Nice Palisades Rollback

Address: 1000 Galloway Street - 90272

Details: 3 bed/2 bath 1,652 sq ft house on a 6,179 sq ft lot

Description: Charming historical English cottage with lots of original details on a large lot in the desired Alphabet Street neighborhood. Enhancements include excellent layout, dramatic round top doors, large master with walk-in closet, hardwood floors throughout, updated plumbing, tankless water heater, new forced-air, updated kitchen with Viking appliances, Caesarstone counters & rustic brick tile. Completely redone detached spacious studio with vaulted ceilings and bath, excellent for use as office, guest room or play room.

Previous Purchase: 6/19/07 - $1,810,000

Listing History: 8/9/11 - $1,495,000

SOLD: 11/16/11 - $1,408,600

This house seems lovely, pretty well located, and very move in ready. This roughly $400,000 loss works out to a rollback of about 22.2%. This seems a little bit deeper than what you would expect to see at this time on a similarly attractive house in most areas of Santa Monica. Thanks to the reader that sent this in.

Rainy Day Market Update

90402 (north of Montana) - If you are lucky enough to be shopping in this more expensive segment of the market, you have actually able to choose from some decent, limited inventory recently. This is a slower time of year and inventory levels appear pretty modest but it seems like a fair number of well located properties have been coming on market and quickly clearing. The under $2.5mm segment of this market seems especially hot with 11 of the 14 properties currently on the MLS in escrow.

90403 (north of Wilshire) - There has been a very limited amount of well located inventory in this segment of the market for some time. There have been some location discount type properties as well as just overpriced properties (ahem, 2619 Washington), but for the most part the few good properties that occasionally hit the market clear pretty quickly.

90405 - (south of the 10) - I recently featured a couple great looking Spanish houses in 90405 as part of my "Location Snob" posts. I think this sums up the market in 90405 well. There are a fair number of listings but many of them are in more challenged locations. A few gems have come on market and quickly gone into escrow, but it seems like right now almost all the properties on the MLS in 90405 have some type of major flaw, suffer from a location problem, or are pretty overpriced (or a combination of all three).

Pricing seems pretty stable in all three areas and if you are looking for a quality property you better be prepared to be met with a very competitive situation if you want to try and buy. Rates are low, the economy is still growing, and I'm building up the warchest to outbid you guys on one quality property this spring when activity picks up and we see more inventory. Right now, it sucks to try and be a buyer.

Another Spanish Location Snob Rollback

Address: 2117 Pearl - 90405

Details: 3 bed/2 bath (+3/4 bath in garage) 1,525 sq ft house, 5,175 sq ft lot

Description: Much sought after traditional Spanish style home Santa Monica is known for. Delightful warm living room invites you in and features a fireplace, large bright windows, hardwood floors and arched ceiling. The formal dining room is in the center of the house and will accommodate the largest table. The den is adjacent with large windows and tile floor. The master bedroom boasts a large walk-in closet, French doors, and a private bath. Well designed convenient kitchen is complete with an eat-in breakfast area and stainless steel appliances. There is a separate laundry room and a beautifully landscaped yard with lemon trees. A 3/4 bath has been added to the garage making it ideal for a guest house or office. The location can't be beat! Walk to farmers market, Clover Park or the award winning Grant Elementary School. You can't imagine how nice this is. It has charm, location and convenience.

Previous Purchase: 9/1/05 - $1,250,000

Listing History: 11/10/11 - $1,095,000

Since I recently featured another Spanish location snob rollback, I thought it was worth looking at another. This house looks just fine but once again we must remember "location, location, location" is what its all about. In this case the house is located on Pearl which in my opinion should be a fairly large location discount street. Don't believe me? Go stand in front of this house at about 5pm on any weekday.

With this listing the sellers are hoping to escape with a loss of just 12.4% from their near peak purchase price. If this house were on a less traffic riddled street I would say maybe, but I think it may take a deeper rollback given the street it is on. We'll see.

There is very little quality inventory out there right now, rates remain low, and the economy is still growing. So who knows...maybe someone falls in love with this house and can live with the traffic. Spanish houses are lovely, but location trumps all in my view and I think a deeper rollback is needed to clear this property.

Clean This Up Already! *Update 2*

I last featured 310 22nd back in October.

REO Listing: 9/19/11 - $3,360,000

Reduced down to - $3,259,000


Remember, JP Morgan foreclosed in July 2010 for $3mm.

Clean it up already. This thing has been on JPM's balance sheet for over a year!

Location Snob Rollback

Address: 1047 Pacific - 90405

Details: redone/upgraded 3 bed/2 bath Spanish house on a 6,500 sq ft lot with a back house

Description: Sensational spanish home in a lush, private gated compound. This romantic spanish features great indoor/outdoor living with easy access from living & dining rooms to private yards. The main house has 3 bedrooms with 2 baths, large inviting living room with fireplace, formal dining room, huge gourmet kitchen, wood & concrete floors, wood beamed ceiling, arched doorways, 3 outdoor spaces & more! Very spacious & amazing permitted guest house! Wonderful home for entertaining & living!

Previous Purchase: 8/15/08 - $1,607,000

Listing History: 11/4/11 - $1,425,000

If you take a look at the listing from 2008 when these owners purchased the house, it seems all the upgrades were done prior to that sale, so we are looking at an apples to apples situation here.

I think this house is the kind of house that a lot of buyers would be interested in. The problem dear readers is of course the fact that any location snob* would instantly be turned off by the fact that the house is on the corner of 11th and Pacific. Pacific is a fine street. 11th isn't. So you can have a great house that you would enjoy living in but it all gets spoiled by living on a super busy street. This fact also leads me to believe that this house may need to be marked down a bit more than the current 11.3% that the current listing price equates to. The owners unfortunately purchased right before markets and the economy took a big leg down. Had they been readers of the blog and waited 6 months they would have fared far better.

*Location, location, location. Any person considering purchasing property in such an extremely expensive and simultaneously traffic choked market should be hyper vigilant about location. A street such as 11th may seem OK on a Sunday afternoon but come Monday rush hour it changes into a mini highway. A proper discount should always be demanded by those willing to put up with living near such busy streets.