Southern California beach house prices staying afloat
Coastal bargains are to be had amid the housing downturn, but the properties are holding their value better than homes inland.
The housing market's wipeout means there are deals to be found, even at the beach.
Grant Niman landed his dream home in Hermosa Beach after a careful six-month search. The 46-year-old certified public accountant is in escrow on a three-story, four-bedroom home within four blocks of the sand. The sale price came in just under $1.4 million. Comparable houses near Niman's pick were selling for as much as $200,000 higher in December.
"It was an incredibly good deal. There were five serious inquiries on the home and at least two other offers. I bought it the second day it was on the market," said Niman, who can't wait to sit in his living room and "watch the sun go down over the ocean."
Although home prices at the beach have so far avoided the high platform dive occurring in many areas of Southern California, they have taken a dip.
In February, the average of median sale prices in 18 beachside ZIP Codes, including parts of Santa Monica, Manhattan Beach and Long Beach, was $1.08 million, down nearly 8.9% from August and 10.2% from February 2007, according to monthly sales data from DataQuick Information Systems. The 18 ZIP Codes were selected by The Times for relative affordability, excluding such spend-happy areas as Malibu, Palos Verdes and Newport Beach.
The price slip is far shallower than in the worst slump-affected parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, were homes sold in February for half of what they brought before the housing decline, DataQuick statistics show.
Some of the biggest seaside bargains, real estate agents said, were in Huntington Beach's three coastal ZIP Codes. Median prices peaked at $785,000 to $1.2 million in 2007, but the range had declined to $635,000 to $827,000 in February.
In eight beach ZIP Codes, homes were selling for less in February than a year earlier. An additional seven ZIP Codes showed price increases over the year.
Newspaper ads for beach-area houses are beginning to echo those for properties farther inland, with headlines such as "$$ PRICE REDUCTION!!" and "BEACH HOME STEAL!"
"A year ago, bidding wars were the norm," said Denise X. Lavell, who runs Beach Girl Realty. "You'd have a buyer out there the day the property was listed. Now, people are taking a month or two months to decide."
Javier and Marianne Cano recently spent nearly $1.9 million for a two-story, five-bedroom Spanish-style house less than a quarter of a mile from the ocean in Redondo Beach. Six months earlier, the Canos would have had to pay about $2 million to $2.1 million, based on comparable home sales at the time.
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