News on the HomeFront

From the MLS Data of Southland Regional Association of Realtors (SRAR) for the East/South area covering Toluca Lake, Studio City, NoHo,Valley Village:

Having started out in January with closed sales very similar to the previous 2 years, 2010, 2009, the months since have put this year at a distant third place for closed sales. April reiterated this trend with ACTIVE LISTINGS=565 and CLOSED SALES=141. The number of ESCROWS OPENED=175. Add that to that the percentage of escrows that failed to close for a variety of reasons (30%) and you can see the weakness. This pattern was similar all over our valley. Appraisal problems, physical inspection results, buyers not qualifying are the most common reasons.The average price of  single family homes that did close was $500,000 and for condos it was $376,300. One small statistic that looks better for the E/S than other areas of the Valley-our days on market, 134, was a bit less than for most other areas.

SUGGESTION TO SELLERS:

Buyers in this market are not going to buy a property with problems---unless it is a bargain. If physical inspection results tell them that there are issues in your house, they will want a  reduction to the price or closings costs credit to compensate them or they will cancel. Further their lender may ask for a copy of the inspection results before they will give them approval. They may even require the repairs be done prior to funding the loan. The way a seller can avoid this is to have their own inspection prior to listing. The seller can then get his own estimates from workmen he has confidence in and decide if he wishes to do them. If a  seller has decided to let a  buyer handle that  he should factor that into the listing price, have his listing agent make that flaw and its' estimate to repair, known to all prospective buyers and that the price reflects that. A seller has a much better chance of closing an intitial escrow with a check in hand when they take control of this issue. I would also suggest highly that a termite inspection be done before listing so that a seller really knows what they are going to net from an offer.