Amused by Rick

I love it when I’m right. New listings are just now hitting the MLS and they are all starting at April-07 prices (considered the ‘peak’ time in the price boom that started in 2000), just as I predicted. As I mentioned earlier, they will be competing with similarly priced properties that have been on the market for months, further adding to an inventory that buyers are not motivated to purchase. In many cases, the homes were purchased in ‘05 or sooner. I stand by my prediction, these listings will build a critical mass through Superbowl Sunday after which reactive price declines will drive the market down in the $1mm-plus range.

Supporting cases:

San Marino: purchased Feb-05 for $1.18m, selling for $1.6m

Pasadena (SW): purchased Oct-05 for $1.01m, selling for$1.1. This one has a paddle-tennis/basketball court, yeah!!

La Crescenta: purchased Mar-05 for $950k, selling for $1.15

South Pasadena: purchased May-05 for $688k, selling for $799k

Good luck people, you’re gonna need it! Hey if you liked this post, check out the Kate in the Valley blog, she’s in the same boat I am in and she updates her blog way more often than amusedbyrick.

…when we rock the mic we rock the mic riiiiight…

So I’m looking at a terminal map of LAX on nwa.com for no good reason other than I’m bored/obsessed and it tells me to report to Terminal 2 for my flight to China.  Any time I’ve ever flown out of the country, I’ve always walked through the Tom Bradley Int’l Terminal and for this trip I had just assumed the same, so I was becoming concerned.  Which terminal should I walk into tomorrow?

After some frantic web surfing and one phone call to NWA, I discovered that domestic carriers flying internationally use their own terminals for all flights, domestic and international. Recalling past trips abroad, they have all been on foreign carriers.  Whew.  That would have been terribly frustrating.

Real estate is on my mind, my house is about to close. What do you suppose everyone who plans to sell is thinking right now?

I better list my house before real estate prices start to really fall. It’s too much of a bother to list before the holidays so I’ll wait until January to get serious.

They are about to join the club of overpriced homes on the real estate market. A good deal of inventory has already been rotting on the market for 30+, 60+, 90+ days and new listings with asking prices that harken back to the summer of ‘07 will extend the stench that makes buyers sneer with disgust.

Competition is fierce below $750,000 all over Los Angeles. Look at any map on Redfin.com and you’ll see a flood of listings in the $400-600k areas and substantially less above $800k. This time around it looks like prices are collapsing at the bottom and working their way up — opposite of the crash in 1989-1990 where the high end fell hard first.

So if you’re going to list your house, I’d list for a fast sell. Things are going to degenerate quickly, or so I’m hoping!

By the time Superbowl Sunday happens I’m thinking we’ll see a critical mass of new listings vs. stale listings vs. an army of picky buyers.