Tracking L.A.: South Pasadena 91030

There are foreclosures in South Pasadena, but not many -- Redfin counts only three for sale, including 1800 Meridian Avenue. Details:

Two bedrooms, one bath, 1,042 square feet on a 4,099 square-foot lot. Agent's description:

This is a contractor's dream in a upscale neighborhood of South Pasadena. Lots of potential, this is a fixer. Has no kitchen or bathroom. Buyer needs to verify all information. Please use caution when showing. Location, location, location the home is located within the recently recognized California Distinguished School. Good size lot.

Has no kitchen or bathroom. Now that's a fixer.

More on 91030, from Redfin

Date                              Oct. 8

--Listed for sale             61
(home and condos)
--Foreclosures for sale       3
--Median list price        $749,000 
--Median sales price*    $775,000
--Median sold price per square foot: $421
--Median days listed        65
--% reduced in price        32.9%
--Median total reduction   8.9%

*Based on homes sold or taken off the market in the previous 90 days

--Peter Viles

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to Peter Viles

Photo Credit: Gus's Bar-B-Q, in South Pasadena, by L.A. Times.

Comments

[syscom3]

I thought that the building code required every dwelling to have a bathroom and a food preparation area.

Unless this unit was 1/2 way through a remodel and the construction stopped.

[Drew]

I saw one recently that had no heat -- the furnace had been recalled by the manufacturer and had not been replaced.

[tonylogan]

Peter -

Story idea. Maybe I am wrong on this, but...

I am struggling to figure out what the point of these "sales" prices are. When I go through propertyshark I find most of these "sales" are actually just the bank taking back possession of the property at a still inflated price.

When I find (at least partial) evidence of an actual sale to another human being, along with a down payment of at least 10%, I find the median "sales" prices are MUCH lower than the numbers seem to indicate.

This appears to be a major "flaw" in Zillow, Redfin, etc.

It is almost like the real estate community is conspiring to make us loser renters believe prices will never go down.

[Uncle Billy Is Shocked]

"Has no kitchen or bathroom. Now that's a fixer."

Hehe, that's actually almost a popular joke.

What's a princess's dream home?

5,000 square feet, no kitchen, no bedroom.

[Mary C.]

I don't think you'd find any lender to make a loan on that. It's not habitable. And I'm sure it would not appraise for that price. Is there anyone with that kind of ready cash to pick up this type of property? That price might be high if it were habitable, I don't care where it's located.

[bigunit]

Pretty sure the buyer wouldn't be able to obtain FNMA backed financing due to lack of bathroom & kitchen.

[FreedomCM]

and 6 obvious short sales.

and who knows how many houses refi-ed and heloc'd up so as to be not-so-obvious short sales

[Gene]

Hi Peter,

How come when you refer to a random home for sale, you cite the Redfin website? Why not use one of the real estate firms that actually advertise on the LA Times website or in the newspaper? By constantly promoting Redfin and giving them all this free advertising, you, by default, lessen the impact of the firms that actually buy ads. Perhaps to the extent that they won't be able to by ads in the future.

Do they pay you to insert their website links? It sure looks like it. Better to spread the love, my friend.

[puckhead]

I actually saw this house. Not only does it not have a kitchen or bathroom, it does not have plumbing, wiring, a heater or air conditioning. It is literally 4 walls and that's it. It looks like someone was in the middle of a remodel and ran out of money. The bank got hosed on this one.

[Laker]

....4,099 square-foot lot. Agent's description: Good size lot....

WHAT???
4000 sqft lot is the size of my lawn in front of my house....What can you fit there? After all setbacks, city codes, frontage, etc, you will be left with 2000 sqft lot. Unless you are building a 3 story house, you have a bungalow. this is crazy. A lot like that with no kitchen and bath should cost about $100,000 for land value. not $470,000

[Jeff]

ahh, but after rolling out of your tent in the yard, brushing your teeth from the garden hose, you can head off to South Pasadena's excellent schools!

[Mondo]

And they don't tell you the beast part. This property is El Sereno "Adjacent" :)

[geomath]

Mary C.,you can get something called a "hard money" loan on a house like this one. Someone else correct me if I'm using the wrong terminology; I'm talking about the loans investors can get when they buy jacked up houses with the intention of fixing them and (usually) reselling or renting them out.

Of course, these days hard money loans are probably in short supply. Lots of idiots who had no idea what they were doing took them out during the bubble frenzy, realized they'd bitten off way more than they could chew, and ended up abandoning their "project houses." (As others have pointed out, that could be what happened in the present case.)

Stuff like this is heartbreaking, because some idiot took a beautiful, historic home and ruined it.

Laker wrote:
------A lot like that with no kitchen and bath should cost about $100,000 for land value. not $470,000-----

I agree. The banks are starting to act like stupid FSBO's WRT pricing their properties according to what THEY want to make instead of what the property is actually worth. (No offense to FSBO's in general--I sold two houses FSBO--but y'all know what I mean. Too many FSBO's are stupid, cheap and don't want to do the work involved with selling a house, which gives the rest of us a bad rep.)

[Anonymous]

1. $456 PSF for a place without a bathroom or a kitchen? We're still in the bubble, people. Look at how fast the capitulation happened in the stock market after the delusions finally wore off. It will probably not happen as fast in the high end of real estate, but it's going to happen eventually. You'll know when capitulation happens. Even you won't want to buy a house.

2. Redfin is the best site to link to. They are getting this free advertising because they built the best free site for real estate.

[Laker]

Laker,

A 4100 is tiny lot for most properties. But it's actually a decent size lot for South Pasadena. The city is completly built out. The only space where you can build a new house is on a hillside where you have to to dig into and then level the hill. Very expensive and then you have to deal with getting it insured. Prices have held up extremlely well in SoPas (trust me I've been looking for house for over a year) because of;

Lack of space = lack of houses
Very good public schools
About as close as you can get to downtown LA w/o being in a ghetto.
Has a very charming small town feel to it.

It's covers really most everything of what people are looking for in a neighborhood. But I agree that $474K is ridiculous for a lot, four walls and a roof.

[It All Happens on the Margin]

puckhead:

when you threw the gauntlet down to the bears to sell and short the market some months back, it was the best advice ever.

thank you, btw - i did put my money where my mouth was/is - bought DXDSX and my portfolio has performed brilliantly.

Now, as we watch the early warning signs of the upper end markets, as Saks, Neiman Marcus, BMW, M-B, and other high end harbingers report earnings at this early stage, comes the next part of your sarcastic prediction... high end R-E.

[puckhead]

It All Happens at the Margin,

Hey, I was wrong about how bad the credit crisis was. Shoot me. I'm also not stubborn enough to admit I was wrong, hence my hedge on gold, ST Treasuries and sitting on a pile of cash. Don't get too greedy about your short position. Much of the selling taking place now is the result of large hedge funds dealing with redemptions and piling on in shorting the market to try to save their year. I think the market will go down more and won't recover until the credit markets also recover. But I would not sit on a short position forever. At some point, enough of the banking system will be nationalized that credit will flow.

As for my RE prediction, again, find any of my posts where I said that high end RE will not go down. If you can, I will never bother anyone again on this blog. If you can't, then just STFU.

[It All Happens on the Margin]

puck:

if I recall (and I don't have the 30 minutes to trudge thru the old posts) your statement was something like "if you guys think its so bad out there, put your money where your mouth is, sell and short everything - because that's what it's going to take to see the price correction you're all hoping for." I'm obviously paraphrasing.

so again, all kidding aside, I thank you. I'm not all in on the bear market mutual - which has been an excellent hedge (even surpassing) the consumer staples and entertainment mutuals i own.

my point is simply this: it all happens on the margin. and high end RE is the last to go - perhaps during a turnaround in the equity markets as it is a slow changing dimension.

and don't go anywhere - I enjoy your commentary quite a bit. I just knew I'd find you on the South Pas post...