The Malibu Real Estate Blog

Yes, there are a lot of foreclosures going on in many parts of California, but the Westside and Malibu seem to be a shelter in the storm. Check out these stats from the  TerraFirmaLA Blog. 

FORECLOSURES – June 1-Dec. 31, 2007

Valley areas not doing so well

• Woodland Hills (91364, 91367) – 100 foreclosures
• Tarzana (91356) – 69 foreclosures
• Encino (91316, 91436) – 54 foreclosures
• Sherman Oaks (91403, 91423) – 43 foreclosures
• Studio City (91604, 91602) – 32 foreclosures
• West Hollywood (90046, 90069) – 27 foreclosures

Areas doing well 

• Miracle Mile (90036, 90048) – 7 foreclosures
• Beverly Hills (90210, 90211, 90212) – 3 foreclosures
• Brentwood (90049) – 6 foreclosures
• Bel Air/Holmby Hills (90077) – 11 foreclosures

Prime areas

• Sawtelle/West L.A. (90025) – 6 foreclosures
• Westwood (90024) – 11 foreclosures
• Cheviot Hills/Rancho Park (90064) – 3 foreclosures
• Pacific Palisades (90272) – 4 foreclosures
• Venice (90291) – 1 foreclosure
• Santa Monica (90401, 90403, 90404, 90405) – 10 foreclosures
• Santa Monica (90402) – not available (north of Montana where there were likely few)

And Malibu (90265) 1 FORECLOSURE So where are you going to invest in real estate?  Click here to find out about foreclosures by zip code.  Here’s a chart where you’d better hope you didn’t buy something recently. Source: RealtyTrac.com 

Here are the top ten sites for December.  Realtor.com is leading the pack with Trulia recently passing up Zillow and looking to gain ground. Why is this important? Because everybody starts online when it comes to finding a home. 85% this year will and I estimate that the number will rise to 95% in next few years. Realtor.com gets 5 million hits alone each month.  

One advantage Prudential Malibu has is that we have signed a deal with Yahoo, as you may have seen the recent ads, and  we exclusively get all real estate leads generated online. If someone does a real estate search in Malibu and needs more information our office at Cross Creek gets the call, even if the home is listed at another brokerage. Try it out by doing  a Malibu search at Yahoo Real Estate.

 Years ago a client might ask their agent “How many showings are we getting each week?” or “How many calls”? The new question will be “How many hits did we get?” Good agents will monitor their web traffic and keep you up to date by sending the graphs and data to you. If you are getting a ton of hits but no showings, then maybe the listing price is too high. If you are getting hits and showings, then keep the price as is. There is another site that is not mentioned but has tremendous power in selling a home. Craigslist.com has a real estate section and I always put an add online. That simple add generates over 500 page views and 5000 hits per month. See example below.

Bottom line. Times are a changing! If you are going to list your home you better have an agent who has a foot in the internet arena. I personally have my listings at 4 of the sites mentioned above. Try asking your current agent how many hits you are getting each month. If he or she looks confused and can’t answer,  then it’s time for a new agent. Here’s a number to one that can answer it, confidently! See the proof below for my beach house listing at www.43000pch.com. 1 310 699 8428. Ask for me, Mike G.   

For $329,000 you can purchase a 1 bed, 1 bath mobile home  with 500 sq. ft. of living space and walk to Paradise Cove beach in about 2 minutes. It has good tires, a strong axle, and current registration. Only 600 yards to the east is another home for sale at $75,000,000. This home boasts an 11,000 sq. ft. main residence, 7 acres of bluff above the sand, 3 guest houses, numerous stables, pool and guess what? It also takes about two minutes to get to the sand. Call me when you are ready to see the second home…I mean either home. 

Here’s what I find so interesting. Can you think of any other place in the world where the price of real estate can be so different in essentially the same neighborhood?  The mobile home park at Paradise Cove sits right along a  section of PCH where most of the estate homes immediately to the east run from $20m-$75m! Only in Malibu.

These price differences can be found all over Malibu. There’s Broad Beach where most home run $10m-$30m. Sharing the same street is a little community of homes, not on the beach, starting at $2m. These homes share the beach with the more expensive homes too. Here’s another example. There are some homes just a block or so off PCH with  ocean views and flat land that may be $6m where they sit. But if you were to take that same property and place it 5 miles up Latigo it might only be worth $3m. That 10 minute drive can save you millions!  Check it out on Google Maps Google maps

First I need to disclose that this parcel is not buildable and more than likely not well suited for crops or anything else for that matter. There are no comps supporting the price and don’t bother asking for any reports. Good news though, you do get to own a piece of Malibu. What you get is  1/3 of a cubic foot of prime pre-earthquake dirt in  a plexiglass box that is destined to be a “priceless museum piece” when Malibu and Southern Califorinia fall into the sea. Yes, someone is selling some Malibu dirt online.  If you are interested you can find it here on Ebay. 

This brings me to  a question that I often get from buyers, “What is the cheapest land in Malibu?”  Well, for about $60-$90k I can find you a piece of land. There will probably be “great views” and “abundant wildlife” but what are you really getting? More than likely you will get a 1/4 acre located on the steep portion of a mountain top and it may not have any access unless you get an easement from a neighbor. In other words a useless piece of land. Okay, so what about $200-$400k? For that price  you may get a few reports and access to power and water. It still may be challenging to build on and in need of major investment before you can even think about applying for a permit.  

So here’s the “Low Down on the High End” with Malibu real estate.  The lower the price the greater the chance that it will be extremely difficult to build on. If you want to build then there really is no “cheap land” in Malibu. A good piece of land with stable geology, access to water and power, and permits will run at least $750,000. The price goes up from there if it has good ocean views, is flat , and not too far away from PCH. Land like this will be close to $1,000,000 an acre.