Seabluff Flats Sales Registration Begins Tuesday
Seabluff Flats, the long-awaited condo project by The New Home Company, being built on the site of the former farmers market parking lot is beginning priority sales registration on Tuesday, January 9th at 10:00 AM. Playa Vista dot com states that units are being offered “from the low $1 Millions” with the smallest units being microscopic 783 square foot, 2 bedroom, 2.5 bath and slightly more generous 838 square foot 1 bedrooms. The former, if assuming a $1M price tag, would be a minimum of $1,277 per square foot. Many of these and some of the larger plans are desperately-needed single-level units. With this excellent location, currently hot market, and almost no inventory, these prices may be favorably-received, however the timing of this registration seems a little early.
As you can see by the two photos below taken yesterday at the construction site, they are barely done framing the garage. With four stories of units still needing to be built above the garage which encompasses an entire square block, it seems unlikely they will be able to deliver any units before late this year at the earliest. For other recent new construction such as Everly, Mason, and Cleo, the initial sales registration was much closer to the first home deliveries (approx. 3 months). Why would The New Home Company do the priority registration now? Are they planning to do months of extensive analysis on what buyers want what units in order to properly allocate and maximize prices? Probably, but more likely, they are trying to accelerate the sales process with the concern that the market may change.
As a capitalist, I believe the developer should have every right to maximize their profit in whatever legal way they see fit and the market will be the judge of this decision. However as an advocate for buyers as well as current homeowners, I do not think it is overly suspicious to read into this decision and assess their motivation or use it to derive future expectations about the market. On the surface, this seems like a smart decision just as waiting until the last minute to commit to prices for Everly was a wise decision in a scorching hot market with room to run. This is why it is so important to have an ethical, experienced, and local buyer’s representative working for you when you purchase. Either way, it is exciting to see this project finally come together to complete phase I homes.
