A Pretty Good Summary of National and Local Trends

The Wall Street Journal released their quartlerly survey of housing-market conditions in 28 major U.S. metropolitan areas today, along with an analysis that’s rings true with what we’re seeing throughout our region.

 The article’s title pretty much sums it up:  “With Buyers Sidelined, Home Prices Slide.”  The survey itself reveals that what we’re experiencing locally is being repeated across the country, with some areas doing worse than us but more areas doing better. 

To see the complete article and the survey results, just click here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119326355265670448.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Our Fires and Our Real Estate Market & Values

If you live in Southern California, you’ve almost certainly seen & breathed the smoke. You probably know someone who’s been evacuated.

Certainly our thoughts and prayers are with the evacuees, and especially those who have lost their businesses or houses, but not their homes.

We’ve already been asked how this will affect the local real estate market. For areas that haven’t burned, not that much. Over the short term, the fires should result in a tighter rental market, especially in San Diego County, which appears to have the most homes lost.

Value wise, fire-prone locations will take a hit for several years, and the areas that actually burned will take an even greater hit. That may result in a modest bump (or at least a slower decline) in less fire prone areas. Overall, any more modest negative from a national perspective will be more than offset by the additonal construction jobs created.

Of course, we’ve experienced fires before, but I can’t remember this many in so many different areas all at once. A foreseeable that could have been prevented if federal forest service bureaucrats could only connect the dots. (For an excellent editorial about that in the OC Register, click here: http://ocregister.com/opinion/planes-fires-fire-1902825-california-tanker

When people get too hung up on material things, a friend of mine likes to help them keep perspective by saying, “It’s all going to burn.” After cleaning out my Mom’s home when she moved into a senior community, I concluded “It’s all going to end up in a landfill.”

Hopefully these fires can serve as a reminder to all of us to be thankful for what we have, and to put our time and energy into God & people, not things that will not last.

Local Real Estate News from the Front Lines

We love Southern California, we love real estate, and we also love to write. So we’ve been writing about the Southern California real estate market since 1980. Through this blog we can now deliver our thoughts, perspective, and insights at the speed of light. Even better, now you can add your thoughts, insights and questions too.

Who are we? Well, we’re both native Southern Californians, SoCal homeowners, and Realtors ™ who have also served as professional educators.

Dave Emerson, the lead writer, grew up in Lakewood, CA, graduated from UCLA back when their football teams didn’t routinely lose to unranked teams, and currently live in Los Alamitos. He’s an investor who owns dozens of local rental units, primarily in Long Beach, and he’s been #1 in sales out of 500 agents in his company seven different years and has been elected “Agent of the Year” by his peers 4 times.

Blair Newman has the perspective of a younger generation. He has helped dozens of his friends and clients buy and sell property, and is a member of Prudential California’s “Cutting Edge Society,” putting him in the top 15% of all agents. He graduated from Biola University in La Mirada, then lived in Anaheim until buying his present home in Lakewood.

Over the years, we’ve sold homes everywhere from the San Fernando Valley to Orange County. We specialize in Southeast Los Angeles County (Long Beach, Lakewood, Norwalk, etc.) and West Orange County (Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Cypress, Garden Grove, etc.).

Over the years we’ve developed contacts in most So Cal areas we don’t service ourselves. We’re excited about finding this fast, interactive way to share our perspective on what we see going on every day in the So Cal Real Estate Market.

We’ll also use the expertise of others we know in real estate and related fields, from finance to property management. And we’ll gain the expertise of our readers as well, as you choose to contribute.

Our non-blog website, which features a direct link into the SoCal Multiple Listing Service and more info about us, including brief resumes. We can be contacted directly by phone, 562.822.7653, and we also respond promptly to all comments and questions left on this blog.

Thanks for visiting.