The Case Against Buying New Construction
The popularity of new construction homes cannot be denied and new costruction is especially common in Playa Vista, a newer overall community. Who doesn’t want to be able to move right in without doing any work, never use a stove that used to cook someone else’s food, never use a …
Sales as a Percentage of Listings are Down in a Big Way in ’19
Sometimes it is necessary to create a metric to support an assumption based on one’s experiences. The experience in question is that in 2019 a lot of listings are not selling. The metric I created is sales as a percentage of listings (SL Percentage). This is calculated by dividing the …
The Legal Ramifications of Emojis in the Modern World
Can a knife emoji double as a threat to kill someone? Does a heart emoji from a manager constitute sexual harassment? More emojis are showing up in court cases throughout the United States. Attorneys are having to argue for different interpretations of the small illustrated characters that are used to …
Price Per Square Foot – The Most Overrated Metric in Valuing Residential Real Estate
There are a lot of misleading metrics in real estate, but the most misused or irrelevant one that is so commonly referred to when attempting to value a property is price per square foot. Price/sf is only useful in valuation when comparing properties that are apples to apples or when …
Where is the Playa Vista Market Heading?
It is inaccurate to speak of the real estate market in general in terms of good, bad, or otherwise. Markets vary by location, price point, and localized supply and demand trends. It is similarly inaccurate to refer to the Playa Vista market in general terms since there are wide array …
Dealing With HOA’s
In Playa Vista and many other places, HOA’s or Home Owners Associations are a fact of life. They create and enforce rules that add stability to communities and manage common facilities that no one owner would have the manpower to manage. On the other hand, many people find them intrusive, …
Drop in Interest Rates Spurs Market Enthusiasm
The Playa Vista real estate market has rebounded from a dreadful second half of 2018 and a lukewarm first couple of months of 2019 to become red hot in late March and early April. While some of this may be attributable to the finally dry weather conditions, this seems mainly …
Key Points from Housing Seminar at Loyola Marymount University
For the third year in a row, I was fortunate to be invited to speak as the residential real estate expert at the LMU faculty housing seminar, which was conducted this week on campus. The turnout generally consists of tenure or tenure track faculty who are looking to put down …
Stock Market Implosion Threatens Real Estate Values
In recent weeks, major U.S. stock markets have lost between 16-26% of their value. A 20% loss in value is considered a bear market, so we have now entered that territory in the NASDAQ and are close with the Dow Jones and S&P 500. After nearly 10 years of a …
The Santa Slump – Why December Should be the Best Month to Buy a Property
After participating in a few slow open houses in Playa Vista this weekend, it got me thinking, why isn’t home buying more popular in December? While there are obvious reasons why it could be inconvenient to buy in December – shorter days, worse weather, shopping and social obligations, or waiting …