Need an aviary? You might want one after you see this

It's always fun showing property in the hills of northeast Los Angeles as you never quite know what wildlife you'll find (animal AND human). Today I met these red-billed hornbills, who have their own professionally- built backyard aviary.

Why contractors should NOT attend open houses when they've done the work on that house's flip

...Because they will be snagging all the open house guests to show them all the cool new plastic face plates they've put over the electric outlets. Contractor/investors, forget what you've seen on HGtv's Flip or Flop.  Let the potential buyers discover the house's ambience, not the $1.75 parts, on their own.

4484 Stansbury in Sherman Oaks is open Sunday, 2 to 5. Comes complete with its own beer garden.

Please come visit me and check out 4484 Stansbury in Sherman Oaks tomorrow, 7/28, from 2 to 5.  This splendid redo has 3 beds and 2 baths in the main house.  Plus, there's an additional unit above the garage with a full kitchen and 3/4 bathroom, open beam ceiling, and hardwood floors.  If that weren't enough, there's a pool house with 3/4 bathroom, too. It's very close to Westfield Fashion Square, Jinky's, Guitar Center, Boneyard Bistro and more of Sherman Oaks' hotspots. We call this area below the "beer garden."

You can check out more pictures on line and at my site: JudyGraff.com.  The house is listed for $799,000. For those of you who'd rather hang in the house, here's the living room:

Burbank's Benmar retaining walls

If you've been around Burbank for awhile, you know about the BenMar development from the 1950's.  This tract was converted into the 91504 ranch houses that we know and love.  But why are all the BenMar retaining walls failing? Are 60 years the maximum time that cinderblock can hold back dirt? Just asking...

4484 Stansbury in Sherman Oaks is listing on 7/25.

If this address sounds familiar, it is because I've already blogged about it.  I listed and sold it this year to the folks who have now beautifully refurbished it. I'm thrilled to be listing it again. There are three units on the property.  The front house is a delightful 3 bed, 2 bath with a redone kitchen, hardwoods, remodeled bathroom, tons of closets and french doors to the side patio/"beer garden."  The pool and backyard lead to a unit over the garage with a full kitchen and 3/4 bath plus open beam ceiling and private entrance.  Plus, there's an adorable pool house/office with a 3/4 bath, too. This is in the heart of Sherman Oaks and is very close to Westfield Fashion Square -- the neighborhood is called Library Square. Listing price: $799,000. The house will be open from 2 to 5 on Sunday, July 28.  You'll find more photos on my website at www.JudyGraff.com after tomorrow.

Open Sunday, 7/21, from 2 to 5: 5227 Denny #101, North Hollywood

If you're looking for a gorgeous condo, you owe it to yourself to see this one.  Three beds, 2 baths, single story with no steps, huge kitchen, new since 2009, bamboo floors, big closets, fireplace two patios, faces the street, and wheelchair-accessible (see post below).  It also has two extra, dedicated storage rooms and the building has a bike room.  It's very close to the Noho Arts District and public transportation, too.  Listed for $420,000; the building's HOA fees are a low $261.  Steve and I will be there from 2 to 5 today.

Need handicapped-accessible or age-in-place housing?

If you, or somebody you know, is looking to own wheelchair-accessible or age-in-place housing, consider 5227 Denny #101 in North Hollywood.  This 3-bed, 2-bath ground floor condo has no steps, a ramp to the building, and extra-wide doorways.  It may be ADA-compliant, too.  Plus, it's gorgeous.  The building was built in 2009 and the unit has a huge, "done" kitchen, living room with fireplace and sunny exposure, two patios, laundry in unit, lots of closets plus two extra storage spaces in the garage.  The decorating is gorgeous with chandelier-type lights and decorator-drapes plus bamboo floors.  It's listed for $420,000 and the HOA fees are a low $261.  The building is a few blocks from the Red Line, Orange Line, and all the attractions this developing community has to offer.  See more pics at JudyGraff.com or contact me for more info.

Credit Unions for Mortgages? Yes

As you may have heard, some credit unions are getting into the mortgage lending game.  This is good for borrowers as credit unions are not-for-profit.  Have I tried out one of these credit unions as a lender on a property? No, and I am a little nervous that it may take longer to get the loan to go through than it usually does.  But back to the highlights:
- Credit union interest rates are a little bit cheaper than conventional lender interest rates.
- CUs are big on adjustable rate mortgages, although they have fixed-rate loans available, too.  ARMs haven't been popular in recent years, and most people prefer fixed-rate mortgages.  But in a time of rising values, I think there is no reason to fear ARMs -- once a property has equity, a borrower can refinance into a fixed-rate loan.
- Current CU lending guidelines say a buyer needs 10% down for an ARM, or 20% down for a fixed-rate loan.  The borrower's credit score needs to be pretty high, too.
- CUs will make loans on properties that other lenders won't touch.  For example, they will make loans on condos where the condo building's owner occupancy is low.
Note for 7/18/13: a Twitter contact says 5% down, 5/5 ARMs are coming soon to credit unions.

Speaking of condos with low owner occupancy, please check out my listing at 5227 Denny #101 in North Hollywood. It will be open this Sunday from 2 to 5.

Sold in Burbank's sweetest, and most carbohydrate-y, spot

My clients Andy and Lynnette just closed on this 3+2 on Niagara in the heart of Burbank’s Magnolia Park.  If you follow me at Judy Graff, Broker Realtor on Facebook, you’ll see the picture of them and their two adorable kids in front of the house.

Lynnette and Andy have been looking for over a year now. Like all of my other buyer clients lately, they made other offers on other properties, only to lose out in multiple offers.  How’d they get this one? The sellers wanted a young family in the house, and Lynnette wrote them a beautiful letter. We still can't believe their luck. Yes, the house needs work, but like many of my buyers, Andy and Lynnette plan to fix it up themselves over time.

The location of the house is amazing.  L&A are mere steps away from Bella VistaRestaurant, which has perhaps the best pizza in Burbank.  If that weren’t enough, Monte Carlo Deli across the street offers gelato, Italian food, and an Italian grocery. Yummy Cupcakes is also just a few steps around the corner. And just down the street: from Urban Eats, Porto’s, Romancing the Bean.  Best of luck with everything, and bon appetit, Andy, Lynnette, Louis and Juliana.

Just sold a Silverlake duplex. Termites did not convey with the property.

Client Mario just closed on an adorable, redone (i.e. flipped) two-on-a-lot property in Silverlake.  This was pretty thrilling as Mario had been looking to purchase property for a very long time and had lost out on several offers prior to this.

There was trouble about the termite report.  The main house was built in 1915 and the second house was built in 1920.  This is an OLD property.  Evidently, it had never had any termite work done, so the report came back at about $7000. Seller was not happy.  But it was no surprise to us – that’s almost 100 years of happy termite families raising their termite young, and so on.  Termites eat wood, and over 100 years, they can eat a lot of it. (And by the way, we’ve all seen much more extensive and expensive termite work.)

But at any rate, we came to an agreement with the sellers, deaded the termites, and Mario now has two charming houses to fill in one of the coolest Los Angeles communities.

Coming soon: 5227 Denny #101, North Hollywood

This beautiful 3-bedroom (yes, 3) condo is coming back to market at the end of this week.  If you didn't see it when it was on the market in the spring, you owe it to yourself to see it now.  It's about 1300 square feet and was built in 2009.  It has a huge kitchen with stainless steel appliances including a wine refrigerator, two elegant full baths, in-unit laundry, front-facing balcony, 2 extra storage units in the garage, and a low hoa of $261!  It's in the up-and-coming North Hollywood Arts District and the city is busily working on widening and landscaping Magnolia Boulevard in the area. Perhaps best of all, it is listed for only $420,000.  The first open house will be July 21; call me for a showing before then.

Tonga Hut in North Hollywood

Remember my blog from a year or two ago re Tonga Hut in North Hollywood? Of course you do.  Los Angeles Times has a great article on it today, but there's no link.  In the meantime, here's an article from 2008.  For you lovers of all things tiki and cocktails, there's also the Tiki Bar on Lankershim in North Hollywood, too.

Home buyers, home sellers and pocket listings

If you're a home buyer in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, you may be asking all of your contacts, and your Realtor, for "pocket" listings -- those homes that sell before they ever go on the market.  Since the home buying public doesn't know about these listings, there isn't the frantic purchasing competition that drives up the prices.

If you're a seller, you may also be looking to list your home as a "pocket" as it's a much more convenient sales process. You don't have tons of people traipsing through your house, you don't have to be gone for the open houses, etc.  Your Realtor just networks with other agents and brings you a buyer that way.  It's especially nice and convenient for sellers during our current hot real estate market.

Those are the high points of pocket listings.  Here's the downside for buyers.

I just represented buyers who purchased a pocket listing in west Burbank. George and Yvonne, like most buyers, had been looking for quite awhile and had made a lot of good offers on other properties.  They were thrilled to find a four bedroom, 1900+ sf. home in their price range without having to compete with 25 other buyer groups.  What a relief!

Then, we had the physical inspection.  Lots and lots was wrong with the house, including major structural stuff.  The seller would not consider crediting any money for the work that would need to be done, including health and safety items. The buyers even lost $1000 of termite work. We implored the seller and even asked to meet with her. No dice. The seller's position was that if the buyers didn't want to take the house absolutely as is, the seller would just put it on the mls and probably make even more money. 

The buyers went forward with the sale because, as we all know, inventory is limited, that's a large house in a good neighborhood, etc.  So here's the take-away for you buyers considering purchasing pocket listings:  While it might be easier to buy a "pocketed" home, your negotiating power (such as it is) is seriously diminished because the seller has nothing to lose by cancelling your sale and starting over with the process.

George and Yvonne are very creative and I'm sure they'll have great success in turning this home back into the gem it once was.

Plaintiffs in DOMA are from Burbank, CA!

Here's some more good news: the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court DOMA case are from Burbank! And if that isn't enough, I'm going out of town for a few days.

Rising mortgage interest rates and home sellers and buyers - what it means

By now, you've probably heard that mortgage interest rates are rising and may go up as high as ('gasp') 5% by the end of the year.  That's still historically very low, but here's how it will affect you.

If you are selling your home in Burbank, Studio City, Toluca Lake, Sherman Oaks or any other place in our region, rising rates will have a dampening effect on activity.  Some buyers will be knocked out of the market and that should "stabilize" prices a little bit.  Higher interest rates usually exert a downward pressure on prices.  That doesn't mean that you won't get multiple offers for your home if it's priced right; it just means that there may be less offers than we've been experiencing. The offers may not be quite as high, either, especially if home inventory increases. However, your home will sell if it's priced right and marketed correctly.  (See the marketing page on my website at JudyGraff.com.)

If you're a home buyer in the San Fernando Valley, all of the above will be good news for you except the interest rate part.  Yes, it will cost you more to buy a home.  But you won't have as much competition (some of my Valley home buyers wrote eight to ten offers before getting one accepted) and prices won't be rising as much.  And if inventory increases, that will have a downward effect on prices.  So keep looking.  Your house is out there.

If you're a buyer and you're currently in escrow, make sure your lender locks in your interest rate.

Caveat: some of the neighborhoods here in the Southland are immune to the effects of rising rates.  The really, really expensive high-end L.A. markets are still awash in cash, with a lot of that coming from overseas.

How can we miss you when you won't go away? Or the story of the Studio City condo

This is the story of the Studio City condo that my buyer closed on last month.  The names have been changed to protect the guilty.  Yes, this was one of the bad ones.

My buyer had made several offers already when this condo came on the market in early February.  Our offer on it was immediately accepted. Yay!  It was a short sale, but the short sale was approved in record time – also “yay” and “it’s a miracle” -- and we prepared to close 30 days later in mid-April.

A week before closing, the seller’s dad announced that they had no idea the condo was closing and they not only would not be leaving, they also would not sign the necessary paperwork to close it.  We were incredulous. How could that be? Well, turns out that they just hadn’t found a suitable place to move to yet.  At that point, not only had my buyer made moving plans that were difficult to alter, but his loan documents were ready, and the condo itself was about to go to foreclosure if it didn’t close shortly.

Through the coming days/weeks, the seller’s dad refused to give us a closing date or a move-out date.  Contract? Ha! It meant nothing to the sellers.  Nobody could budge them.  The communications were extensive – I have over 400 emails about this in my file and that’s just me (so much for you guys that think we Realtors just open doors and say, “Here’s the kitchen.”)  The sellers stopped communicating with those of us who they believed to be “against” them.  I pretty much assumed that this was a lost cause.

Where was the listing agent? Missing in action. Why didn’t my buyer client cancel the sale? Because the condo was perfect for him and, sadly, by late April he was already priced out of the Studio City housing market.

Although it is typically discouraged, my buyer reached out to the seller dad.  And seller dad began to communicate directly with the buyer.  They actually got somewhere (by this time the seller dad had pretty much alienated everybody else on the team, and my buyer has the magic touch.) Of course, my buyer had to do the accommodating. The foreclosure was postponed again. Whew!  And a month after it was supposed to close, the seller dad gave my buyer a date for both closing and for possession.  My buyer was able to move his plans around to accommodate the new date.

And the closing finally, finally occurred. The sellers moved out.  As much agony as we went through, my buyer client’s efforts made this happen.  We were thrilled to celebrate on his new patio last week, and toast the buyer’s persistence.

Prices of homes for sale increased locally, as if you didn't know

In case you did not see the L.A. Times, home prices increased 24.7% year over year.  And not just for homes in Burbank, Toluca Lake or Studio City either -- this is an average of five counties.  L.A. county home prices increased 30.2% to an average of $410,000 per house.  Here's the link to the article.

621 N. Keystone in Burbank closed today

621 N. Keystone in Burbank closed today for $607,500.  It originally went into escrow at $615,000 but there were some needed repairs that lowered the price.  We held our breath on the appraisal but it came in to value and is now the highest price by square foot in the neighborhood. The sellers are wonderful and the buyers are, too.  It was something extremely rare -- a smooth escrow (very unusual these days).  I hope the buyers and their baby daughter will be very happy in their new house and I wish my wonderful seller clients the best of luck, too!  Thanks to Gary Mazziotti, my partner on this transaction, and the terrific buyers' agents too.

New interest rates and new r.e. stats

Yes, interest rates went up this week.  Again.  Conforming loan rates are now hovering around 4.2%-4.3%. The lenders that I've spoken with don't expect them to go down much in the near future, if at all.  They are still at historic lows, but that probably doesn't make you feel much better if you're a buyer.

And here are some interesting local stats from California Association of Realtors:

- From 2001 - 2007, all-cash purchases were about 6.2%-8.4% of total sales,

- In April 2013, all cash purchases were 29.3% of total sales,

- 27% of California sales are to non-U.S. citizens,

- 66% of investor buyers are holding for the long term,

- 75% plan to hold for about 6 years,

- 25% are flippers,

- 67% investors are paying cash,

- For those who sell, the return on investment is around 14%,

- 78% of investor purchases were single family homes,

- 14% were multi-family homes.

Will this all change? Of course.  When? I don't know.  But the real estate market has really surprised all of us with its quick turn arounds in the last few years.

Real estate in Spain

Just what you wanted to know -- how's the real estate market in Spain?  Well, since I was there last week I'm able to tell you.  The Spanish economy is not good.  Unemployment is really, really high and of course the Spanish are experiencing somewhat of the same kind of real estate market that we did in 2008+.  A lot of smaller areas have new developments that are unsold and, in some cases, not even finished.  The picture above is of a town in Don Quixote country.

...But of course, in the highly desirable centers of the bigger cities, premium apartments and homes in the bigger cities are going up in price.  Sound familiar?

But what of all those lovely character homes in the centers of the old cities? Wouldn't it just be fabulous to own one of those? Apparently, nobody wants them.  There is no place to park.  The streets are just a few feet wide.  (Imagine trying to get your brand-new front-loading washer dryer set delivered.)  All electrical wiring is on the outside of the building.  It's a real problem to get anything fixed as the municipalities won't let you make changes to the outside of the residential buildings.  Sellers have to hang for-sale signs from their windows as there are no yards to put posts in (see above).  So as interesting as this all was, I think I'll stick to San Fernando Valley real estate for now.