Dana Graham

January 2026 Newsletter

Dear Neighbor:

And the beat goes on . . . I hope you had a good holiday season.  As of this writing there are 94 single family homes for sale on the Peninsula.  This is about double the number for sale at the peak of covid, which was probably the lowest since, oh I don’t know, the 1950’s?  But it’s still low.  In my 41 years of PV experience in this business somewhere around 150 homes for sale is normal.  As I said last month, this shortage is doing much to support house prices.

I’m sure many of you saw the article on social media “This South Bay City is California’s Richest Small Town”, which was/is Palos Verdes Estates.  As a 78 year resident, I wrote an article about it from my perspective for Palos Verdes Pulse, the on-line magazine – PalosVerdesPulse.com.  Spoiler alert:  it wasn’t always so.

As you know, I occasionally offer cautions against falling for the silver bullet du jour, and this month it’s agents who claim to have some secret formula that will make your house sell faster, higher, etc.  Speaking as someone who has been selling houses in Palos Verdes since before many of these people were born, and even with all the technological changes that have occurred during the past 41 years, the basics remain constant.  First of all, the agent you choose will have little effect on how many offers you get or how good they are – once you are on the Multiple Listing Service you will be on every relevant website known to man.  As one of the top 10 agents in PV, it would be easy for me to claim otherwise but, as you know, I will always tell you the truth. The agent’s brokerage affiliation also makes little to no difference.  Cutting through all the hype and distraction, what really matters is the agent, his/her commitment to you and to the business (no part-timers), his/her experience, etc.   Your agent can make a big difference in which offer you choose and how smoothly your transaction goes; obviously some of that depends on the buyer and his/her agent, but an experienced agent such as myself, who has seen practically everything and has contingency plans ready to handle the unexpected, can generally work around it.

It’s also a good idea to pick your agent early in the process, like before you begin preparing the house for sale.  Too often I see sellers spending money on a house to sell it that they will never recover in the sale price.  In recommending what you should do, I look at it like it’s my money – and the test is that you will at least get it back dollar for dollar.  We can talk about that.

So Happy New Year to all.  Call me if you want to talk – 310 613-1076, or email at [email protected].  You can also visit my website (DanaGraham.com).  It’s currently undergoing some improvements, so I apologize for any inconvenience.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2026 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Buyers, Current Listings, Everything I've Written, Newsletters, Palos Verdes Information, Real Estate General Info, Sellers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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