Woodbine Street Tree Planting and Block Party

Seems like everything went off without a hitch! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend much of the event, but all the trees look great and I hear that a lot of people were having fun. Stay tuned for some photos of the event.

Fast Facts

Below are some facts about the housing market in California, courtesy of California Association of Realtors (CAR):

Calif. median home price March 07: $580,090

Calif. highest median home price by C.A.R. region March 07:
Santa Barbara So. Coast $1,200,000
Calif. lowest median home price by C.A.R. region March 07:
High Desert $320,830

Mortgage rates - week ending 4/19:
30-yr. fixed: 6.17%; Fees/points: 0.5%
15-yr. fixed: 5.89%; Fees/points: 0.5%
1-yr. adjustable: 5.45%; Fees/points: 0.7%
(Source: Freddie Mac)

Statewide, the median home price increased 3.2 % from March 06. Look for a blog post with this kind of information pertinent to our local community.

Foreclosures and California...

It seems that people are talking a lot about foreclosures in California, but nobody really is aware of the statistics and the current effect on the local markets.

Q: Why has there been more talk about foreclosures lately?

A: Recently, the number of Notices of Default (NODs) has been increasing. A Notice of Default is given by the bank when the homeowner is behind on mortgage payments, and this is the first step in the foreclosure process. Statewide, the first quarter 2007 default level (46,760 NODs) was the highest since second quarter 1997 (47,912 NODs). The first quarter 2007 NODs was up 148% from first quarter 2006 NODs, and up 23% from the last quarter of 2006.


Q: What areas have the highest and lowest likelihood of mortgages going into default?

A: Highest likelihood of entering default is occuring in Riverside, Sacramento, and Contra Costa Counties. Lowest likelihood of going into default is occuring in San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo Counties.


Q: Why are Notices of Default increasing?

A: The loans going into default were made during a time when appreciation rates were high and subprime lending was commonplace. Many people were taking advantage of adjustable rate mortgages, which have a low teaser introductory rate that resets after a predetermined period of time. Thereafter, the rate will increase and cause loan payments to increase accordingly. The ultimate result is that people cannot afford to pay the mortgage and ultimately go into default.


Q: How is Los Angeles affected?

A: Here are the numbers--The number of default notices in Los Angeles County during first quarter 2007 was up 110% from first quarter 2006. 8,843 notices were given.


Q: How does this compare to other times when defaults were high?

A: The number of default notices in Los Angeles County is 60 % LOWER than the peak in 1996, indicating the severity of the 1996 recession as well as strength in todays market.


Q: How has all of this affected home prices?

A: So far, the effect on today's market is negligible, according to DataQuick. DataQuick is the company who has analyzed all the defaults and you can learn more by visiting their website.

Also, I have not noticed a lot of foreclosures on the Westside. Prices continue to increase, and the Westside real estate market always tend to deviate from national, and even regional, trends.

Thinking about buying a house? Where do I start?

Most weekends, I hold open houses across the Westside, and many people come through browsing to get a feel for what their money can buy. More often than not, many people walk into a place that is not suited to their needs, and end up spinning their wheels and only see a "good" place now and then. This is where the real estate agent comes in and makes life easier.

When you start thinking about buying, do your research and use a realtor to learn the state of the market. Have prices been increasing, decreasing, or steady? Should I wait or buy now? Your realtor can help you answer these questions.

Now you have made the decision that you want to start looking for a place to buy. THE VERY FIRST THING YOU SHOULD DO IS TALK TO A LENDER AND GET PRE-APPROVED!!!! Why?

• For one, you need to know how much you can afford to buy. Many people think they know what they can afford. Unfortunately, if you can't get approved for that price point, then you are out of luck when you want to buy that pricey home. Your realtor uses your pre-approval to streamline the search and only focus on properties within your price range.

• When you find the property you want to buy, you have a designated period of time to prove to the seller that a lender has pre-approved you for a loan that can cover the price. If you can submit proof that you have pre-approval with an offer, it makes for a stronger offer. Some buyers take offense to their realtor requesting the client to obtain a pre-approval before taking them to see properties. I believe my clients, but the sellers don't believe anything until they see it in writing, and the sellers are the people who need to be convinced!

Now that you have the pre-approval out of the way, you consult with your realtor and tell him or her the location and type of property you want to be living in. LET YOUR REALTOR DO THE WORK FOR YOU!!!! Your realtor should be previewing properties to narrow down the search, and should only be taking you to properties that come close to your likes. Otherwise, what is the point of having a realtor?!?! Also, let your realtor know if he or she is on target with the places you are seeing. It is ok to communicate your reactions with your realtor so that they can do a better job next time. Eventually, you and your realtor locate the right property, and you then write an offer to purchase the house. This is where the fun begins, and I will save the escrow process for another blog entry.

Happy house hunting!

Block Party and Tree Planting Schedule

Come to Woodbine Street between Overland Avenue and Glendon Avenue to take part in the Woodbine Street First Annual Block Party and Tree Planting event. The following lays out the schedule for the day, and below you can find more details about the event. Please join and feel free to email me if you have any further questions!

7:00 – Street closure

7:30 – Woodbine Street organizers arrive and table set up

7:30 – Tree and Tool Distribution

7:30-8:45 – Set up AM volunteer food

8:45 – 12:00 – Tree Planting

8:45 – Morning Volunteer Check - In

10:00 – Yard Sale set up

10:30 – Vendors set-up time

11:00 – Afternoon Volunteer Check-In

11:30 – Set up PM volunteer food and tables

11:30 – Block Party begins

11:30 – DJ Begins

11:30-12:30 – Tree Clean up

12:00 – Lunch for volunteers

12:30 – Representatives Speeches (Councilman Weiss, Palms NC, Mar Vista CC)

1:00 – Doggie Parade

1:00 – First Raffle

1:30 - Relays

1:30 – Second Raffle

2:00 – Third Raffle

2:30 – Fourth Raffle

3:00 – Big Raffle Prize!

3:00 – Event ends

3:00 – 4:00 – Event Clean up

Woodbine Street Tree Planting and Block Party

I recently received a flyer that was advertising the Woodbine Street Tree Planting and Block Party, and I wanted to help promote the event. On Saturday, April 28, 2007, the neighbors and residents of Woodbine Street, will host a family-friendly block party for the entire community. Inspired by their desire to get involved and to get to know their neighbors, they are organizing the first annual Woodbine Street Block Party! They are also inspired by the Mayor’s Million Trees LA campaign and will commemorate the event with generously donated trees from LADWP and TreePeople for plantings that will beautify Woodbine St. between Overland Avenue and Glendon Ave.

This event is completely organized by a diverse group of neighborhood volunteers. The vast majority live on Woodbine Street between Overland and Glendon Avenues. However, TreePeople, and other organizations, are providing outside volunteers for the tree planting event to make this project successful.

The benefits of a community block party that is inclusive of and embraces all people would be memorable and priceless, but they need your help to make it happen. Anything that you can donate or provide in the way of in-kind donations for the block party and tree planting will be genuinely appreciated. They will make sure to mention your generosity to the community and at the event. They especially need food and drinks for the volunteers (breakfast and lunch items for the day of the party are especially important). They also need donations in the form of refreshments, raffle prizes, money donations (for tree planting and rentals such as bouncer, canopies, etc.), decorations, and any other donations that you can think of.

If you have any questions about the Block Party, please feel free to call me or email me. You can also contact Manuel Huerta at manuel@sparcmurals.org. If you are a vendor, please also let us know if you would like to reserve a table from 10:30am-3pm on the day of the event.

I'm back....

Hey All,

Took a little vacation break and went to Scottsdale/Phoenix area for the week. If you are ever looking for a relaxing trip to someplace that is relatively close to the Los Angeles area, take a trip to Arizona. The state has so much to offer. Whether you are interested in lounging by a pool, playing a round of golf, or being pampered at a salon, the resorts in Arizona can probably give you what you are looking for. And if you are looking for more adventure and less relaxing, then take a ride through the desert or a drive up through Sedona and up to the Grand Canyon. I love Arizona. Here are some pictures of the JW Marriott at Desert Ridge in Phoenix. I HIGHLY recommend staying at this resort if you ever get out to Arizona.

Stated Documentation Versus Full Documentation

When you talk to a lender, you may hear "If you go stated doc, you can get this, but full doc will only get you that...."

What does this mean?

Full documentation means that you back up your salary with proof. In today's lending market, lenders are more flexible if the loan is full doc. How flexible? Well, they will sometimes lend even if the particular payment will make up to 49 percent of your monthly salary. Also, they tend to be more flexible on your credit score.

Stated documentation means that you state how much you make, and the mortgage broker buffers that income so that it is in the realm of possibilities for how much can be made in a particular position. For instance, say you are an administrative assistant who makes $40,0000 per year. The broker will say you make $65,000 per year to be approved for that particular loan, which would enable you to buy the house you want. Lenders have become strict on stated doc loans, as they require good FICO scores and they are less likely to provide 100 percent financing.

Subprime Market Tightens Up......

Yesterday, I was on the phone with a friend who happens to be a lender, and we were talking about how our business has been, and so on. All of the sudden, he throws out the idea that he expects home price to drop 40 to 50 percent!!!! I was shocked that he threw out such a huge number, and I argued that from a realtor's perspective, we are seeing lots of multiple offers and homes selling at over asking price. In fact, activity during this year has seemed to pick up, despite the latest news about the subprime loans. Needless to say, I got off the phone with this friend, and decided to do some of my own research on the issue.

As a result, I placed a phone call to one of our mortgage brokers, Rochelle, at my Coldwell Banker office. Just so you know, we have two mortgage brokers at our office, and both are amazing, honest, experienced brokers who will give you the real story without sugarcoating. Here's what I learned:

Causes

• At times, subprime lenders were giving loans to individuals with less than optimal FICO scores and income levels. Many of these loans are adjustable, so that after a 5 (or 7, 10, etc) year fixed, low rate, the new rate adjusts to a higher rate. The result is higher monthly payments, which at times concided with an individual having a pay cut. The effect was that the person couldn't afford the loan, and would enter default.
  

• New Century is a huge subprime lender that has had trouble and gone bankrupt. A huge number of their clients were being foreclosed.
  

• Lenders are scared to make subprime loans because they fear that the loan may enter default, which is not a good position for the lender.

Issues

• People who had adjustable rate mortgages now want to refinance, but some of those people were given subprime loans. As a result of the tightening up, now they are not qualifying to refinance because they are still subprime and lenders don't want to take the risk.
  

• Harder to get pre-approvals for people with stated income documentation and lower FICO scores.

• Each day, lenders are taking away certain subprime programs and changing the guidelines. Lenders have stricter guidelines.

Bottom Line

• If you have previously been pre-approved, you need to do so again as guidelines have changed. Some lenders and mortgage brokers are adding clauses that say the particular pre-approval is effective as of the day the letter was created.

• Higher income areas seem more shielded at the moment. Not many, or very few, foreclosures are occurring in higher cost areas.

• If you are qualified to buy and can show full documentation, lenders are still giving great terms on loans.
  

My Opinion

If you are qualified to buy a home, then this subprime market mumbo jumbo shouldn't affect you too much. Basically, it seems lenders are restricting standards to a level that they should have been at all along. The main population impacted are those who purchased a bigger home than they could afford and were able to do so by taking advantage of lenient loan programs. The main story is that the latest restriction is creating a forced responsibility amongst home buyers to ensure they are only buying what they can afford.

How does this affect the housing market?

Hard to say. Currently, the Westside seems to be doing just fine. Many properties are selling in multiple offers at over asking price. As long as people are qualified to buy, then they can go ahead and buy the home that they want.

Westside Real Estate Market Trend from 2005 to 2006

Almost on a daily basis, I hear someone say that the market is going down, or the bubble is going to burst, or prices have dropped, or some doomsday outlook on real estate. I think it is important that we get our facts straight, and realize that there really has not been a significant drop in most Westside communities, and in fact, there has been appreciation across the area.

Recently I attended a Coldwell Banker joint office meeting, where Pat Veling from Real Data Strategies spoke about the state of the market. I was able to grab some of his slides that indicate the market in Los Angeles is not doing so bad after all. This first image shows the average price that properties were selling for across all of Los Angeles that were calculated for each quarter (in yellow). In red/pink, the number of listings sold each quarter is plotted. There are 9 quarters that span over 2 years worth of data, and the 2 year average price trend is up 14%, and 2.4% over the past year. Bottom line: PRICES HAVE GONE UP ON THE AVERAGE !!!!!!!!!! So has anything dropped over the past two years? Yes. Sales activity is down 15.4 % over the past year. Ultimately, this means that fewer properties have been selling, but those that have been selling have sold for more than they did in the previous year.

Let's take a closer look at some of the Westside communities. Santa Monica has done GREAT! While it holds true that the number of units selling has gone down over the past couple of years, the price trend is UP UP UP!!!! The two year average price trend is up 44.7 % and the one year average price trend is up 17.4 %. Although Santa Monica has done great, Brentwood did not have as strong a year in 2006 as in 2005. The one year average price trend was down 17% but the two year average price trend was up 3%. All in all, not a bad situation.

Farmer's Markets in Los Angeles

If you are like me, you love going to the Farmer's Market to get fresh flowers, fruit, or pastries. I was curious to see how often a Farmer's Market occurs in Los Angeles, and here is what I found. On the Westside of Los Angeles, you can find a different market each day of the week!

Monday

1. West Hollywood: Plummer Park, north lot, 1200 N. Vista St. at Fountain Avenue. 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (323) 848-6502.
   

Tuesday

1. Culver City: Main Street between Venice and Culver boulevards, 2 to 7 p.m. (310) 253-5775

Wednesday

1. La Cienega CFM at Kaiser West L.A.: 6041 Cadillac Ave., Los Angeles, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (562) 495-1764.
2. Santa Monica: Arizona Avenue at Third Street, 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (EBT). (310) 458-8712.
3. Westchester: West 87th Street between Truxton Avenue and Sepulveda Eastway, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. (310) 568-9095.

Thursday

1. Century City: Constellation Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. (818) 591-8161.
2. El Segundo: Main Street between Holly and Pine avenues, 3 to 7 p.m. (310) 615-2649.
3. La Cienega: La Cienega Plaza, 1801 S. La Cienega Blvd., 3 to 7:30 p.m. during daylight savings (EBT). (562) 495-1764.

Friday

1. Venice: Venice Way and Venice Boulevard, 7 to 11 a.m. (EBT). (310) 399-6690.

Saturday

1. Santa Monica (Pico): Virginia Avenue Park, corner of Pico and Cloverfield boulevards. 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.. (EBT). (310) 458-8712
2. Santa Monica (Saturday Organic): Arizona Avenue and 3rd Street, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.(EBT). (310) 458-8712.

Sunday

1. Beverly Hills: 9300 block of Civic Center Drive. 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. (310) 550-4796.
2. Brentwood: South Gretna Green Way and San Vicente Boulevard, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (818) 591-8161.
3. Mar Vista: Grandview Blvd between Venice Blvd. and Pacific Ave., 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (310) 621-2966.
4. Santa Monica: 2640 Main St. at Ocean Park Boulevard and Main Street, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. (EBT) (310) 458-8712.
5. West Los Angeles: 11360 Santa Monica Blvd, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (310) 281-7855.

That about does it for Westside Farmer's Markets. The list would be huge if I included all the markets across Los Angeles. For a complete list, visit this LA Times page.

Look for future posts to include information about the vendors that work at some of these markets. If you would like to write a little information about your business or product at one of these markets, I encourage you to do so.

Start your engines...

Hey Everyone,

I am excited to be starting a new blog about Los Angeles real estate and community happenings. Because I work in real estate, I often engage in conversations with people about many topics that I think will be interesting to those surfing the web. I want to share these thoughts and conversations with you, and invite you to contribute your own thoughts or questions. Ultimately, I hope to make this site as interactive as possible. If there is something you would like more information about, then leave a comment or send me an email and I will create a post.

Also, having lived on the Westside for a number of years, I know that the area has a lot to offer. Honestly, I love Los Angeles because it has something for everyone. I would like to use this blog to tell you about places that I find to be "hot spots." I will talk about cool restaurants, tasty restaurants, hip bars, great beaches, malls, workout spots, and really anything that I think makes Los Angeles a great place to live. This blog will only be as good as the people who read it, so if you care to agree or disagree, then I implore you to leave a comment.

So this brings me to explaining the title. In real estate, we are often showing properties. In this blog, I will be talking about real-estate related topics AND about the city, and hence the title "Showing Los Angeles." Thanks for taking some time to read my blog, and I look forward to building this page as time moves forward. Ladies and Gentlemen, START YOUR ENGINES!