Palos Verdes Real Estate

Real Estate General Info Category

September, 2011

I’ve been in this business since the early 1980’s.  Never in that time have I seen a market where the agent you have makes a bigger potential difference in the outcome.  The world is in seeming turmoil with the Arabs rioting, the national debt rising, money markets in a constant state of flux, buyers aren’t sure they should be buying, sellers aren’t getting the prices they imagined their homes were worth a few years ago, the gnomes in Sacramento gleefully...Continue Reading!

July, 2011

While prices in Palos Verdes have held up reasonably well throughout the current financial "crisis", sales since the first of the year have slowed compared to the same period last year.  In Valmonte, whereas we had 25 sales between January and July 2010, this year we have had 16.  On the entire Peninsula there were 241 sales first half of 2010, with 196 during the first half of 2011.  By "sales" I mean properties going into escrow, not those that...Continue Reading!

All Is Not What It Seems

Apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan.  Real estate price declines have been all over the news during the past few months, with stomach-churning numbers up to 41% decline fairly common. There is no doubt that, overall, prices have declined from their 2007 peaks, but there is an interesting phenomenon afoot below the surface that is fooling those coming up with these numbers: The lower end of the market (under about $750,000) is currently hotter than a 1951 Crosley with a bad thermostat.  One...Continue Reading!

Stuff You Won’t Hear From the Media

I could write a book, but here's what's pertinent to real estate at the moment:  we've all heard the constant reports in the media that the "median price" of real estate is down 36% or some other dire number, right?  You might think that prices are headed south faster than Lee after Gettysburg, but it's not true.  This stuff makes me crazy, but I'm sufficiently medicated to get thru this. There has been an interesting dichotomy in the market for the...Continue Reading!