areas now falling at 0 and below.

90094          5.5 Playa Vista
90247          3.0 Gardena
90305          2.6 Inglewood
90034          1.6 Palms
90044          1.6 Athens
90292          1.4 Marina del Rey
90746          1.3 Carson
90047          0.9 South Central
90062          0.8 South Central
90301-90305    0.8 Inglewood/Lennox combined
90502          0.8 Torrance
90007          0.7 South Central
90304          0.7 Lennox
90018          0.7 Jefferson Park
90501          0.7 Torrance
90016          0.6 West Adams
90293          0.6 Playa del Rey
90301          0.6 Inglewood
90302          0.6 Inglewood
90745          0.6 Carson
90250          0.6 Hawthorne
90732          0.5 San Pedro/Rancho PV
90303          0.5 Inglewood
90064          0.5 Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90254          0.5 Hermosa Beach
90043          0.4 Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90019          0.4 Country Club Park/Mid City
90008          0.4 Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90037          0.4 South Central
90045          0.4 Westchester
90291          0.4 Venice
90230          0.3 Culver City
90503          0.3 Torrance
90249          0.3 Gardena
90245          0.3 El Segundo
90036          0.3 Park La Brea
SW county      0.3 Southwest L.A. County
90501-90505    0.2 Torrance Combined
90260          0.2 Lawndale
90232          0.2 Culver City
90066          0.2 Mar Vista
90278          0.2 Redondo Beach (north)
90731          0.1 San Pedro
90505          0.1 Torrance
90401-90405    0.1 Santa Monica combined
90277-90278    0.1 Redondo Beach combined
beach cities   0.1 4 Beach Cities combined
90035          0.0 West Fairfax
90056          0.0 Ladera Heights
90266          0.0 Manhattan Beach
90277          0.0 Redondo Beach (south)
90717          0.0 Lomita
90504          0.0 Torrance
90275         -0.1 Palos Verdes Estates
90744         -1.3 Wilmington

Other measures of Los Angeles beach cities market activity, April 2008

2008-05-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

Shorewood has published its April statistics.

According to the realty firm, the average April DOM for sales in the four beach cities was 69, which is the highest DOM for April since I've started keeping track of Shorewood's DOM numbers back to July 2004. Again, DOM is showing an unusual pattern. During the spring, it normally dips, and that's not really happening. Yet Shorewood doesn't really discuss it.

My calculation of average DOM for just Redondo Beach in April came in at 152 days, which is about 5 months.

Now let's look at Supply Strength (Demand Weakness). It is coming down. Now look at the last time it came down in a big way. We have to keep in mind that for this chart I use Shorewood's own official numbers, not my own estimates. Last year when the official inventory count shrank, that didn't exactly lead to a booming recovery, did it? So I wouldn't interpret any decline yet as a sign of a recovery. We are a long way from that.

Shorewood probably defines *inventory* as whatever is currently listed. When inventory shrinks, Shorewood calls that *good*. I, on the other hand, am assuming we are in one hellacious downturn. So when I see inventory drop, I build another assumption upon my bear market assumption - inventory dropped because home sellers who didn't sell their homes and didn't relist have set aside the idea of selling their homes. They have exited the stage, relegated to the roles of understudies. In other words, there are frustrated wannabe sellers out there who aren't even listing their houses right now because of market conditions.

What evidence do I have that my assumptions could have merit? Well, of the 185 listings I currently have in my database of properties that were either listed or marked down in May (this month), some 28% were originally listed five months ago or longer. Of all the 1000+ unresolved records in my database (not just the ones that are newly listed or price-reduced in May), some 10% of them were first listed in 2006. Another 17% were listed from the beginning of last year up until a year ago (late May).

Even if, say, 25% of the 1000+ unresolved records in my database were resolved, that would still put my database showing some 40% more inventory than what is currently listed in Zip Realty.

Anyway, back to inventory versus sales. It's been coming down. I don't anticipate inventory to sales getting tight like it did around March 2007, and certainly not tight like it did in the late spring of 2005. We'll see.

Now, beach cities median price. It actually moved up, by some 9.1%, to $1,050,000. The price pattern is quite jagged. Even though the median price was up from March, it is still below the peaks reached in September 2007 and January 2008.

I don't know if I've explained before, but I am starting to wonder if there could be some manipulation in the sales figures. Units at Breakwater have been selling. These are lower end senior condos. The sales of these would pull down the median price in Redondo Beach even more than its been showing. Some local realtors even pointed that out in an article in March. I cannot find sales records recorded either in the local papers or in Zillow. The only reason I know about any sales at all is because Zip Realty shows about 35 (out of 190+ units) sold. Neither square footage nor sales prices are recorded in Zip Realty, and as I've said they aren't recorded anywhere else at all yet.

It's difficult to tell whether Redondo Beach is exerting any gravitational pull downwards on the median price. This is one month, where, unusually, the Redondo Beach chart from DataQuick data and the beach cities chart differ in price direction.

Standard & Poors: Los Angeles area median housing price down -21.7% for March 2008

2008-05-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Case-Shiller Index was released for March 2008.

According to the index, the Los Angeles area median home price was down -21.7% from March 2007, and down -3.6% from February 2008.

The entire Composite-20 metropolitan index was down -14.4% YOY for March.

To view the full report, visit Standard and Poors (PDF file). S&P's home price website is here.

The Los Angeles Times' Peter Hong's coverage is here.

Daily Breeze: South Bay home prices still sliding

2008-05-24T21:53:00.000-07:00

There isn't much additional new information here that you don't already know about, if you've been regularly reading the Los Angeles regional housing bubble blogs. But it does mention screwy statistics, it's a good supplement to my CAR/DQNews post for April and I want to capture it for posterity.

You can find the original story here - but the link may expire.

South Bay home prices still sliding
HOUSING: Carson dropped 25.9 percent since April '07. MB is 25.8 percent lower.
By Muhammed El-Hasan, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 05/23/2008 11:53:20 PM PDT

Home prices across the South Bay continued to slide in April, with every community 
cited in a report released Friday posting double-digit declines.

Carson was the area's biggest year-over-year loser, with a 25.9 percent drop in 
median home price to $389,000, according to a report by the Los Angeles-based 
California Association of Realtors.

Manhattan Beach experienced the second worst drop, of 25.8 percent, to $1,372,500.

The median price refers to the middle point where half of homes sold for more and 
half for less.

The South Bay, excluding the Palos Verdes Peninsula, saw a 12.8 percent drop last 
month, compared to a year earlier. That was still better than Los Angeles County, 
which suffered a home price decline of 19.6 percent to $435,000.

Redondo Beach had the area's mildest decline with an 11.9 percent drop to $695,000.

The South Bay is caught in a nationwide housing downturn that has hit California 
especially hard amid a severe credit crunch caused by lenders having issued mortgages 
to people who could not afford them. Lenders have since tightened their lending 
standards, which has led to limited credit available to home buyers and other 
consumers.

"Part of the problem is that the lenders are sitting on some really tight approval 
criteria," said Realtor John Parsons, a Redondo Beach planning commissioner and 
former councilman. "Now they've gone too far the other way. It's hurting everyone, 
including lenders. Lenders don't make any money if they're not making loans."

The Palos Verdes Peninsula as a whole saw its median home price drop 8.5 percent to 
$1,075,000. However, individual cities on the Hill were not cited in the report 
because none reached a threshold of at least 30 sales for the month.

Other cities such as Lawndale, Lomita and Hermosa Beach also were not cited.

However, excluded cities' home sales are included in the regional median figures, 
such as those for the county, South Bay or Palos Verdes Peninsula.

In a statistical oddity, the South Bay's beach cities as a whole posted a home price 
gain of 2.5 percent to $1,025,000. The rise is attributed to a concentration of homes 
at the high end of the market being sold in a specific month to skew the median 
upward.

Statewide, Manhattan Beach was the second highest priced community in the CAR survey 
for April. Saratoga took the top spot.

April was the first time this year Manhattan Beach was even directly cited in the 
report because the city continually sold less than 30 homes a month.

Manhattan Beach's previous absence from the list is due to the slowdown in home sales 
and the beach city's relatively small size.

"Obviously, the smaller the population, the less properties you potentially have for 
sale, and that could create the scenario where you may not have enough sales taking 
place," said Parsons, of Horrell Realtors in Redondo Beach.

When the housing market finally recovers, Manhattan Beach will likely remain one of 
the state's highest-priced communities, Parsons said.

"It's still near the beach. It's still near LAX," Parsons said. "It still has all the 
things that made it attractive before."

muhammed.el-hasan@dailybreeze.com

Speaking of everyone - including lenders - getting hurt by this downturn, check out this Suze Orman show with a very cash-strapped realtor. I posted this because she is a Los Angeles area realtor. From $130K annual income to about $40K annual income, underwater by $50K, on some $600K of loans. This was uploaded November 2007 so can you imagine where things are at now?

There may be more than just ocean waves crashing in Redondo Beach

2008-05-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

Most of you are probably too young to remember the old Time Tunnel sci-fi series, about two scientists in Project Tic-Toc who get stuck in a time machine and travel into specific moments in history in which disasters (e.g., the Titanic) are about to unfold, and they try desperately to change the outcome but can't. You could call Dr. Tony Newman Cassandra-1 and Dr. Doug Phillips Cassandra-2.

Perhaps more relevant to you Gen-Xers and beyond is the novella The Sun Dog by Stephen King, in which a teenage boy discovers that although he snaps self-developing Polaroid shots of any subject matter he wants, the pictures always come out the same - a vicious black dog who gradually edges closer and closer toward the photographer with each successive picture taken.

It was bad enough to feel like a complete wacko for many many years watching this bubble blow up to such monstrous proportions and wondering if things would ever change. There is no question about it that housing bears have been Cassandras. The perennial housing bubble optimists have been carefully crafting their PR, snapping lots of rosy pictures, but once the pictures are developed that vicious black dog of a price decline just won't go away and keeps edging alarmingly closer as time goes on.

There is a possibility that Redondo Beach has finally hit that slippery slope of the S-curve. The markdowns are coming so fast and so furiously that I cannot keep up with them. The jig may be up. Today I spotted another round of markdowns at Ruxton Pacific. If you've been reading this blog regularly you know that I stopped by there two weekends ago and picked up literature, then last weekend at 6 PM on Sunday night I got a phone call from a realtor there. I told her honestly that we weren't looking to buy, and were keeping all our options open, including moving to another state and moving out of the country.

I think the Ruxton markdowns were triggered in part by the sale of the final unit at Mansel Villas, which originally went for about $800,000 (same as Ruxton Pacific) and finally sold for $650,000. Ruxton Pacific therefore has no choice but to mark down. The realtor is doing the right thing, and he's got to do it quick.

It's amazing to see what happens when the air is let out of a bubble. A few electrons leap about between synapses in home buyers' brains, and in a matter of seconds potential home buyers can alter their opinions about assuming a pile of mortgage debt the size of Mount Everest. It doesn't matter about the surround-sound or the granite countertops, how much debt am I taking on? And in the blink of an eye it suddenly doesn't matter that a brand new townhome that was originally marketed at $800,000 was reduced down to $720,000, with free 1 year HOA and coverage of closing costs thrown in. It was still too much debt to take on. So the townhomes are marked down further to $650,000. But if the potential mortgage debt is over what people feel comfortable taking on, the asking price might as well be $1 trillion. In the prior downturn, we reached a point where price markdowns became "a way of life" and lots of properties sat on the market for several years. We haven't quite gotten there yet because we haven't reached the "reductions as a way of life" stage yet. Nearly half the unresolved inventory in my database is not marked down.

It must be murder being a builder in an environment like this. Construction projects have long lead times and can't take into account how quickly people can change their minds about the perceived value of their product. Builders assume that what people wanted last year is what people will want next year. It's virtually impossible for a builder to change course in mid-stream as quickly as people can change their minds about what kind of housing they think they want and how much they are willing to load up on debt for it.

All is well!

You are going to hear a lot of hype about improving sales in Redondo Beach over the next few weeks, and that things will be rosy again soon. It is true that sales are bouncing up a bit. For Redondo they may even exceed my guesstimate of 60 properties sold for May. But the way I perceive the truth is that those sales are finally going to mark to market all those price reductions that have been quietly occurring over the fall and winter months, and the median price will fall. We need these sales for prices to fall.

I am going to sign off this post with a sneak preview of ultra-recent May home sales so you can see how prices have come down and how reductions have gone up, percentage-wise. Remember this is sort of a preview of a preview.

Saleprice  Sqft   PctRed    DOM
405000     1033   15.09     437
420000      955    8.70      91
461000      941    5.92     179
465000      949    2.11      62
517000      909   10.09     281
525000     1194    8.70      52
526000     1070    3.49      97
575000     1820   17.85     626
599000      972    9.92     138
620000     1819   17.32     173
625000     1162   26.27     417
650000     2000   18.65     286
678000     1707    7.00     233
683000     2208   14.63     261
725000     1824    6.93      73
735000     1482    0.00      41 
750000     1622   -0.13      65 
820000     2022    1.09      89 
829000     2019    0.00      34 
830000     2500   12.54     304 
850000     2263    9.48     176 
865000     1692    6.99      42 
868000     1826    0.80      82 
875000     2500    2.67      66 
890000     2500    8.15     122 
980000     2230    1.90      89 
1140000    2320    7.24     250 
1285000    1428    6.07     200 

704000    1763    7.12     130 MEDIAN
721107    1677    8.20     177 AVERAGE

And short sales continue to occur. If I loosened up my short sale query and considered, say, a 3% cushion to cover transaction costs, there would be many more entries in the short sale list. The sellers this month for the most part have been pretty lucky, as most of them have been in their properties long enough to get a nice gain out of their sales. Kudos to them for great market timing.

2008-05-05 2006-06-30 -1.0 320 S. Broadway B     2405
2008-05-12 2006-11-15 -8.0 2916 Gibson Place      972
2008-05-12 2005-09-15 -6.0 1617 Wollacott Street 1824

Los Angeles Beach Cities Resale Activity for April 2008

2008-05-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

Here are the April median price charts for sales of existing homes in Los Angeles county.

Here are the detailed RESALE statistics for the beach cities and some of the surrounding zip codes (prices are in 1000's):

                         SFR   MEDIAN    %YOY    CONDO  MEDIAN   %YOY  
COMMUNITY         ZIP    SALES   SFR      CHG    SALES  CONDO     CHG
LA/Westchester    90045   22    $720     -7.8%   N/A      N/A      N/A 
El Segundo        90245    9    $815     +2.0%     1     $540    -0.9%
Hawthorne         90250   15    $401    -25.6%     2     $310   -15.2%  
Hermosa Beach     90254    8  $1,819    +31.8%     4     $829   +40.7%  
Lawndale          90260    7    $408    -13.2%   N/A      N/A      N/A  
Manhattan Beach   90266   30  $1,373    -20.0%     2   $1,325   -24.8%  
Palos Verdes Pen. 90274   27  $1,450    +18.4%     3     $439    -3.5%  
Rancho P.V.       90275   25    $968    -18.7%     5     $416   -28.6%   
Redondo Beach     90277   10    $910    -23.2%    11     $710    -5.0%   
Redondo Beach     90278   14    $630    -18.6%    12     $585   -14.8%

CAR/DQNews April 2008 Report for Redondo Beach

2008-05-21T13:56:00.001-07:00

DQNews has released its housing market data for April 2008 for California cities. Here is CAR's April data.

The median April sale price for a Redondo Beach home (new or existing, SFR or condo) was $695,000, down -11.9% YOY. DataQuick's statistic is based on 43 sales, which is a decent number of records with which to calculate such a statistic. This calculation is better than the zip code / property type breakdown calculation which DataQuick also reports and which I complain about regularly. The former is an aggregation of new and existing home sales, SFRs and condos, in 90277 and 90278. The latter is relatively meaningless.

My preliminary calculation for April came in high at $756,000, based on 40 records. However I did at least sense that sales had picked up enough that some of the many markdowns I've been observing in the market would be realized, and the price trend was headed down.

Here is how the beach cities look:

Area               Sales      Median Price       Year Ago      Pct Change
El Segundo           10         $807,500         $720,500         +12.07%
Hermosa Beach        13       $1,290,000       $1,101,750         +17.09%   
Manhattan Beach      30       $1,372,500       $1,850,000         -25.81%
Redondo Beach        43         $695,000         $789,000         -11.91%     
(they don't add up)
Beach Cities         83       $1,025,000       $1,000,000          +2.50%

For the South Bay area, DataQuick reports a median price of $597,000, down -12.85% YOY, based on 372 sales.

The median home price in the Westside is $1,225,000, up +40.80% YOY, based on 41 sales. West Los Angeles median price was $725,000, down -3.20% YOY, based on 151 sales. Palos Verdes Estates recorded a median of $1,270,000, up +7.63% YOY, based on 28 sales, and Palos Verdes Peninsula area recorded a median price of $1,075,000, down -8.51%, based on 57 sales. Malibu is down -8.49% at $1,735,000, based on 8 sales, while Beverly Hills is up +13.11% to $1,617,500, based on 18 sales.

L.A. Times: At the luxury end, home prices are falling

2008-05-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

The publication of this piece by Peter Y. Hong on May 20 is a milestone in our path to the resolution of the housing bubble. We have been hearing from perennial housing optimists that the more affluent areas would remain immune to the housing bubble bursting, even though our previous slump in the early 90's showed us otherwise. Now we have it in print that the affluent areas are as affected as other areas.

Tom Davidoff at UC Berkeley pretty much has it right. According to a prior story published in March:

Davidoff didn’t hazard a guess on how long prices would fall, but he said that affluent areas – where prices have not fallen as sharply – would eventually feel the pain as well. The higher end of the market has seen only modest price declines in large part because most longtime homeowners in these areas have plenty of equity and aren’t under financial pressure to sell, Davidoff said. So they are sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the market to turn around before they plant “For Sale” signs in their frontyards. But eventually, more and more homeowners in these areas will choose to sell, deciding they no longer want to defer plans such as retirement or a move to another region. “They’re going to start selling, and prices will get to their true market level,” Davidoff said.

And now the vultures are coming to roost. Places like (gasp) Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, and Rancho Palos Verdes are starting to show the kinds of drops percentage-wise that so far has been largely confined to mid-level and lower-level housing markets.

"You can't have one market hugely cheaper than another forever," according to Davidoff. Again, he stresses that the time lag is due to the affluent not being under financial distress and forced to sell. But at some point, if they want to move forward with their own plans, they have to sell, and they may have to cut their asking prices to do so.

The article describes one 90210 mansion originally put on the market over a year ago for $12 million. Not even a price cut in February of over $500,000 stirred any interest. The listing agent said that the "Maginot Line", the "psychological break point", was cutting the asking price to below $10 million.

It isn't just Los Angeles County where we are seeing such declines. San Francisco and Orange County also are seeing declines.

Steven Thomas, an Aliso Viejo broker, notes that foreclosures now make up more than 40% of homes for sale in Mission Viejo and Laguna Hills. The market over $1 million has "definitely changed." The activity below $500,000 has been "tremendous." In addition, foreclosures, which have been practically unheard of in the affluent areas, now are rearing their ugly heads. In Coto de Caza, 17% of the homes for sales are either foreclosures or are listed as short sales.

However, not all affluent areas have uniformly experienced a hit. The article notes that whereas Rancho Palos Verdes was down, the Rolling Hills area was up.

I would not take DataQuick numbers too seriously for any one particular area, for the reasons I have been citing for many months - there are usually too few sales to be statistically valid, and when sales are sorted out by zip code and by property type, the invalidity is even worse. Still, I think the article is a milestone, not because somebody came up with numbers "proving" that the affluent areas are declining, but because psychologically the crowd (via the media) is now acknowledging that affluent home sellers are having the same difficulties selling their properties as do lower-end home sellers. The article even states that one can see dramatic price moves in a zip code on just a handful of sales.

This decline, viral-like in its ferocity, struck first in the outlying areas, such as Antelope Valley and the Inland Empire, where so many buyers obtained their properties with sub-prime loans. Declines in the more affluent areas shows that this is not just a case of too many sub-prime loans, ARMS, or even HELOCs issued. This is a case of the same deflationary psychology (to cut back to conserve) that hit buyers in the lower-end markets now hitting buyers in the higher-end markets. People are people no matter where they live and what their income level, and they are swayed by the same psychological forces. The bursting bubble waters have been inching higher and higher, and though the affluent areas have been on higher ground, it is my belief that eventually, they, too will succumb to the bursting bubble.

DQNews: Southland home sales highest in eight months

2008-05-19T11:52:00.001-07:00

That's the hope-filled headline according to DQNews. Digging deeper into the article, though, we learn that this was the weakest April since 1995, the second-lowest April that DataQuick has recorded, and 38% below the April average.

The boost comes from an increasing number of lower-end (below $500,000), mainly in the Inland Empire area (Riverside), where the bargain hunters are picking through the higher numbers of foreclosures. Of all the homes sold in April that were existing homes, 37.5% had been foreclosed in the prior 12 months. In March, that figure was 35.8% (revised). A year ago, it was 4.6%. Homes below $500,000 accounted for roughly 66% of sale volume gain from March.

Southland April home sales are down -19% from April 2007. Only Riverside county reported an increase in sale volume, very likely due to bargain hunting.

DataQuick stated that "a few more buyers stepped off the sidelines last month" to buy homes at substantial discounts to the peak. That sales would bounce in the Inland Empire, where foreclosures have particularly ravaged the area, is no surprise. DataQuick notes, "We continue to look for evidence of a sales bounce in the mid-priced and higher-end markets along the coast. If the higher conforming loan limits are making a difference in those areas it's certainly not a large one, at least not as of the end of April."

Prior to Day of Reckoning in August 2007, jumbo loan financing accounted for almost 40% of So Cal mortgages. For April that number was 15.1%. Southland buyers committed themselves to a typical monthly payment of $1,716, down from $1,816 in March, and down from $2,356 YOY. Foreclosures remain pegged at record levels, ARM financing is at a 6 year low, and non-owner occupied buying activity is increasing.

County          Apr-07   Apr-08   % Chng       Apr-07      Apr-08     % Chng
Los Angeles     7,225     5,016    -30.6%     $540,000    $435,000    -19.40%
Orange          2,682     2,166    -19.2%     $629,000    $500,000    -20.50%
Riverside       2,987     3,186      6.7%     $409,000    $295,000    -27.90%
San Bernardino  2,049     1,667    -18.6%     $370,000    $265,000    -28.40%
San Diego       3,436     2,809    -18.2%     $490,000    $400,000    -18.40%
Ventura           890       771    -13.4%     $572,000    $445,000    -22.20%
SoCal          19,269    15,615    -19.0%     $505,000    $385,000    -23.80%

Peter Y. Hong at the L.A. Times also covers DataQuick's release in Movement in weak Southern California housing market. He mentions that April sales are up 22% over March, which is not surprising considering the backlog of foreclosures on the market. According to DataQuick, the average increase in sales from March to April is about 1.8%.

I can hardly blame the knife shoppers out in Riverside. A home for $295,000 must seem like a steal after they've fairly recently been selling for over $400,000. There will always be buyers who see prices reach a certain level and won't care if prices fall further. Then there will be buyers who think the market had bottomed and then find themselves bloodied as prices fall further. If the economy continues to spiral downward (after possibly a temporary election year bounce), I expect far more blood within the next few years. $295,000 still strikes me as pricey.

I'm getting the feeling that Redondo Beach remains in a slump. So far for the month there are 28 sales recorded for 90277 and 90278 in Melissa Data. For May of 2007 there were 118 sales recorded. Even if those 28 sales tripled by the end of the month, which I don't think is likely, that figure would still be nearly 29% below last May's sales volume. If I had to make a wild-ass guess, I estimate maybe 60 sales for May if this pace continues. Who knows, maybe Memorial Day weekend will bring out some buyers. Or maybe the end of the school year will bring out buyers.

At the same time, I'm recording about three new property listings a day. That may sound low compared to last year, but in 2007 my database was much newer and didn't have a lot of old repeats in it. This year, I'm noticing plenty of re-listings for properties that were listed back in 2006 and never got sold. I don't count those as new listings.

I mentioned in a previous post that I visited Ruxton Pacific last weekend (10th-11th). Last night (the 18th) at 6 PM I got a phone call from a realtor there. The weekend I visited, they had about 40 people drift through. This past weekend, it was about half that. I told her honestly but nicely no we were not looking to buy, we just felt that So Cal was too expensive. I told her that we were thinking of moving out of state, and when she asked, I named places. I even told her we are considering moving out of the country, which is also true. In short, we are still keeping all our options open, because it's still way too early for us to make any move. It was only fair to let her know that, and I hardly think we're the only ones who think that way. Plus, I figure if enough people tell the realtors that they aren't selling what we want, maybe something will change for the better.

Where are people getting the money to buy at these prices? Subprime Part II

2008-05-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going to keep this brief.

A few times blog readers have asked, where is the money coming from that people can buy into this market? They are implying that properties are still very grossly overvalued.

In March, I posted this:

One realtor knocked on my door last week while I was taking a shower, and I was kind of sorry I missed her. She's the same lady who knocked on our door last June and invited us to an open house (and she did get that house sold, though the original asking price of $760,000 and the final sale price was $670,000). She left a sheet of recent sales in the neighborhood. I very much appreciated that she didn't try to calculate a median sale price as if to imply that that is what homes are worth. She didn't try to dazzle me with statistical bullshit - she simply listed the sales. But she left another sheet of paper talking about FHA loans as an option in financing a purchase. Let's see - no income limit, no sales price limit, no FICO score requirement, no reserve requirement - haven't we heard this someplace before? Oh yeah! The subprime mess and the credit market meltdown! Only now the FHA is insuring lenders by collecting premiums from the borrowers. Oh, they throw in one stipulation - bring 5%, no questions asked. I suppose that's better than 0% down, but doesn't leave me any assurance that credit restrictions are really all that much tighter.

You can find the link to the original posting here.

It took two months, but it looks like the media is catching on.

Folks, the powers that be are trying to keep this game going as long as possible. We will see if leading the horse to water will compel him to drink. Has deflationary psychology finally set in for the buyer? Stay tuned.

-- Susan

L.A. Business Journal: Sales increase as home prices fall

2008-05-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

The headlines for this month's article by Deborah Crowe at L.A. Business Journal are reflecting an upbeat hopeful tone. Volume rises 15% from previous month. Home sales gain ground in April. There's even a graphic titled Hitting Bottom?

But dig deeper into the article and you'll find that SFR home sale volume in April was down -28.3% YOY, and that's in keeping with a five week reporting period this year. But if you compare a 4 week period now with a 4 week period from a year ago, home sale volume is down -43%. By all means, let's report the more bullish figure! And as for that Hitting bottom? graphic, I cannot fathom why it would show a continuing plunge in price, as opposed to an arguably more bullish sale volume bounce. I mean, if I wanted to spin the idea of a bottom, I'd much rather show sale volume bouncing up.

The industry professionals quoted in the article note that there appears to be a "first time home buyer wave" (I call it falling Ginzu knife shopper wave) in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Prospective buyers are starting to come out of the woodwork but foreclosures are "muddying" the market so it will take a few years to work through them.

Steven Thomas of Re/Max sounds downright optimistic when he states that prices will stop falling early next year, "then we'll be at a flat market for a couple of years, price-wise, probably moving not more than the rate of inflation. But at least we'll have a lot more transactions."

Michael Carney of Cal Poly Pomona sounds more worried. He feels prices are "falling too fast" and is starting to think the bottom could be further off than most people realize. A year ago he anticipated that prices would be down 15% from the peak. He has shifted that to 20%. "That prices are falling faster than sales is not a good sign in terms that the bottom is near." In the 1990's it took almost six years for prices to drop 20%. But he notes, "You'll start seeing YOY sales volume pick up long before we see a turnaround in prices."

(Well I've got news for you. From the peak at $585,000, the median Los Angeles County SFR sale price is down -22% which has already exceeded Carney's forecast. So I don't understand exactly what Carney is talking about. In my opinion, there is a possibility we've finally hit the slippery part of the S curve and prices could fall hard and fast. I'll know better when I see even the affluent areas getting walloped.)

The credit crunch, which started in the subprime category, has spread to more affluent home buyers when they became unable to obtain jumbo loans (which at the time had a $417,000 limit). That limit is now $729,500, but financing under this limit has been "slow getting off the ground."

-------------------------- SFR ----------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Apr     %YOY        Apr    %YOY
                          Sales   Change      Price   Change
L.A County              3,647       -28%    $445,000  -21% 
El Segundo       90245     10         0%    $808,000  -17%
Hermosa Beach    90254     17       +31%  $1,415,000  +21%  
Manhattan Beach  90266     26       -50%  $1,435,000  -17%  
Redondo Beach    90277     11       -45%    $800,000  -31%
Redondo Beach    90278     19       -27%    $725,000   -6%

------------------------ CONDO ----------------------------------
COMMUNITY          ZIP    Apr     %YOY       Apr       %YOY
                          Sales   Change    Price     Change
L.A. County                919     -40%    $400,000   -10%
El Segundo       90245       3     -40%    $799,000   +28%
Hermosa Beach    90254       6     +20%    $826,000   +10%
Manhattan Beach  90266       0     N/A         N/A     N/A 
Redondo Beach    90277       8     -70%    $738,000    -7%
Redondo Beach    90278      21     -30%    $612,000   -18%

This is now 2 months with no condo sales in Manhattan Beach.

Palmdale in north Los Angeles County is an area that has been particularly hard hit. In the old bubble boom days, the "highly desirable" model homes, the ones with full lush landscaping and marble counters and granite floors got sold at premium prices at auction. Not any more. Kennedy Wilson Auction Group is scheduling a June 1 auction to get rid of 17 luxury model homes. The starting prices will range between $125,000 and $250,000, down from $289,000 to $605,00 during the bubble peak. You can see the auction website here. One quote in the article that was amusing - Our program works for builders because we price them below market, and let the buyers determine the market.

The most expensive homes (SFRs) in April were in Beverly Hills 90212 (+16% YOY) and 90210 (+18%); Santa Monica 90402 (-29%); Malibu 90265 (-28%); West Hollywood 90069 (-12%); Pacific Palisades (-4%); Brentwood 90049 (-16%); Palos Verdes Estates (+40%); San Marino (+26%); and Laurel Canyon 90046 (+64%).

The most expensive condos were in Hermosa Beach 90254 (+10%); El Segundo 90245 (+28%); Santa Monica 90403 (-3%) and 90405 (+6%); Marina del Rey (-6%); Redondo Beach 90277 (-7%); S. Robertson/Fairfax area 90035 (+26%); Warehouse District 90021 (+7%); and Brentwood 90049 (-19%).

The areas with the greatest SFR price losses in April were in Glendale 91202 (-55%); Long Beach 90813 (-46%); Bel-Air 90077 (-44%); Littlerock 93543 (-44%); San Pedro 90732 (-40%); Long Beach 90810 (-40%); Downey 90240 (-40%); South L.A. 90001 (-39%); Lancaster 93534 (-39%); and Palmdale 93550 (-39%).

The areas with the greatest condo price losses were in Winnetka 91306 (-24%); La Habra 90631 (-32%); North Hills 91343 (-35%); Canyon Country 91387 (-37%); Hacienda Heights 91745 (-28%); Newhall 91321 (-33%); Northridge 91325 (-47%); Paramount 90723 (-30%); Westlake Village 91362 (-25%); and Long Beach 90807 (-23%).

On Sunday I stopped by Ruxton Pacific to see how things were going there. They are throwing in a year of free HOA fees and no closing costs to sweeten the deal, if you choose to view those townhomes as deals. Out of 27 units, five are sold, but three of them were sold last year if I remember correctly. So that means that two have been sold so far this spring.

Question for housing bubble blog readers

2008-05-10T19:05:00.001-07:00

Blog readers, I am not a real estate pro and don't have insider knowledge of how bogus sales end up in sale data. One reader has questions. Can anybody 'splain this to us? Thanks!

I have a few questions and I am wondering if anyone can help. I have been watching the beach cities market for a little over a year now. We moved here in 2007. We sold our previous home (in another state) and have been renting since our move.

My questions concern homes I had been watching and their subsequent sales. The only information I have has been either been taken from Zillow, Property Shark or both.

Why does a home sell or transfer hands with a $0 sales price? For what benefit and to whom? For instance, one property I had followed, a spec home, had transferred hands, from the builder to a buyer, with $0 as the price. Then magically it was sold back to the builder, for $0 again, and then resold to someone else for the original and full asking price of close to $2 million. No mortgage was listed so I gather it could have been an all cash sale. Yes?

Am I being obtuse and this is normal business as usual or did something funny happen to prop up the comps? I really don't know or understand and I would just like some insight. I've seen this a few times now and I can't seem to figure it out. Thanks.

Preliminary look at April 2008 Redondo Beach housing market data

2008-05-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

I pulled my sales data set out of the Manhattan Beach Reporter again. There may be a few May sales mixed up in here since the sale dates in MBR are not precisely given. Oh well, I can only work with what I can scrape up.

It looks like there was a slight pickup in lower end sales in April. Also, my calculation of DOM has plummeted back down to figures more in line with what I was calculating last year before the credit crisis hit, rather than the horrid figures I have been calculating during the winter. Median and average square footage have also shifted back down, providing further evidence of more lower end homes selling. So there are definitely some signs of life in this market.

STAT      OCT 2007  NOV  2007   DEC 2007   JAN 2008   FEB 2008   MAR 2008   APR 2008
records         44         37         26         25         25         35         40
MEDIAN    $755,000   $832,500   $782,500   $795,000   $755,000   $789,000   $756,000
AVERAGE   $770,416   $933,956   $832,827   $932,117   $831,500   $961,714   $833,000
MIN       $369,900   $379,000   $486,500   $449,900   $520,000   $585,000   $420,000
MAX     $2,560,000 $2,500,000 $1,500,000 $2,130,000 $1,590,000 $2,100,000 $2,425,000

These figures are from my SUPPLY records for which I found sales. Looking again at the numbers for April 2007, I had 99 records with a median sale price of $799,000 and an average of $888,488. My April 2008 numbers are clearly down from 2007 (median down by 5.3%), so I think there is a good chance we could see an official YOY decline in Redondo Beach median home price when DataQuick publishes statistics later this month. We shall see. Minimum sale price a year ago was $470,000 and the maximum was $1,750,000, according to my data.

Median square footage is 1790 and average is 1826. In 2007, out of 99 records, median square footage was 1868 and average was 1925. So median square footage has shifted down by about 4.2%.

Note: records=35 is wrong, should read records=40

If you've been reading this blog long enough you'll know that my DOM is (hopefully) a representation of a more realistic time it takes to sell a house. In other words, my DOM is just not starting the clock from the date the property was last relisted before it sold. My DOM starts the clock the first time I notice a home listed, and I assume it remains listed until I find a sale record for it.

My calculated median DOM is back down to 92 days (roughly 3 months) and average DOM is at 133 days (about 4.3 months). However you can see the distribution remains wacky. New home sellers who have a clue that they need to price their home competitively to sell have a good shot at selling their home within around 60 days. 2 months is still an excellent time on market, considering the horrible shape the mortgage industry is in. But the key is the property needs to be priced very competitively. Otherwise the listing may just sit and rot, as you can see from the right hand cluster around 240 days (8 months).

And how much did April home sellers have to cut out of their asking prices to get their homes sold? The median percent reduction was 6.02% and the average was 7.04%. Last month, median PCTRED was 6.4% and the average was 7.2% so it looks like PCTRED is almost remaining steady.

And now I want to explain this newly added chart. I am trying to keep track of asking price history as a way of measuring the "value" of the unsold homes. To produce this chart, each month's median price calculation is the median current asking price for homes newly listed during that month or whose asking prices are changed during that month. That's what I mean by "Refreshed by Month."

It was either this calculation, or to try calculating the median current asking price on all unresolved inventory every single month, and that is too cumbersome a task for me to tackle. However, I think my "refresh by month" approach will work. The most recent month will encapsulate the most recent opinion on the market, whereas a calculation that carries all the baggage of all unresolved inventory will probably carry many outdated opinions on the market.

Ignore the initial spike up. That just means that my database had no records in it yet. As time progresses, the data gets more accurate as more records are added to my database. As you can see, asking price has been drifting down. For April 2008, the median current asking price ended up at $768,500.

This other new chart is the history of percentage price reduction from my records. I simply take my median and average PCTRED calculations and tack them on to this graph.

Unfortunately I do not have much history to show here, so I don't have a definite sense of how this graph behaved during the bubble boom. If I had to guess, there would have been no or few price reductions and the lines would have been below or hovering around 0. But it seems to me that during a market with normal seasonal swings, price reductions would peak during the slow winter months (if you want to get your home sold during the winter, you may have to cut the price more) than during the busier spring - summer - fall seasons, when you may not have to cut at all. So I would expect the graph to rise into, say, January, and fall down from there. That appears to have happened in 2007. In March 2007 the lines bottomed and wavered around a little, but starting in July 2007 the lines started to climb more seriously. Reductions peaked once again in January, and started to fall off - they have bottomed in March again, now will the lines bounce around, like last year, or will they continue to climb?

Finally, I'll throw in some short sale data. The first column is the sale date, second column is the prior sale date, and third column is percent loss.

There's something screwy going on with the Paulina house to have had such a quick succession of recent sales. The Rindge Lane property is rather interesting. It sold for about $1.165 million at a peak in July 2005, and went into foreclosure. I guess the bank owning it tried listing it in the high $900,000's and finally ended up selling it for $850,000.

2008-04-09 2005-06-15  -4.0   108 S. Francisca Avenue A 1548
2008-04-07 2005-12-13 -16.0  1030    Avenue A            850
2008-04-21 2005-07-15 -27.0  1206    Rindge Lane        2620
2008-04-21 2007-11-06  -6.0   410 N. Paulina Avenue     1760
2008-04-08 2005-09-15 -13.0  2110    Vanderbilt Lane A  1471

Oops I apologize for the typo. Rindge Lane is down 27%, not 37%.

Ignoring the Paulina house, you can see that these short sales sold at a loss from their peak values in 2005. So home prices may really be back down to 2004 valuations. That seems to come up consistently, no matter what a realtor will tell you about median price still climbing in Redondo Beach. And the scary thing is, my calculation just goes by strict sale numbers, and does not take into account selling costs. Had I done so, there would be more properties listed here that, while they may not show a loss, would definitely show that no money was made in the sale.

Stay tuned.

Los Angeles County South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate $$$ Transacted for April 2008

2008-05-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

By dollars transacted this is the weakest April market that the area has experienced in years.

This month, it appears to be Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach that are the markets of the damned. On a purely raw dollar basis, Redondo Beach home sale dollar volume transacted in April 2008 is down -51.1% YOY, while for Manhattan Beach the number is -57.3%. Did one RB zip code hold up better than the other? Well, I guess it depends on whether you think that -35.9% YOY (north Redondo - 90278) is "doing better" than -66.4% YOY (south Redondo - 90277). Affluent buyers are snubbing these two cities and for the moment are turning their attention toward Hermosa Beach (90254), where dollar volume is up +34.9%, on a sales volume change of 18 properties in 2007 to 23 in 2008. El Segundo ends up being the winner among the weak markets, with dollar volume down "only" -14.9% YOY.

It's clear that the government supplied bong hits in the form of higher conforming loan limits and shameful FHA loan terms (which I call "subprime + 5%") have not yet shifted this market out of its slump in any meaningful way. There is a pulse, but not much else.

There is a large very old condo complex a few doors down from us, and I am amused to see what may be a price war developing between two different units for sale. One unit, #2, sold for $587,000 in July 2006. It was remodeled and last June (yes, almost a year ago) it was put on the market for $609,000. Its price history has subsequently been:

$599,000 08/14/07
$579,000 08/22/07
$569,000 09/23/07
$549,000 09/28/07
$539,000 10/08/07
$571,000 11/16/07
$550,000 12/03/07
$535,000 01/16/08

Then a few weeks ago a different unit in this same complex went up for sale with an asking price of $545,000. So #2 knocked down its asking price to $499,000. As my significant other said, "Maybe they will race to the bottom."

By the way, these units when they rent out typically go for about $2,300 a month. According to Zip Realty, an estimated mortgage payment right now for Unit #2 (which I don't think includes taxes and insurance) is $3,236 a month. Assuming rents provide a price support level, and that rents remain stable, I think either Unit #2 or other comparable units in this building would have to be selling around $276,000 before we see some sort of bottom in place. In other words, prices could drop by 45% (looking at the difference between $499,000 and $276,000) before rent-mortgage equilibrium is reached.

But I am more bearish than that. I think the rental market will eventually start to feel downward pressures as households either start doubling up in bloataminiums for rent or start living out of their SUVs or pack up and leave the area. I am more inclined to think the latter two options because renters who have been trying to avoid this whole market mess nevertheless have gotten caught up in it as their landlords have foreclosed on their properties - ultimately leaving renters homeless anyway. And if rents don't come down, I think that will motivate people even more to leave the area.

Most people don't know yet what it means to really cut back and alter one's lifestyle without resorting to piling up expenses on credit cards. They think that a recession means the gardener can only come once a month or you can only have your nails done once a month instead of twice a month because the cost of gasoline is higher. They are tweaking the edges of their lifestyle but still basically keeping the same lifestyle. When people finally switch over their brains and get into the expense-cutting zone and start taking a machete to the monthly expenditures and start seriously questioning everything, what they pay for rent will be one of the things they question. And it may mean they start thinking about leaving the area.

YOY Comparisons

These numbers are a YOY comparison of the doubly smooth moving average (not raw data) of dollar volume charts. I think of them as "recent pain" (or recent gain) indicators.

By the way, I am going strictly by the numbers MelissaData tells me. If anybody can enlighten me on sales volume in Playa Vista, please do so. Other than Playa Vista, everything else looks weak YOY.

90094         128.5% Playa Vista
90254          -5.2% Hermosa Beach
90501         -13.7% Torrance
90245         -14.6% El Segundo
90064         -16.1% Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90045         -17.4% Westchester
90034         -25.1% Palms
90292       -26.8% Marina del Rey
90275         -29.0% Palos Verdes Estates
90291         -32.7% Venice
90505         -33.3% Torrance
90504         -34.8% Torrance
90293         -35.8% Playa del Rey
90501-90505   -35.9% Torrance Combined
90401-90405   -38.1% Santa Monica combined
90066         -38.8% Mar Vista
90056         -40.3% Ladera Heights
90016         -40.9% West Adams
beach cities  -44.6% 4 Beach Cities combined
SW county     -45.1% Southwest L.A. County
90036         -45.8% Park La Brea
90035         -47.5% West Fairfax
90008         -47.6% Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90502         -47.6% Torrance
90277         -48.0% Redondo Beach (south)
90717         -49.1% Lomita
90732         -49.4% San Pedro/Rancho PV
90232         -51.0% Culver City
90277-90278   -53.0% Redondo Beach combined
90266         -54.4% Manhattan Beach
90302         -54.7% Inglewood
90249         -55.0% Gardena
90260         -55.0% Lawndale
90019         -55.9% Country Club Park/Mid City
90301         -55.9% Inglewood
90278         -56.2% Redondo Beach (north)
90230         -57.1% Culver City
90250         -57.5% Hawthorne
90746         -58.0% Carson
90043         -59.3% Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90007         -59.4% South Central
90745         -60.2% Carson
90247         -62.7% Gardena
90503         -62.9% Torrance
90044         -63.5% Athens
90018         -64.3% Jefferson Park
90047         -66.6% South Central
90037         -67.9% South Central
90062         -68.6% South Central
90301-90305   -68.7% Inglewood/Lennox combined
90731         -70.1% San Pedro
90305         -75.1% Inglewood
90304         -80.3% Lennox
90303         -86.6% Inglewood
90744        -139.7% Wilmington

Relative Strength

This is a longer-term view of the strength of dollar volume in a given zip code. For this month 5.4 is the strongest (suffering the least amount of chronic pain) and -1.1 being the weakest (suffering the most chronic pain). Think of it is as the area above 0 on the YOY graph with the area below 0 of the YOY graph subtracted out.

90094        5.4 Playa Vista
90247        3.1 Gardena
90305        2.6 Inglewood
90034        1.7 Palms
90044        1.6 Athens
90292        1.4 Marina del Rey
90746        1.4 Carson
90047        0.9 South Central
90062        0.9 South Central
90301-90305  0.8 Inglewood/Lennox combined
90502        0.8 Torrance
90007        0.8 South Central
90304        0.8 Lennox
90018        0.7 Jefferson Park
90293        0.7 Playa del Rey
90016        0.7 West Adams
90501        0.7 Torrance
90301        0.7 Inglewood
90745        0.7 Carson
90250        0.6 Hawthorne
90302        0.6 Inglewood
90303        0.6 Inglewood
90732        0.6 San Pedro/Rancho PV
90064        0.5 Rancho Park/Cheviot Hills
90043        0.5 Hyde Park, Windsor Hills
90254        0.5 Hermosa Beach
90019        0.5 Country Club Park/Mid City
90037        0.5 South Central
90008        0.5 Baldwin Hills / Leimart Park
90291        0.4 Venice
90045        0.4 Westchester
90230        0.4 Culver City
90503        0.4 Torrance
90249        0.3 Gardena
90036        0.3 Park La Brea
90245        0.3 El Segundo
SW county    0.3 Southwest L.A. County
90501-90505  0.3 Torrance Combined
90260        0.3 Lawndale
90232        0.2 Culver City
90278        0.2 Redondo Beach (north)
90066        0.2 Mar Vista
90731        0.2 San Pedro
90505        0.2 Torrance
90401-90405  0.2 Santa Monica combined
90277-90278  0.1 Redondo Beach combined
beach cities 0.1 4 Beach Cities combined
90056        0.1 Ladera Heights
90035        0.1 West Fairfax
90266        0.1 Manhattan Beach
90717        0.1 Lomita
90277        0.1 Redondo Beach (south)
90504        0.0 Torrance
90275       -0.1 Palos Verdes Estates
90744       -1.1 Wilmington

The beach cities charts look as weak as those for SW Los Angeles County in general. It astounds me to read straight-faced press releases by local realtors suggesting that the beach cities markets are somehow immune to the problems besieging other areas. That is simply not true. While the bong hits may ultimately boost the local area in the coming months, underlying fundamental problems remain.

You can view home sale dollar volume history for a particular zip code through my regional tracker, and also my Google map tool.