September 29, 2007

Recent Sales- Alpine

What’s been happening in the hills?

According to at least one source, prices are rising slightly in Alpine. There seems to be a general rule that where prices were most volatile going up, they are fast moving down. Areas like Alpine just don’t attract the headlines that beach areas do, and they change value relatively slowly.

2667 Eltinge Dr, Alpine (East of El Cajon)

Country living, starry nights, yet an easier commute than from the northern suburbs.

Available homes in Alpine

OK so a few homes were sold but as you can see there are plenty more available. Redfin.com will give you the details on all of these and more.

Alpine is almost never in the news. Rarely sought by tourists. There are stunning views, lovely hills, and a few hidden treasures here but most outsiders drive by at 70 miles per hour on their way to somewhere else. Alpine retains a nice sense of community. This description is ideal for certain home shoppers- maybe you.

[data from generally reliable sources, please comment on any errors!]

September 28, 2007

Open House- San Diego East County

Top open houses for this weekend:

Let’s venture beyond the usual suburbs this weekend. Take a drive to Ramona if you like horses or Bonita if you like golf. It should be a nice cool weekend for adventure and finding the house of your dreams.

9212 Campo Road, Spring Valley (Casa de Oro)

A house for a condo price- could be a hot deal for a smart Redfin shopper.

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OTOH, here we have a house more than three times the size for less than two times the cost- this is 22449 Casa de Carol, Ramona (2nd item on list below).

More than an acre of land, lots of garage space, 2 zone climate control, surround sound throughout, and many extras on this two year old house. Which of these homes is the better deal- only you can decide. This one is far from the hubub of the city, but also a longer commute. If comfortable Ramona living fits your lifestyle note that you can save another $10,000+ on this home with Redfin.

10036 Cedar Springs Drive, Santee

This home includes pool & waterfall, mostly dual pane windows, central air and screened patio.

If you look at various listings as much as I you are probably also frustrated at those listings with incomplete information. Sometimes you have to wonder if they used so much energy pasting in lots of pictures and BIG CAPS and exclamation points that maybe they didn’t have the strength to put in some information. I usually ignore them and move on but it’s sad because the house itself may be very interesting. If you visit a home with an incomplete listing like the one above, please suggest to the agent that they take a few moments to check their ad for completeness. Certainly the address and phone number should be included, the MLS number and basic stats are also attractive to shoppers.

[data from generally reliable sources, please comment on any errors!]

September 27, 2007

Wow What a View!

2743 Ocean Front Walk #2

4 bed, 4.5 baths.  $1,846 per square foot.  On Redfin 221+ days.

2613 Mission Blvd. #2

1 bed, 1 bath.  On Redfin 114+ days.

1032 Devonshire

3 bed, 2 baths.  $662 per square foot.  On Redfin 202+ days.

September 27, 2007

Depreciating Digs - Ocean Beach

3444 Carleton Street - Last Sold $900,000

Now asking $850,876.  2 bed, 1.75 baths.  $688 per square foot.  On Redfin 41+ days.

3441 Keats Street - Last Sold $2,195,000

Now asking $1,929,000.  4 bed, 3 baths.  $671 per square foot.  On Redfin 41+ days.

2141 Spray - Last Sold $1,525,000

Now asking $589,000.  1 bed, 1 bath.  $753 per square foot.  On Redfin 138+ days.

September 26, 2007

More Distressed Digs

3712 Wilson Avenue - Short Sale

3544 Landis Street - Bank Owned

2736 Monroe Avenue - Probate Property

September 25, 2007

You People are Insane!

This market we’re in is doing funny things to people.  There’s a certain happy hysteria spreading across the investment community, oodles of pent-up glee transparently cloaked behind predictions of gloom and doom.

Let’s face it, it’s fun to talk and it’s easy to get all worked up.  Especially when hysteria, panic, and fear abound.  They do have a way of spreading and taking on a communal spirit.

The real estate climate is what it is.  The bubble has clearly burst and the much anticipated ’crisis’ is here.  The truth is there is a huge upside to investors/buyers and, frankly, it’s pretty exciting to be able to get into some great deals right now.  There is also an unfortunate downside.  For every winner, there is surely at least one loser.  So keep the hysterics for fun and play.  Take a meditative approach to your investments, use good data and throw in a bit of pensiveness; reflecting on others who have been less fortunate.

September 25, 2007

Bang for your Buck- San Diego East County

Get More for Less!

When you see a 16 oz loaf and a 24 oz loaf of bread both selling for the same price, which is the better deal? If that’s all the information you have, you must choose the larger loaf. But what about the quality of the bread, the ingredients, the brand name? These are harder to evaluate, but of course you begin with the price and then consider the details, right?

15935 OAKS SPG #39 (or is it Spring Oaks as in picture?)

Yes of course it is a manufactured home. These are usually less expensive because you only pay for the box on someone else’s property. If you factor in the current rent at $670.29 you find a very different financial picture. Of course you have no control over future rent increases.

5465 Arizona, La Mesa

Complicated paperwork and incomplete renovations seem to have held back the sale of this house. It’s a fixer, on the market 79 days and far less than its 2004 price of $425,000.

It is a thing you have to do as you shop; compare the quantity of what you get with the price. But it is only one of many things to consider. The Redfin site offers you all the basic information you need to begin your search. As your search narrows down, you will have to inspect the properties to evaluate the finer points of the deal. Redfin offers three ways to see a listed property as your search becomes more serious. If you need a refresher on the Redfin process, just click the logo in the upper left corner of any Redfin page to jump to the home page.

[data from generally reliable sources, please comment on any errors!]

September 25, 2007

Old Listings- East San Diego County

Why aren’t these sold?

It’s becoming common to see listings that have lingered for up to a year. One has to wonder why they haven’t sold. More than that, however, one should consider whether a long unsold house is an opportunity or a warning that something is wrong.

2723 Lake Pointe Dr #232, Spring Valley

This listing is a bit misleading. It is shown as a San Diego address “close to downtown”, yet it is far from there in Spring Valley and part of the La Mesa school system. The 600+ days shown might be because management is using this listing to sell all available units. This listing comes in at a high $335/Sq.Ft. and requires a $203 monthly HOA fee. There are a number of units available at Lake Pointe, some which seem to be listed by the developer and some by early buyers.

411 Hills Ln, El Cajon

Here’s a well cared for home, thoughtfully upgraded, with a pool, spa, central air and many comforts. Yet it’s been listed for almost a year. We can’t show all the subtle differences in the listings on Redfin. The convenience of a well designed kitchen or the seasonal display of a colorful garden just don’t fit in to the more numeric oriented data we offer. In that data, the only common thread I see in these listings is a rather high price per square foot.

We can’t learn a lot from these few old listings but I bet some of you professionals have your own ideas of what they tell us. What should a buyer be looking for - good and bad - in very old listings?

[data from generally reliable sources, please comment on any errors!]

September 24, 2007

Monday Madness

Buyer Beware!

I’ve noticed a strange behavior in buyers recently. It has taken a while to understand why buyers feel a strange compulsion to buy a property that doesn’t meet any of their stated criteria.

Of course all the smart buyers that I meet have written down the specifics of their ideal home: size, number of bedrooms, baths, pet needs, etc. They carry it as a checklist when visiting open houses. One by one, they note the plus & minus for each feature and tally the final score. Smart shopping!

Mass insanity?

And yet there are fantastic lapses. A home fails in almost every category and the buyer is transfixed. I can see her salivating- she wants this property! What has happened? This happens frequently and is often the cause of family disputes. Fully rational people suddenly crave a house that can’t possibly serve them well!

The other day, at just such a house with an overeager buyer, I stumbled as I passed the ‘for sale’ sign in front. I do that sometimes and didn’t give it much thought until I stumbled at the same spot when leaving the house. Darned if there wasn’t a lump in the lawn, a break in the turf.

Perhaps a dog or a vandal had damaged the lawn. It looked like it would be easy to fix by patting down the grass. I got down to look at it and, ‘oh is that a bone?’; I grabbed it and pulled out a small plastic statue. Odd. I patted down the turf and tossed the statue up near the front door and almost forgot the matter. The buyer and I were both strangely calmed afterward.

But soon after I came across an odd bit of news at CNN.com. It seems that people are burying statues of Saint Joseph to help sell homes.

Powerful magic

Hundreds of thousands of these statues are buried around homes all over the US and Europe. CNN says;

“According to the tradition, burying St. Joseph began hundreds of years ago in Europe. St. Teresa of Avila, a nun in the 16th century, buried a medal of the saint and prayed to St. Joseph to help secure land for a convent. The ritual is said to have worked, and so the trend of burying St. Joseph has caught on.”

Well of course I scoffed at the idea. Superstitious hocus-pocus! But just to be sure I went to Wikipedia and got this dose of reality;

“Burying a small statute of Saint Joseph on a piece of real estate for sale is reputed to enlist the saint’s assistance in finding a buyer.[27] Some versions require the statue to be buried upside down. Some believe that the saint’s statue should be disinterred once the house sells, to avoid the property repeatedly changing hands; others leave the buried statue in hopes that Saint Joseph will continue to protect the property.[28]”

Despite the misspelling, this news from the Wiki came complete with a picture of the Holy Family which was pretty convincing. I decided to look further and discovered more testimony to the power of a St. Joe statue including this from the respected Catholic Chronicle;

“Though it can easily become an act of superstition, the practice can also be a true appeal in faith to the intercession of St. Joseph, says Father Marvin Borger, vicar general and chancellor of the Diocese of Toledo.”

Who would have guessed that Jesus’ stepfather had such power after thousands of years in his grave?

A Method to the Madness

Well, so far it seems a simple matter to brainwash a buyer into coughing up money for your property. But wait, can it really be that simple?
Uh, uh, Chucko. You’ve got to follow the ritual impeccably.

Nearly everyone seems to agree that the good saint is to be buried upside-down. Here is one early reference; “i have ads in 1930s hoodoo spiritual supply catalogues that offer a tiny statue of Saint Joseph in a case made to carry him upside down.” It seems rude to bury the good man at all, much less in an uncomfortable inverted position.

But the rules vary from that point. Where and how to bury the plastic figure is precisely stated by a number of experts who widely disagree. Can you use a flower pot? Front or back yard? Or near the ‘For Sale’ sign? What direction should Joe face? Continuing the search we find a Snopes excerpt to demonstrate the difficulty of finding unambiguous instruction:

• Upside down, near the ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard. (An upside down St. Joseph is said to work extra hard to get out of the ground and onto someone’s mantle.)
• Right side up.
• In the rear yard, possibly in a flower bed.
• Lying on its back and pointing towards the house “like an arrow.”
• Three feet from the rear of the house.
• Facing the house.
• Facing away from the house. (One who tried this reported the house across the street sold, and it hadn’t even been up for sale.)
• Exactly 12 inches deep.

Snopes.com is nobody’s fool when it comes to ritual and they understand the importance of precisely following the proven formula. This demonstrates the difficulty of getting it right and yet someone must be doing it right.

Somebody wins, somebody loses

There are scores of testimonies on the internet from people who say this worked for them. Google them and you will find heartwarming stories of junk real estate dumped upon unsuspecting buyers who were helpless in the spell of St. Joe. But what about the other side of the story? What about the poor buyer who will pay and pay for that roach infested shack for decades to come?

Scandal is not entirely new to real estate transactions, but ask yourself if this is good for the economy, good for the industry, and good for honest buyers who just want to find a desperate seller? Does the Saint Joseph technology not cry out for protective legislation?

Use Protection!

What defense can you employ against this insidious brainwashing? Nobody on the ‘net recognizes the problem much less offers an answer. I hesitate to suggest such a dramatic defense but it’s all I can think of…

Hire a person to guide you through your house hunting. A person who isn’t influenced by this Christian voodoo. Perhaps you know a Hindu or Atheist or a Devil Worshiper who is kind enough to walk you through the jungle of hypnotic homes that slip unnoticed into your good Christian mind and lead you astray.

Someday a nice logical robot will serve as your agent. Your robot will not be influenced by the guile of religious influence, the trickery of mortgage lenders and the outrageous assertions of robotic seller agents. Until then go with God, but look out for St. Joe!

September 23, 2007

Distressed Digs

This is a new feature; a companion piece for my regular post ‘Depreciating Digs.’  In my depreciating posts, you will find properties that are selling at a loss or listed below their last sale price.  Here you will find homes that are priced aggressively because their sellers are motivated by misfortune or default (probate, short sale or bank owned).  The word distressed describes the state of the sale, not necessarily the property, so do not assume they are all fixers.  Some are, some aren’t.

4426 Dwight Street - Probate Property

3712 Georgia Street - Short Sale

3483 Dwight Street - Bank Owned