How to gauge the Westwood-Century City Single Family Market Trends…

Westwood- Century City: Single Family Market Trends

Often times, I work with small to medium investors and their concerns are always two or threefold: one how fast can they get in and out of the project. The second is a fear, what if the market changes. These are clearly legitimate concerns since what happened when the Market tanked in the not too recent past. The third concern is, will they make a profit?

My advice is to look at what “the big boys” are doing, if you see large developers doing big projects the odds are you will be safe for the next two to three years. So the focus should be seeing what the big developers are doing if they are taking on big projects no reason to stress about your own project.

There are many other ways of gauging how the market will fare:  one of these benchmarks is The Median for Sale Prices year over year and month over month.  Other one is the Median Sold prices year over year and month over month.

Since I have been working with a great many developers in the Westwood-Century City area, I thought it would be appropriate for me to look at how the Westwood Single Family Median for Sale vs. Median Sold fared.

Not surprisingly the Median for Sale Prices were up by 7% I sensed it every time we submitted an offer. I suggested we go higher because the next time this will be the benchmark for the next listing. Some of my investors understood this concept others did not. The ones that did not missed out and sadly I was right! To give you actual numbers in August 2013 the Median for Sale Price was $1,674,000 in Westwood-Century City and the Median for Sale Price in August 2014 was $1,795,000, this was a $121,000 increase, in other words 7%

Now let’s look at the Median Sold Prices. August 2013 the Median Sold Price was $1,610,500 and in August 2014 the Median Sold Price was $1,826,944. That is a $216,444 increase or in other words a 13% increase. Most investors would have been happy with an 8-9% increase. This clearly is found money for them if they got a property and were able to flip it in less than one year.

Just to be clear this same principle applies to regular buyers as well not just for investors. If they happen to get into a multiple offer situation they need to consider the next time they will be paying more for the same size and condition home, hence it is better to bid higher now than to miss out and pay more the next time.

If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Playa Vista, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or email me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations.