$$$ homes for sale

I just did some adding up...point south magazine shows over 100 million dollars of real estate available in the lakeside area. Can this be true?

$100,000,000 is not a lot of money theses days.

I would have thought it was even higher. Last I heard there was almost 1000 houses on that local MLS. If you gave them an average price of 150K you would have 150 million.

Aren't people buying now? There are/were so many new faces in town this season - they're not buying houses?

Probably, I know three people who recently bought and two more who are looking. They all bought for under 250K.

That sounds right.
Wonder what the Canadian/American ratio is these days for buyers. So many of my old friends on FB are disgusted and want to leave the US. Those that can are, one just packed up his 90 year old dad and moved to a beautiful house outside of Chiang Mai and 2 of my best old friends are coming in Sept. They're younger but desperate to find a way out. And the election hasn't even happened yet!
I think the real estate market is going to pick up.

Yep, depending on the outcome we could get a nice spike in the RE values around here......jaja. All the people I was referring to were American's. I think the Canadian's are holding off due to the low loonie.

The houses that are selling are at the low end of the market. Here are the pending sales currently showing on the MLS. Prices in USD. These are all for homes, no land sales included.

34 under 200K
8 200K - 300K
4 300K - 400K
2 400K - 500K
2 500K - 600K
0 600K - 1 million
1 over 1 million

Trailrunner wrote:Aren't people buying now? There are/were so many new faces in town this season - they're not buying houses?

All those new faces rented for the season, they don't buy.  They are just tourists.

I think the Chapala RE market is very weak. 51 pending MLS sales out of 1000 MLS listings is SLOW, SLOW, SLOW.

Nope. Not true, beach boy.
I personally met several people who were here among the snowbirds/tourists who were scouting to move here. And more on the way.
Where are you?

Trailrunner wrote:Nope. Not true, beach boy.
I personally met several people who were here among the snowbirds/tourists who were scouting to move here. And more on the way.
Where are you?

I hope you are right trailrunner.  My family has a beautiful home for sale in Chula Vista.  Almost 2 years on the market.  Good thing that there is no mortgage payments and property taxes are puny.  We can sit and wait to get our "give it away" price.

Most of these tourists scouting during their vacations are mostly dreamers. I talk to dozens of them a month. Very few of those tourist turn those dreams into reality.

With half the potential buyers, Canadians, sitting on the sidelines this year because of the exchange rate, how can you say the market is good?  The numbers don't lie.  Even if 3 times that many homes closed, versus the pending numbers, this "high" season, that is still less than a 20% turnover of the available inventory.  That is a weak market.  I would bet there are a lot of homes for sale not on the MLS too.

Where am I?  THE SHADOW KNOWS

I think the market is better here than the previous 4 years. The American economy has recovered and they are returning. Combine that with the political situation in the US and the rising CDN $$$ (it went up .09 last two weeks) and this could be a good year for RE around here. It will probably never be like 2004 - 2008 again but you may even sell your place Playa.

This is totally unreliable information based on talking briefly with a number of visitors to the recent Open Studios event.  Many were from my old home state, California.  They were saying that they're scouting around because "California is becoming impossible". Now, that I can understand. Home values in the Job-rich areas are going through the moon, and the property taxes are heading in the same direction.  Many of these people were apparently in their fifties and early sixties and we know who gets laid off first in industry, si?

Some of the lookers seemed like the kind of nice, level headed folks we'd like to have as neighbors.  As we've all heard, the middle class has been getting clobbered back in the states and the pleasant climate and scenery here is a real draw.

I wouldn't be surprised to see at least a small influx of buyers soon.
Some of them are looking at the higher end houses because they seem to be a great bargain when a very modest CA home is way up there in price in this economy.

That would be great! Would love to see more westcoasties move here.

Fixer-upper 1 and 2 bedroom shacks in Marin County, where I moved here from, are selling for millions. Plural! And the taxes. . .omg!

Yes, a million-dollar house in my former area of California is in a glorified tract or a formerly middle-class neighborhood that is now trendy.

The same thing is going on in Vancouver and Toronto...verrrry hot markets and many many homes are selling for way over the asking price and the asking price is sky high.
Yes the loonie sucks but getting a whole lot of them for your house may still bring Canadians down. You can get a lot more house here than there...and the climate? Priceless.

I know of 3 houses that sold in the last month; $200,000, $310,000, and $480,000. Friends are arriving in early April and looking to buy. Things are not too bad.

Back in the 60's I rented a large studio apartment between Westwood & Santa Monica for $95.00/month. Now I'm sounding like my father.

My Moms house outside of Seattle went up 20% last year. Portland Oregun is close. All these places mentioned like Marin (accross the GG bridge from SF), Toronto, and Vancouver are all places people want to live. I bet you can still get a heck of a deal in Lodi or Stockton in the San J. Valley!! Homes do appear to be moving better lakeside than before but high end is still a dog market. Its better, much better.

Z

Economically, the USA traditional cycle of real estate markets are; to drop in value before a recession and for the rebond to lag behind general economic recovery. Much of the USA's economy is doing better, so we should be seeing better activity.

Does anyone have numbers for the housing units sold lakeside during this past high season?

We are seeing better activity. The houses that are selling are priced right and in desirable locations. I have seen some houses sell in days, not weeks, months, or years. They were priced to sell. Many of the houses on the market were purchased in the high times and the owners think they can recoup their money. It ain't gonna happen. They should be priced 40% to 50% lower.

I don't house shop so can't answer to that, but seeing what people ask for their used furniture and other belongings in garage sales and on BBBS rings true to what you say CB, 40 to 50% too much! At least thats my observation.

I agree, Trailrunner.

Lady Otter Latté wrote:I agree, Trailrunner.

The best way to get rid of "stuff" is to turn the selling process over to someone in the business. Garage sales are not only a poor way to do it, they're sort of humiliating to the seller.

Hensley is the best at it.