Buyer Resources

Today, there were 19 homes on the Palos Verdes Real Estate Broker's Tour. We currently have 274 active single family homes for sale in Palos Verdes ranging in price from $785,000 in Rancho Palos Verdes ($479,000 in Eastview) to $18,900,000 in Rolling Hills. There are 64 townhomes/condos for sale priced between $259,000 and $2,000,00. My favorites today are: Rick Edler's 1200 Via Landeta,...

The big news yesterday was that home resales nationally rose more than forecast in September. Sales of existing units rose 5.5% in September to the highest level in a year. Inventory of homes for sale fell 1.6% in September which was the second month in a row to show a decline. The biggest sales gain was in the West, where sales increased 16.8%. What does this mean for owners of Palos Verdes real...

Statistics for single family homes for the month of September for Palos Verdes Real Estate are now available. There were 31 closed escrows (30 in August) and 15 pending sales (35 in August). Active homes for sale have remained fairly constant (276 in September) for the last 4 months and up from the same period a year ago (227 in September 2007). Average price for homes that closed escrow in...

Today, there 21 homes on the Palos Verdes Real Estate Broker's Tour. We currently have 282 active single family homes for sale in Palos Verdes ranging in price from $785,000 in Rancho Palos Verdes ($619,000 in Eastview) to $18,900,000 in Rolling Hills. There are 64 townhomes/condos for sale priced between $270,000 and $2,000,000. My favorites today are: Cora Fischer's 1605 Via Barcelona,...

Yesterday, the Fed lowered interest rates one-half a percent. The Fed Fund Rate now stands at 1.5% and the Discount Rate is 1.75%. What do you think happened with home mortgage rates? No, they did not go down but went up instead one-half a percent. A 30-year fixed loan at zero points for Palos Verdes real estate (and elsewhere) is 6 .375% conforming, 6.5% jumbo conforming and 7.5% for jumbo...

I have had several clients ask questions regarding foreclosure properties. There have not been too many on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Foreclosures are not your normal purchase and a buyer is usually on his own (unless he hires a Realtor to act as his Buyer's Agent to help him navigate through the process). Here is the time-line for the process. A NOD property is one that has a Notice of Default...

Today, there were 26 homes on the Palos Verdes Real Estate Broker's Tour. We currently have 275 active single family homes fo sale in Palos Verdes ranging in price from $799,000 in Rancho Palos Verdes ($619,000 in Eastview) to $18,900,000 in Rolling Hills. There are 55 townhomes for sale priced between $279,900 and $2,000,000. My favorites today are: Kitty and Rick Edler's 209 Rocky Point...

30-year fixed interest rates are down today compared to the beginning of the month. Jumbo loans actually went down 1/2% today (30-year fixed). The remainder of the loan products quoted above are up one-eighth of a percent since the beginning of the month. There are many changes in the wind for mortgages. The word is that by December jumbo conforming loans will be gone. No income verification...

Lenders have been cautioning us for months to make sure our clients pull out cash from their home-equity line of credit if they are going to use it to purchase a home (without selling their existing home and avoid a bridge loan). Many buyers are also using their home-equity line of credit to purchase second homes or income property. The caution has been to have buyers immediately get that cash and...

Recently, I answered a question on Trulia Voices regarding property taxes for Palos Verdes real estate and thought it was worth a mention here also. When a property is purchased, it is reassessed by the Los Angels County Tax Assessor using the sales price as the base. The new property tax will be 1% of the purchase price plus any local bonds and assessments (usually averages another .0025 of the...