We don’t normally make stuff like this public but we wanted to show you what (at least) one of our clients thought of our work. More importantly you will see that they have been clients of ours for years and have done multiple transactions with us.  This is what almost all of our business is, repeat and referral. We work very hard for our clients and make sure they are getting the best advice and service possible. We are not the biggest name in town but we try to be one of the hardest working. 2011 was a great year for us and a great year for our clients that bought and sold. Below is what one of them had to say.

Dan and Lorie O’Connor sold this house in less than a day to the perfect buyers who will love this home as much as we have for 16 years. The O’Connor’s are more than our trusted agents. They are our friends, This relationship started back in 1994 when Lorie O’Connor secured this dream home for us by tracking down the sellers at a local restaurant and personally presenting our offer and a heartfelt description of why we were the right buyers for their beloved home. The other competing offers didn’t have a chance!

Fast forward to 2011. They negotiated an equally successful deal that is taking us to our next dream home. Trust us, it wasn’t easy. This transaction took every bit of Dan and Lorie’s years of experience, quality relationships with local agents and savvy to make this happen. And that was only the beginning.

Dan and Lorie have personally met with trades people, negotiated bids on work, project-managed the work, and passed along to us their excellent contacts for everything from new roofing to industrial house cleaning. It is a pleasure and a relief to work with agents who genuinely care about us. It is why my mother, my best friend, and my neighbors all used the O’Connors to secure their dream homes too! I would not be surprised if someday our elementary school-aged daughter grew up to purchase her first home from Dan O’Connor. I could not think of a more trusted resource for such an important milestone.

Sincerely,
Carol and Mike

30 17th st. Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

This is not a new listing but today it made a large price reduction down to $1,999,000! It was originally listed at $2,300,000 and went down to $2,150,000, but then only 9 days after that price drop they dropped it again to today’s price.  I know the agent (Jerry Tainter: NW Brokers) does a lot of sales in this market niche: the flat walk streets of north Hermosa Beach. He also lives down there.  He has shared with us in the past this seller’s motivation; this is not a financial distress sale, this seller is motivated because she has purchased another property and set up a “reverse exchange”.  By doing this there is a tax benefit for the seller to sell in a certain amount of time.  I also noticed that the seller has put this property up for rent so I am assuming that she has lowered the price at or near the bottom for her, and she will just keep the property and rent it out if no offers at or near this price.

Independent of the sellers situation at this price this property is a good deal.  This location is hard to come by being only 3 houses from the sand with a very livable house on it.  The price I would equate to being land value.  17th street is not the most popular of the few north end walk streets but definitely not the worst.  The walk streets value decrease as you go south, starting at 21st st.-16th (in general).  20th st. is probably the most sought after street, but 19th and 18th are all right in there with the most popular for resale purposes.  The reality is that not a lot of stuff comes up on these 5 streets and I would say 50% of the sales happen off market.

This property is 30ft. wide and 95 ft. deep, the structure is currently a single family home measuring $2,350 sft. If this property were in the south end of Manhattan Beach it would probably cost DOUBLE!  This lot would make a great spot for someone to tear down and build their dream home.  It’s safe for kids, close to the water, some views from a future 2nd and 3rd floor and close to town!

30 17th st. Hermosa Beach, CA

The general inventory is at very low levels and on top of that finding good houses out of what’s available is even more of a challenge.  So what are your options?  Builders are not building “spec” houses, except for Willie Campbell, and most of the newer homes that were built in 2005-2009 are “underwater” so the owners don’t want to sell them.

Many of my clients have taken the initiative to build or remodel a property into something they want.  Below are a few examples of clients that have decided to buy the location and or property they want and turn it into a “dream home” of sorts.  This is a new trend that you are seeing more of and one of the places you are seeing a lot of this is….The Manhattan Village!

1) 22 Bridgeport, Manhattan Beach: Some good friends of mine bought this property as a 2,500 sft , 3 bedroom 2 bath house on a 7,000 sft lot. Cul-de-sac street, gated community.  They thought this would be a great place to raise their 4 kids so they added on over the garage (which is very common over there) and re-did the entire outside.  The result is amazing…see before and after photos:

2) 8 Westport, Manhattan Beach: Some other clients (young family of 4) saw what the family above did and they bought 8 Westport (one street over) to remodel into a similar house but a Spanish style property. The picture of the house is of when they bought last month; the remodel to start soon. This is again an example of taking a 2500sft. house and turning it into 3200 sft with updated amenities in a very kid friendly, safe neighborhood.

3) 922 11th st., Manhattan Beach:  This is an example of an nice young family that wanted a large house west of PCH, close to the schools, with a large lot. They bought a 7,500 sft lot in the Manhattan Beach Hill Section and designed their dream home.  Below is a picture of the old house, if you drive by today you will see a dirt lot, construction starts soon!  Great lot with a large south facing backyard with lots of privacy because it sits up above the houses behind it.  It will be a great backyard to hang out and swim in the pool!

4) 2908 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach: Last but not least, another client bought down by the beach.  The whole family loves the beach, surf almost everyday, really wanted views and to be as close to the beach as possible.  So they bought an over sized half-lot 1 block from the beach that will be transformed into a 3,300 sft ocean view masterpiece! Below is a picture of the old property that will be turned into a tasteful, contemporary beach pad!

More and more “buyers” are realizing that they can’t find what they want and that they might be able to turn something else into their Dream house.  There is financing out there to do this, you just have to look for it.  It’s not a bad time to build or remodel as construction costs have come down some, the contractors are looking for work.

Here are my picks for the deal of the week. (1/24/08)
These are homes that I feel are currently priced well based on their size, location and condition of the property.

1) 411 28th Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254 $2,399,000
Features: 4 bedroom, 4.5 baths, small office, roof-top deck, small ocean views, very nice hillside views.
WHAT MAKES IT A GOOD DEAL? This is a very well built home, built by Schaar homes. They are a local builder that has been around for a long time and has built a nice reputation. This home looks very nice on the outside with shingle siding and lots of molding and other details. It is also a very short walk to the beach, Hermosa Valley Park and close enough to walk to both downtown Hermosa and downtown Manhattan. The one flaw I do see is they gave a lot of usable space to the interior stair case which really impacts the 2 main living spaces. (one on the bottom and one on the top) It really squeezes them down and makes them feel a little small. One other comment on the home is some people do not like the builders choice of cabinet color in the kitchen but it’s just paint! It can be changed very easily.
The value of this house is that it is a large, new home very close to the beach, in a great part of Hermosa Beach and it is listed for a price that you could not match if you were to buy a lot on that same street and build your own home. It should also be mentioned that the finishes of this home are very nice and high quality compared to other homes in the market place. Also there are sold comps at $2,500,000.

2) 742 27th St. Manhattan Beach, Ca 90266 $2,100,000 Features: 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 3,548 square feet, 5,120 square foot lot.
This is a very nice house and a good location of the Manhattan Beach Tree Section, it is a very good size home on a larger than average size lot. It was originally built in 1991 but it has been very nicely updated and customized which gives it a nice feel. It also has a few features that are included that give it an advantage over buying one of the new homes, for example it has a large flat screen T.V. included along with a built-in BBQ in the back yard. Right now for the money I think it is the best buy in the tree section for someone looking in that price range. ($1,900,000-$2,400,000)

Last weeks “Deal”…
Last week there was a new listing at 2341 Hermosa Ave. Hermosa Beach. This was a 6 year old Single Family Home literally one house from the beach. It was a 3 bedroom 3 bath house (approx 2,700 sqft.) on a short lot, but had very nice ocean views from the living level and the roof-top deck, it also had a very large basement bonus room that was great for home theater and games. Considering houses of this age on the strand (see my article the strand report) are selling for 6-11 million this was a good deal at its listed price of $2,999,000…which is why it went into escrow in 4 days.