Here's a teeny tiny image of the house I just sold at 917 Chautauqua in the Pacific Palisades, I'd love to show you more, but I'm having technical difficulties with the Multiple Listing Service. (Please feel free to check it out yourself, MLS # 07-225329). Suffice it to say, it is a beautifully-designed Cape Cod with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 baths. I wanted to share it with you dear readers, because it is just one example of the fact that real estate is alive and well on the west side. This house went on the market in early October. They had over 250 people in to see it at the first open house. By the next day they had 7 offers on the house, my clients' being one of them. It was a tough, but very fair fight, and I have nothing but nice things to say about the listing agent who handled a potentially difficult situation with aplomb. In the end my clients won the bid with a very clean and creative offer (not to mention a couple hundred thousand dollars over the asking price of $3,495,000). The escrow closed mid-December, and my clients are thrilled with their new home (that's SOME Christmas gift...if only I could have found a bow big enough...)
Since my Chautauqua deal, I've witnessed many other multiple bid situations, several of which have been in the Little Holmby area. (I have 4 buyers interested in that neighborhood now, and apparently they are not alone!) I have not personally been involved in any of the transactions, but I've monitored them for my clients. (Most recently, a fixer-upper at 542 Warner Avenue sold for $2,480,000, and the average days on the market for any listing in Westwood is just 22 days!) It's a surprising market.
On the other hand, there are two agents in my office who specialize in bank-owned foreclosures in the Los Angeles area, and right now they have over 100 listings. Granted, there aren't many on the west side (a couple in Culver City and Marina de Rey, that's about as close as they get), but the agents say that they're coming... A word to wise, careful of foreclosures, typically it's difficult to get more than 10% off market value, and they are sold "as is," as in the bank is not going to do any repairs. Allison Rogers, columnist at Inman News, wrote in her hilarious book Diary of a Real Estate Rookie, that foreclosures are "like a box of chocolates--you never know what you're getting--and the average Joe can't handle surprises."
