European buyers in L.A.

One of the trends we’ve seen lately – particularly with high-end properties – is increasing interest from foreigners in buying California real estate. In the last month alone, my office has been working with serious high-end buyers from Switzerland, England, Germany, Croatia and Greece. With the weak dollar, falling prices and many American buyers and investors keeping their money away from real estate, Europeans have sensed a buying opportunity. While many Americans are still waiting to see if the real estate market will still fall further in 2008 (and it might), buying now may be a smarter play for Europeans. Chances are that even if housing prices decline slightly more, they might not decline enough to compensate for the tremendous advantage the Euro has over the U.S. dollar right now. That means the Euro may buy you more now than it will 6 months or a year from now, even if prices decline. There’s no guarantee. But there’s also no denying that prime real estate in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California is at a deep discount for Europeans.

Scheduled Foreclosures – Where are the continuing problems in L.A.?

Back in January, I did a breakdown by zip code of where the foreclosures were happening – and where they weren’t. At that time, the numbers clearly showed that while many areas of Los Angeles were drowning in foreclosures, the area broadly defined as L.A.’s Westside was not hit as hard with foreclosures as other parts of Los Angeles. Since then, there’s been a number of reports talking about how the Westside has generally weathered the housing market decline better than elsewhere. This is not to say that the Westside has not seen declines. It has. In some areas, the declines have been significant. But overall, the drops in housing prices on the Westside have not been dramatic as elsewhere in Los Angeles.


So where are things going from here?

Well, we know that there are still plenty more mortgage resets coming yet this year. So we’re definitely not out of the woods yet. The nasty subprime resets peak later this year, so we may begin to see some relief later this year. But we also have many loan recasts of those nasty option ARM loans remaining. (Yuck!).

But still, these are likely to be more of a problem in some areas than others. The reason is that in some areas – like the Westside – where housing prices have held most of their ground, where there’s still a relatively low supply, and there’s still decent demand, it will be easier for people to get out of their predicaments by selling. You see, the prices and the foreclosures are symbiotic. So, we still need to look at foreclosures by neighborhood. And even though zip codes are too big of an area to truly be considered one neighborhood, it’s as close as we’ll get from the available data.

So this time I’ve decided to look forward a bit. The following are the numbers of scheduled foreclosure auctions between April 22^nd and May 22^nd for each zip code. The source is propertyshark.com:

SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

• Woodland Hills (91364, 91367) – 13
• Tarzana (91356) – 8
• Encino (91316, 91436) – 7
• North Hollywood (91601) – 5
• Sherman Oaks (91403, 91423) – 4
• Valley Village (91607) – 3
• Studio City (91604, 91602) – 1

LOS ANGELES

• West Hollywood (90046, 90069) – 12
• Echo Park (90026) – 4
• Silver Lake (90039) – 4
• Hollywood Hills (90068) – 2
• Miracle Mile (90036, 90048) -- 3
• Los Feliz (90027) – 1

PLATINUM TRIANGLE

• Beverly Hills (90210, 90211, 90212) – 2
• Brentwood (90049) -- 1
• Bel Air/Holmby Hills – 0

WESTSIDE

• Sawtelle/West L.A. (90025) – 1
• Westwood (90024) – 1
• Cheviot Hills/Rancho Park (90064) – 1
• Pacific Palisades (90272) – 0
• Venice (90291) – 0
• All of Santa Monica (90401, 90402, 90403, 90404, 90405) – 3

See what I mean. It’s not like this is La Puente (42), Inglewood (28), Norwalk (27) or West Covina (20).

Off-market Commercial Property

Many of my clients know me as a residential real estate agent.

But many others know me for something I've never previously discussed on this blog -- a source for amazing off-market commercial real estate.

I've previously worked for both residential and commercial agencies. And in my previous life as a journalist I wrote about both residential and commercial real estate. I have great contacts on both sides of the real estate fence. So it only makes sense that I straddle the fence in my business.

In the past month alone, in the commercial space, I've had clients write three multi-million-dollar offers on off-the-market commercial properties. Meanwhile, I've quietly shopped a $32 million and $130 million deal off the market. And I've put many more people in touch with dozens and dozens of off-market commercial properties that I'm aware of that are currently for sale all over the world -- but listed with no one.

So, while you may know me as the guy who just sold a condo in 3 weeks, or who sold your home for 99% of the asking price, or who is in touch with off-market mansions in Beverly Hills or Northern California wine country, I'm also the guy who can find you a great commercial property if you have a 1031 exchange burning a hole in your pocket.

OK, enough self promotion. My next post will be some serious market analysis.

Christopher featured in BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek recently did a special report on the state of luxury housing in the U.S. There were several articles in the report, and I was interviewed for and quoted in two of them.

Here are links to the full articles as well as the excerpts wherein I was quoted:

Where the Home Price Gaps Are Biggest

• Christopher Hain, a real estate agent with Ramsey-Shilling Associates in the Hollywood Hills, says homes of $10 million or more are in short supply in the Los Angeles area. In Beverly Hills, house prices at the lower end of the market—that is, $1 million or so—are much weaker than the top of the market, he says.

• "I'm working on three developments: $5 million homes in Brentwood, $6 million homes in Beverly Hills, and $27 million homes in Bel Air," he said. "Which one am I most confident in? The $27 million development. I know they're going to sell because there will be nothing compared to it."

How the Super-Rich Buy Homes

• A well-connected agent can find a buyer by calling another luxury agent or wealthy client interested in a great off-market listing with unique characteristics.

• "Lots of really good stuff, you don't even need to put on the market," says Christopher Hain, real estate agent with Hollywood Hills (Calif.)-based Ramsey-Shilling. "Agents facilitate the deal because it allows them to do both ends of the deal."

Land Trusts: Privacy and Protection of Your Property

A land trust is a little-known but highly effective way to shield your property from lawsuits and provide the utmost privacy.

One of my good friends and business associates, Ramon M. Gonzalez, Esq., is an expert on this subject.

So few people know about the possibility of holding property in land trusts that I wanted to help get the word out about -- especially in a town like this where there's such a need for private and protected ownership of property.

Here's a link to a PDF file that's an article Ramon has written that thoroughly explains the ins and out of land trusts: CLICK HERE

Or, if you'd like, you can simply contact Ramon at 310-592-0245 or ramonmgonzalez@yahoo.com.

Off-market Mansions in L.A.

With a busy week I haven't had much time to write. However, I wanted to follow up on my series on the best homes for sale in Beverly Hills and Bel Air on the market with a discussion about those available off the market.

I definitely can't give a specific list on this one!

Properties available off-the-market are kept from the market for very good reasons. Confidentiality for buyers and/or sellers is one of them. Real estate agents have their own reasons.

But another reason is that many of the best homes simply don't need to be put on the market to be sold. For the very best properties in the very best areas like Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Hancock Park, Sunset Strip, etc., there's often more than enough buyers. Just read this little blurb from last week from BusinessWeek.com:

• "Stephen Shapiro, chairman of Westside Estate Agency, which has the $165 million listing, said there's a shortage of homes in Beverly Hills for $30 million and more. There's little room to build more sprawling mansions without knocking down smaller ones, he said."

So yes, many of the best homes will never be on the MLS. Currently, I'm aware of great off-market homes in areas like Beverly Hills, Bel-Air or Sunset Strip available for prices ranging from $8 million to $45 million.

And no, you won't read about them here.

But I will tell you that one of the best off-the-market possibilities I like right now is the opportunity to have a custom, brand new 15,000-square-foot home in Bel Air for $27 million. To find out more, you would definitely have to talk to me in person.

Terra Firma LA featured on Curbed LA

For the second time in recent weeks, the excellent Curbed LA blog has featured Terra Firma LA in their broker blog wrap. This time it was about my thoughts on loan limits and duplexes. Last time, it was about my thoughts on the market on the Westside. With the previous post they chose to make fun of it and suggest I was ignoring the facts. However, since then the facts have reflected exactly what I was picking up on two months earlier, and now pretty much everyone has begun to acknowledge what I was pointing out: Westside real estate is weathering the Great Real Estate Bust much better. See: here, here, here, here and here -- just to name a few.