L.A. real estate news and insights.
A new study has found that home prices in Los Angeles are on the decline year-over-year.
In December 2022, the median price of a home in Los Angeles was $810,000; down $40,000 or 4.7% from December 2021.
That was the second largest decline in the study for all US cities, behind only San Francisco which saw a 5.1% decrease.
Considering rising interest rates, inflation, major layoffs, and recession fears, a 4.7% decline is not that bad.
Source: RE/MAX
In my 14-year career, I have never seen interest rates climb so quickly in such a short amount of time. They were in the high 2% range earlier this year.
Source: CNBC
This is the most expensive condo for sale this week in Century City.
Asking price: $10,250,000
This full-service condo has 3 bed/4 bath, 4,158 sq. ft. of living space, and there are 35 units in the building.
The condo features jaw-dropping unobstructed views of the ocean, downtown, mountains, and city.
The building amenities include concierge service, 24-hour security, valet, conference, Pilates, massage rooms, fitness center, saltwater pool, and more.
Text me if you want a tour at 818-445-7953.
Original List Price: $22,500,000
Sold Price: $13,000,000
Breaking News! As of today, you can now rent this home for $42,000 a month.
While you are in escrow to buy a home, you are going to be tempted to start buying things for your new property.
Don't do it!
Right before you are scheduled to close escrow, your lender is going to rerun your credit, look at how much debt you have, and look at your overall financial situation.
Buying big-ticket items like a new washer and dryer or stove and putting that purchase on a credit card could stop you from getting a loan.
You want to be careful with that because your lender will take into account your "debt to income ratio".
If your debt amount starts climbing up, that’s a red flag to the lender and they may deny your loan.
All big-ticket items need to be purchased AFTER you close escrow.
Once the deal is done it doesn't matter how much debt you rack up... it will not affect your home loan.
On this episode, I answer the following four real estate questions:
1) When applying for a mortgage, I've heard that applying for other types of credit before the mortgage is finalized can hurt your credit. Is this true?
2) We are already in escrow to sell my home, but I'm now having second thoughts on selling. How can I back out of the deal?
3) I recently went to get pre-approved for a home loan. The lender said he can't get me a loan because my credit score is too low. How can I raise my score?
4) My agent is having a hard time selling my home. I just don't think he is the right person for the job. What is the process to fire him?
We have almost 20,000 followers on Instagram... join us! @DanielLosAngeles
If you are getting ready to sell your property, you should consider staging your home.
That is when a home stager comes in and furnishes your house with modern, new, clean furniture. It makes your home look like a model home.
The problem with staging is that it costs money. The minimum cost will be around $3k.
If you refuse to do that, you should consider virtual staging.
This is where you take a picture of an empty room in your house, then a graphic designer edits the picture and ads computer-generated furniture.
In most cases, your marketing pictures will end up looking great.
You will definitely get a lot of attention to your online listing and will bring people in to see your home.
The problem arises when the buyer shows up to tour the home.
They came to see a beautiful model looking home and they end up taking a tour of a bunch of empty rooms.
This is not the ideal situation to put a buyer in.
But, virtually staged photos are better than showing a vacant room or a room filled with furniture from the 1980's.
My 72 Hour Home Selling program will get you top dollar for your home in a very short amount of time. Text me to find out how it works. Thanks! 818-445-7953
Agents are strategically putting the asking price on their listings lower than fair market value.
By doing this the listing gets a lot of attention and gets multiple offers.
The property then sells for above-asking price, usually at fair market value.
Now that you know this info, be prepared to put in an offer on a home above your budget.
You could also look at properties below your budget and anticipate that the price will go up to your original budget.
Are you constantly being outbid when submitting an offer on a home?
Having a lower asking price is a widely used strategy by real estate agents to get multiple offers on their listing.
If you are seeing this a lot in your search area, adjust your budget!
Let's say your budget is $800k and you notice you have been outbid now a couple of times by buyers offering $25K above the asking price.
Adjust your budget down to $775K.
That way you can now be the one to submit an offer above the asking price.
You will now be the one who is outbidding all the other buyers by $25k.
Of course, have your agent do a market analysis on the property to make sure whatever amount you are offering is fair market value for the property.
After reviewing the buyer's purchase agreement, you will most likely find that the buyer's purchase contingencies will all be removed by day 21 of the escrow period.
After all, contingencies are removed, it is fairly safe to start moving out.
I say fairly safe because a buyer could still back out of the deal after their contingencies are removed.
Most buyers don't do that because if the contingencies are removed, you as the seller can go after the buyer's deposit.
The buyer's deposit is usually 3% of the purchase price.
So if the home is $1,000,000 the deposit is $30,000.
Most buyers would continue with the purchase rather than lose $30K... but you never know.
In my opinion, it's reasonably safe to start moving out once all contingencies are removed.
Although right now is typically a slow period in real estate, I am predicting a hot real estate market for the 4th quarter of 2019.
The reason is that buyers have been experiencing heavy competition for the last several months, have had their offers rejected, but are still very motivated to buy a home.
All those buyers that have not had any luck lately will be hungry and ready to pounce on any new listings that come up.
That should make for an interesting end to the year.
The 4th quarter of the year (October, November, December) is usually when home sales are the slowest.
The reason is that everyone is busy with the holidays that come up during those months.
A buyer may put their home search on hold because they are having their family stay at their home for #Thanksgiving.
Or maybe it's more important to a home buyer to go to all the holiday parties instead of focusing on finding a home.
No matter what the reason is, the 4th quarter is typically the slowest time of the year in real estate.
Having said that, the real motivated buyers and sellers are still out there trying to make a deal happen.
Some of the best deals I have seen have gone down during the holiday season.
