Lynne Pope is your Realtor in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach

Real Estate related industies from  Realtors, to Builders-and  all connections to that indstry have a deep concern for the future. In my circle of connections we share good news as we learn it. Our local MLS  www.SouthBayAOR.com  in the South Bay of Los Angeles, is creating a “Guide for Greening our home.” It is located in Torrance California. It serves Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, El Segundo, Lawndale, Lomita . 

This Christmas let us be mindful of the energy savings we can do. Small steps…energy saving front porch light is a great start. When you order new appliances did you know to take advantage of the money you can save both initially and over time? (It’s usually posted online or on the appliance)

These are som e web links on Rebates Discounts and Special offers available TODAY.

South Bay Environmental Services Center http://www.sbesc.com

Southern California Edison www.sce.com

The Gas Company www.socalgas. com 

West Basin Municipal Water District www.westbasin.org

Merropolitan Water District of Southern California www.bewaterwise.org

www.epa.gov

www.energystar.gov

www.epa.gov/watersense

Follow the guidelines on tree removal in your local city.

Drive slower and save gas with a soft petal

Bless people in your thought as you move through the holidays. Malls, roads, bring the spirit of joy and don’t fallinto the rush.

Look into a simple thing…insurance from  the department of water and power. for a small fee you can insure the line from  your home to the main city connection, several dollars per month on your water bill.  and possibly save thousands if there is a break in between. Without it…its your property and your bill.  How did I hear about that….I read the little paper the put in the bill one day…its usually a good suggestion before you toss it away.  They usually have a tip.

Otherwise: Clean out those roof gutters, weatherstrip the doors, caulk the tub shower and sink and you are on your way to homeowners pride and JOY.

REO Bank Owned open houses attract buyers. People who stop by are doing it as First time home buyers, investments,  to help a family member or friend. March 2009 sales were 41% first time home buyers. Banks are lending. South Bay properties in Redondo Beach, Torrance, Palos Verdes, Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach actually have some REO listings and…they sell quickly. At my open  houses I post a list of the sold foreclosed properties in each area over the past year. I post all the REO active listings in the local cities. People want to be on the list to receive emails of every bank owned property and they also want to know what is comparable.

I was at a Tom Ferry Focus training event in Long Beach this week and we talked about the growing numbers of regular homes sold, selling and pending sales. One thousand agents all over the countryin the room were selling. Last year out of 50 Thousand California licenced real estate agents only 578 sold over 6 homes.  We talked about working harder and working smarter.  It means getting people qualified by a lender to buy. Most people stopping at the open houses have to get qualified. That is why this website has a wholesale mortgage page. Check it out. When buyers know what their price range is they are ready to shop.  Buyers they need to know they have competition too. Be ready to lose one or more if you see a good value and expect to pay less than asking. Local surrounding areas under 400K are getting multiple offers. Spring 2009 has people out there shopping. Buyers are informed and ready.

What is this? With the whole world looking for a good deal the mortgage industry created one too. Its the red tag sale, Presidents day, Mothers day, 4th of July all rolled into one consistant sale… WHOLESALE.

Too good to believe? Too good to be true?  Check it out. I have a whole page devoted to it. Look across the top of the list of pages and go see it for yourself.

 I now have 3 in escrow using this wholesale mortgage and it is working out to save so much in costs…closing costs. On a 600K home one lender fees tucked into the total  closing costs looked like 14K. The wholesale lender fees tucked into total closing costs for the buyer is 9K.  Thats the truth the only difference was in the fee of the loan, all the other closing costs numbers remained the same.

Feel free to talk to me about it. The lender is working on my South Bay purchases for buyers in Torrance and Gardena, as well as Los Angeles. One is a bank owned, the other 2 are short sales. It makes no difference even a normal sale will do. I haven’t seen too many normal sales…lately. Have you? I love your questions and comments.  Everyone deserves a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. This is ours.

Magic,  is a local famous cat in Redondo Beach. He has a natural lightning bolt stripe on his forehead. Look “our he who shall not be named. ” His food is from the local Redondo Beach Store or Torrance branch of Centinella Feed. One evening recently a black and white walked by our window and passed right by Magic, it was a local skunk! Neither paid the other any attention.

Realtor Magazine online carried a good story:

Picking Real Estate Pros Is for the Dogs
When Candy Spelling, the widow of legendary Hollywood producer Aaron Spelling, decided to sell her home, she let her dog pick out the real estate professional for the job.

Spelling asked her security service to bring her beloved Wheaten Terrier Madison in each time she met a candidate and watched how the dog reacted. If Madison did not respond pleasantly, she took the individual off the list.

Sally Forster Jones, an associate with Coldwell Banker Previews International in Beverly Hills, was the winner. She will co-list the 56,500-square-foot mansion, known as ¢â‚¬Å“The Manor¢â‚¬Â in the exclusive Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, for $150 million, making it the most expensive house on the market in the U.S.

Both Spelling and Jones told the Associated Press that they are unsure how many rooms the 56,500 square feet, three-story mansion has.

Source: The Associated Press, Alex Veiga (03/27/2009)

The Associated Press has long written short stories that are worth telling. Years ago it carried a story about my dad, Knocky Parker, because he left the hospital to visit his class at University of South Florida. Imagine your professor showing up in robe pj’s and slippers to say…”it’s ok folks, I’ll be back.” Short and funny stuff, or heartwarming the news is usually interesting around animals. I loved the story carried in The Christian Science Monitor, of the US veteran and the rescue of a mongrel and what it took to get the dog back home with him. Both the story on my dad and the veteran caused problems with -red tape. The hospital was shocked to find they were in the news as well as the US Govt.

Back to dogs and real estate.

The story of the seller and her trusted dog. Yes its news when its Candy Spelling, the mansion and that nobody knows how many rooms it has.

Hard to see the excess of it all in these times as well. However, trusting dogs has long been around. My very first listing came when the dog chose me.
I was sitting in a room being interviewed by the family selling the home their mother lived in. A small brown dog came into the room and sat down, right on the end of my foot. The moment was sweet and fun as one of the family shouted out-She’s the one! That dog is a toe-sitter and that’s our new real estate agent!  The house sold for 601K in a short time and it broke the record of price in a track of homes that never sold for more than 600K. That was enough years ago that the prices have not gone back to below 600K in that part of Torrance, Beverly Hills or Century City where I worked over those years. Things may change but never our love for dogs. I had some advantage perhaps- in this, I was born in the Chinese year for the Dog.

South Bay investors are sometimes frustrated that few properties are in our local areas. When we do have a bank owned property it will sell with multiple offers if it is a good deal.  All properties have to be a good deal for people to sign up and buy it. That is a fact. 90505 in Torrance had a 4 br 2 bath Bank owned property with a pool. It sold for close to 510,000. this year with 5 offers and no kitchen! 90503 area had a sale of a 3 bedroom home, in great condition for 570,000. with several offers and 2 were all cash. What was the story behind the forclosures? One was that the owner passed on and the relatives who inherited it didn’t pay the bills, the taxes and they lost it. Homes in those zip codes move quickly if they are under the 600K mark. It’s a needle in a haystack to find them. Sometimes out of area agents post the listing in the wrong area. It takes an alert, busy, agent to find the deal and to win the deal. It still goes to the highest offer or the strongest financing.

Foreclosure Activity up 6% in February-Six California cities registered foreclosure rates among the top 10: Stockton at No. 3 (one in 67 housing units), Modesto at No. 4 (one in 68), Merced at No. 5 (one in 74), Riverside-San Bernardino at No. 6 (one in 80), Bakersfield at No. 7 (one in 85), and Vallejo-Fairfield at No. 10 (one in 111). To read the whole article go to http://rismedia.com/2009-03-12/foreclosure-activity-up-6-in-february/

The awakening of the first time buyer has been cautious. There was a surge in April and early this month in home buying. The misleading fact of 1/2 of all sales have been REO or bank owned in our state is one thing but the south bay beach areas have few bank owned properties. The slowdown and lending crunch has affected prices. We have higher inventory and it takes longer to sell properties and there are price reductions that have to be factored in. The other BIG and GOOD factor is that these homes are a short drive to the beach. The glorious Pacific Ocean! This week we toured a new Bank Owned listing on Perkins in North Redondo Beach. We were excited that it was under 700K. Every agent that went on our agent thought it was a great deal. The interesting thing is that some of the listings have had to price accordingly. The new listing coming up down the street that is similar is in top condition, it is also in a block that has a preferred school district for higher performing student test scores. It will be priced slightly more than the bank owned for those 2 reasons. This is actually why some people are buying the other homes sometimes before the bank owned ones. Investors and out of the country buyers are out buying more than one property at a time. They LOVE LA! Canada, Korea, and Japan, residents, that I have met are visiting and buying.
I have a listing in Torrance with value built in of over 80K in upgrades. The electrical, plumbing, new windows and roof make it more desirable than a similar home without those updates. The sharp first time home buyer today is educated in real estate values and prices. They shop the internet and visit open houses.They don’t have to be told to get a lender although they may need to get an update from the lender they have on a regular basis. The rates are still fantastic.

Trend graphics is a great company that keeps charts that allow the agent and customer to see the trend of sales. This is the example that I am studying for my listing at 4508 Toucan in Torrance. It is interesting to see how consistant sales are…The dark green on the graph. see it for yourself. This 3rd party vender gives the facts from the MLS. I also have a new feature on my website. What is your home really worth!  It is important to so many people to check the numbers. We had a lot of interested buyers out on Sunday and some were unsure of the lenders, some unsure of the market, and some unsure of our plans.

There are several  homes for sale in Torrance in this area. So my client and I went on a tour of his competition. What an adventure.

1112 sq foot.   built 1954

Pre-existing patio room with 3 skylights currently with a Spa- could be something else. (there is an exit plan avail for the spa if the new owner wanted to do something else – ask and it will be revealed)

Electrical- amp upgrade 200! not 60 or 100 amps

Plumbing is copper including main line to meter

Water heater relocated to garage

Roof 30 year warranty – year 2000 installed

3 window Air Conditioning units

Back up generator

Things other places had that we didn’t

original showers and shower pans

one put a bathroom in a closet without visable venting

access screens with holes

asphalt driveways

original windows

This is a Pocket listing- it’s being painted

I will put this property on the MLS by the 27th of July. This is what happens when the seller is painting and will be finished by then and we will have an open house that Sunday and brokers open on the 31st. I usually do this the other way around but this is a schedule of paint completion.

I changed the price for 3629 230th in Torrance California from 825K to 785K on Saturday and it is still showing the old price?

Should I be changing it myself?

Lots of Realtors and I read each others blog. I also blog on ActiveRain.com/lynnepope and so there I can get quick answers from so many agents. I commented today on 2.

Trulia voices is really fun to check out.

Right now this address 3629 230th is the lowest price for the largest square footage in area 127.

I had an open house on the weekend and had a lot of visitors and several were from trulia. I will definitely spend more time there responding since they sent me buyers! Double sets of French Doors and new roof are major upgrades to a well kept home!