The articles are everywhere... on television news programs, in financial magazines, local newspapers, the radio.. wherever you look the headlines scream at you about how the Sub prime loan crisis will trigger massive foreclosures or as an article in today's LA Times notes Price drop for homes predicted.
The problem is that all these articles don't have much to do with prices in the Southern Ca beach cities that we call home. In Manhattan Beach prices don't appear to be dropping. Nor are they plunging in Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach or El Segundo. While the real estate markets in these cities appear a bit more level then in Manhattan Beach they are definitely not declining.
The problem is that all these articles don't have much to do with prices in the Southern Ca beach cities that we call home. In Manhattan Beach prices don't appear to be dropping. Nor are they plunging in Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach or El Segundo. While the real estate markets in these cities appear a bit more level then in Manhattan Beach they are definitely not declining.
Here is the breakdown for available listings in the beach cities:
Manhattan Beach:
Single Family Homes: 90
Townhomes/condos: 29
Hermosa Beach:
Single Family Homes: 54
Townhomes/condos: 48
North Redondo:
Single Family Homes: 56
Townhomes/condos: 64
South Redondo:
Single Family Homes: 27
townhomes/condos: 91
El Segundo:
Single Family Homes: 17
Townhomes/condos: 9
Inventory levels in most of the beach cities are half what they were six months ago. Well priced properties in good shape are moving while overpriced homes continue to sit.
Thursday's LA Times notes that Median Southern CA home prices pass $500,000. Southern California just doesn't seem to be co-operating with all the experts. The predictions are for massive foreclosures in California but so far we haven't seen them in our neck of the woods. Inland in Riverside County, San Bernadino and other areas with big projects that sold homes using subprime loans you will very likely see major problems as the price of gasoline pushes up the cost of commuting and higher interest rates make refinancing a potential problem.
Locally I think we will see problems in some of the marginal areas of Hawthorne, Lawndale, Gardena and the Harbor Gateway. But for now the beach cities seem to be marching to a different drummer.
2 comments:
Nice info, Kaye. Hard to rely on the media. - Bob
Yep.. for them it's about selling papers.. for us we want to keep our clients informed as well as ourselves.. if we are too upbeat or too negative we don't help our clients.
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