Glendale, CA

Today's video answer addresses the question, " The Glendale home I want to buy has an unpermitted addition. What should I do?" Now, I apologize in advance. This answer got a bit windy - nearly 5 minutes of wind. You might not want to sit through the whole darn thing. After the video I have a short summary of points written out. No, the owner is not going to get you permits. They are perfectly fine with the home as it is. Every buyer asks the same questions:

1. will I have problems while I own it and
2. will I have problems when I sell?

In order to assess this you need to look at the following:

1. How important is the space?
   1. How big? Any plumbing? Is the added space a key area like a bathroom or bedroom suite?
2. How does it look?
   1. Does it look like it is quality workmanship or just slapped together?
3. Is it too close to the lot lines?
   1. If the addition pushed the exterior of the home too close to the neighbor, there could be trouble down the line
4. What does your home inspector think?

If everything looks good to you, it is probable that you will be fine in the future. Just make sure that you do not offend a Glendale city inspector in your home to inspect other stuff or your present/future neighbors. When you sell the home, make sure you disclose the unpermitted space as soon as possible. As a professional, I have to say there are no guarantees and you always take a risk with unpermitted space. Only you can assess if the risk is worth the house. If it is, make an offer that is less than a home with similar, permitted space, and more than a home with no extra space at all.

There are 17 homes on the sold list for last week! This is more than double the homes reported sold in last few weeks, so the trend continues in a positive direction. Below are the ones that caught my eye.

<!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --> <!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --> <!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --> <!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --> <!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --> <!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP -->

Address	City	Bd	Bth	SqFt	LotSz	List Price	Sale Price
1125 Shirlyjean St	Sparr Hts	3	3	1,817	7732sf	629,000	607,000
2050 Rangeview Dr	Northwest	3	2	1,404	8251sf	617,000	622,000
4555 Indiana Ave	La Canada	2	1	1,034	10754sf	725,000	695,000
3129 Buckingham Rd	Chevy Chase	4	3	2,733	10486sf	844,000	780,000
1551 Cleveland Rd	Northwest	4	3	2,344	17940sf	870,000	900,000
2055 W Mountain St	Northwest	3	3	2,670	15224sf	1,049,000	1,030,000

1125 Shirleyjean is not really Sparr Hts, but it seams silly to start a catagory for this small enclave of homes off La Crescenta Ave. This home was on the market for about a million years as a trust sale. We are glad to see someone move in at long last!

2050 Rangeview was a hot ticket when it came on the market, attracting multiple offers in a week or so. This is one of 2 on my list that sold over asking.

4555 Indiana is a quirky street in La Canada that lies under the massive electical towers near Armstrong's. Even in this uneven market you can't buy under a million in La Canada proper without some kind of major ding.

3129 Buckingham is an exceedingly cool hideaway house tucked pretty far into the canyon. I thought this home would fly off the shelf, but I was wrong. Congratulations to the lucky buyer!

1551 Cleveland - congratulations to the buyer! I know you made an excellent choice - nearly 18,000 sf lot for $900,000. I can't wait to see what you will do with this home lot.

2055 Mountain is that lovely LOL home with the sopisticated look. I believe I called it the home of the arrive-ed. This is an excellent forever house and I hope the buyers are so happy they stay - a whole long time.

Click here for a report on all the solds for the week.

Market Index

A market index of above 1.20 is a seller’s market, between 0.80 to 1.20 is a balanced market, and below 0.80 is a buyer’s market.

Our up and down market continues, 0.30 for September after 0.33 in August.

New Listings

One hundred seventy two new listings, compared to 134 last September. It is unusual for the new listings to increase, probably due to more forced sales.

Pending Ratio

That big jump in new listings affected the Pending Ratio, only 47 homes opened escrow giving us a ratio of 0.27, about half of the 0.55 we experienced in August. Interestingly 0.27 is the same ratio we had a year ago.

Listing Inventory

Three hundred forty five homes this month, up eleven from August. Last year we had 490, so we can see that although new listings has increased, total inventory is lower.

Sold Listings

Fifty-six homes sold, compared to 39 last year, down slightly from the 61 homes sold in August.

Average Sale Price

Dropped to $548,107, down 26.7% from last year. This was due in part to the size of homes sold this month (smaller). <!--[if gte vml

Price Per Square Foot

Declined to $343, down 20% from last year.

Conclusions

Buyers are definitely taking advantage of the shift in prices. Homes that are properly prepared, marketed, and priced are selling with a few weeks, some with multiple offers.

Yes, the financial markets are scary.

No, Congress did not pass a bail out bill.

Yes, my clients, both buyers and sellers, are factoring in the current crisis when making their decisions to buy or sell. I had many in depth discussions about the news of the day.

But in every case, yesterday (4 decisions in all), the buyers decided that the decision to buy real estate is a sound long term decision and went forward with their purchases.

Why? Here's what I heard from these buyers:

1. I plan to stay here 10 or 15 years. I know the value will go up in that time.
2. The best deals are had when everyone else is scared.
3. This investment suits my needs
4. I love this house

I am not going to give you some Pollyanna drivel that the housing market is just fine. We are in a very troubled market and some people are going to get hurt.

What I am saying, however, is that no matter what, everyone has to live somewhere. No matter what, death, births, weddings and divorces, taxes, promotions and layoffs are going to happen. No matter what, some people need to buy and some people need to sell.

Opportunity is everywhere. Do you want to see it?

This is the sum total of sold homes this week in Glendale and Above the 134. The average escrow is 30 days long, so these are homes that opened escrow toward the end of August. Before we get started, though, I have a little bidness to take care of. (Never mind the dangling participle. It's not hurting anyone). I finally updated my Glendale sales numbers to include 3rd quarter. I was shocked - shocked, I tell you!- to find that the average sales price in Glendale has only dropped by 11%! The number of homes sold has dropped by nearly 30% and the number of homes available has dropped by 12%. The LA Times reporter who asked me to do these numbers asked the reasonable question, "why?". He was especially incredulous because his Dataquick numbers (this is a data crunching service that looks at the tax assessor records) show a 17% drop in Glendale prices. Why, indeed? I think there might be a large number of banks taking homes back from thier owners. This sort of transfer is not part of the MLS and the tax records would show low transfer values. If I am right, than this is scary news. It means there is a whole wave of REO homes about to flood the market. Anyone have a more hopeful theory? Ok, back to our regularly scheduled report... <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><span class="mceItemObject" classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></span> <mce:style><! st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } --> <!--[endif]--><!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --><!--[if gte mso 10]> <mce:style><! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} --> <!--[endif]--> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --><!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --><!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --><!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --><!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --><!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP --><!-- 1 Address --> <!-- 2 City --> <!-- 3 Map --> <!-- 15 Sale Price --> <!-- 16 SP%LP -->

Address	City	Bd	Bth	SqFt	LotSz	List Price	Sale Price
1515 5th ST	Northwest	2	0	816	6000sf	399,900	350,000
844 Grant Ave	Northwest	2	1	1,023	5500sf	440,000	440,000
2515 E Glenoaks	Chevy Chase	2	1	1,126	5160sf	574,000	550,000
5117 Maryland Ave	La Crescenta	4	4	2,129	9820sf	648,000	615,500
1421 Linden Ave	Northwest	3	2	1,637	5968sf	749,000	719,000
1325 Sinaloa Dr	Rossmoyne	3	2	2,703	6000sf	974,900	905,000
4089 Dover Rd	La Canada	4	3	2,468	41382sf	1,390,000	1,290,000

1515 5th Street is a 'Dozer Special, zoned for multiple units. This one took an astonishing 411 days to sell. More than a year! Of course, they started out at $679k. 844 Grant is the short sale from first quarter. They finally reduced the price, advertised it as an "approved" short sale, accepted an offer and still took over 3 months to close escrow. The banks want to know how they got themselves in this pickle? Complete inability to make business decisions would be my vote. Sheesh. 2515 E. Glenoaks was a very nice home and I am surpised it took over 2 months to sell it. However, it is a much smaller home than you would expect. It is very cute! 5117 Maryland is not the street near downtown. No, this is up in La Crescenta near New York, above Santa Carlotta. This clean home sold for $289/sf - that's a hella hella deal for someone! This had a house and guest house and a pool. Main house needed work. But still.... 1421Linden. This is a gorgeous house, lovely yard, dramatic master suite added by a talented architect. It seems well priced. The house is on the market for 10 days. It sells fo 4% less than asking in this very short marketing time. Seller must have been really motivated.... 1325 Sinaloa is an REO that needs needs needs. The kitchen remodel belongs in another house and there is very little yard. The location, however, is fantastic. This is the week of distressed sales! 4089 Dover Rd. is another 'Dozer Special, this time in La Canada. $1.3 million dollar 'dozer special. Honestly. This stuff can only happen in LA! Anyway, this listing agent gave it her very best - wrestling down the best deal she could for her seller. I think the new buyer is going to build their dream home and thank their lucky stars that they got in when they did. Want to know more? Want pictures, statistics, data? Ok, click here to view an MLS report of all the properties included on this report.