Mount Washington is King of the Hill

The rolling hilltops and luscious land of Mount Washington provides its residents with a peaceful escape away from its rambunctious and close neighbor, Downtown LA.

This friendly neighborhood remains hidden to most Angelenos despite its close proximity and heightened location. The stunning views go hand in hand with the peace and quiet to make Mount Washington a desired place of residency. Homes in Mount Washington have skyrocketed in value in recent years, earning long-time homeowners small fortunes on successful home sales.

The steep trails that typify the neighborhood are close to Mother Nature and are shared with a family of wildlife including hawks, falcons, coyotes, deer, bobcats, raccoons and skunks. Even though the closest nightlife scene is found in Downtown LA to the South or Pasadena to the North, Mount Washington offers a plethora of greenery and shrubs found high above the congested city.Nowhere else in Los Angeles can you walk out your front door and embark on a hike full of scenic, panoramic views, wildlife and beautiful parks.

Mount Washington is located to the North of Downtown LA. Montecito Heights and Lincoln Heights are found to the Eastwhile Eagle Rock is nuzzled up to the north. Glassell Park and Cypress Park are located to the west and Highland Park borders the north and east of Mount Washington. Public transportation through the metro line is a great tool to get quickly travel to Downtown or other areas of LA.

The curvy, inclined roads of Mount Washington are significantly vacant compared to the clogged streets of the Hollywood Hills. These roads have inclines of equal intensity to San Francisco. In fact, Eldred Street is known as Los Angeles’ steepest paved slope. These twisted streets weave in and out between houses of unique geometric shape that are paired with dense foliage and luscious trees.

Because the majority of the land is uneven and mountainous, shopping centers and brand name stores are scarce indeed. However, Mount Washington does have a decent population of small shops and mom and pop joints. There are many exotic Latin American restaurants serving homemade pupusas and spicy poblanos, which draw all sorts of visitors to the lower regions of Mount Washington to dine.

Mount Washington is the home ofone vitally important museum and one holistic headquarters. Paramahansa Yogananda, the father of Yoga in the West, wasalso the founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, the International Headquarters of which are located on top of Mount Washington on a stunning property. This spiritual organization is non-profit and serves to preserve the writings and teachings of Yogananda while disseminating those teachings worldwide.

One can also find the Historic Southwest Museum of the American Indian, which triples as a museum, library and archive, dedicated to the history of American Indians. This important museum houses one of the most extensive collections of Native American artifacts in the entire world.

Mount Washington is an oasis of beautiful views and large parcels of land. The contemporary homes of the land take on unique shapes and sizes in order to fit onto the odd sized slopes of the land. Since Mount Washington is one of LA’s oldest neighborhoods, older, small bungalows from the 1920’s exist two lots down from large mid-century dwellings. The lower areas are dotted with craftsman-style homes, Spanish revival, Tudors and even Victorian homes.

For this reason, buying and selling homes in Mount Washington can be tricky business, as homes vary in size and condition. To maximize their investment, those seeking to purchase homes in Mount Washington should seek out a Mount Washington realtor who specializes in representing both buyers and sellers in real estate transactions in Mount Washington.

Zillow and the Essential Truth of what Your Home is Worth

In a recent Sunday Los Angeles Times, the discussion regarding the Zillow Zestimate of home values continued, as it does on Facebook and other social media. And almost every conversation includes the question “What is my home worth?”

I love Zillow, because it embodies the essential truth of home valuation – no one really knows what a home is worth. What does Zillow know about your home? It knows the public record of its square footage, bedroom and bath count, and where it is on a map. That’s about it. It doesn’t know that you legally added 1500 square feet of exquisitely appointed master bedroom suite including spa bathroom and vast walk-in closet that somehow hasn’t shown up on the tax records yet. It doesn’t know that the house down the street that sold for $200,000 less than you think yours should was a teardown.

Zillow is just a computer model that uses its own formula to give its “Zestimate” of value. This Zestimate changes constantly depending on what else has sold in the neighborhood.

But let’s talk about home value – and let’s talk about it in a district like Highland Park in Northeast Los Angeles, not in a housing development consisting of three models repeated dozens of times. The neighborhood of Highland Park is made up of homes mostly built in the 20s, 40s, and 50s, custom built, of sizes ranging generally from 800 to about 3000 square feet. They vary in style, condition, and location. Some are right next to the freeway, some are in the hills, some are in flat areas. Some have pools, most have garages, the list goes on. And there are always plenty of Highland Park homes for sale at any given time.

So how do we arrive at a true valuation of what this particular home at 1234 Main Street is worth? If the purpose of the valuation is a refinance, the lender has an appraiser tell us what it is. An appraiser looks at properties that have sold in the last few months that are somewhat similar to the subject property and gives an opinion of value. This is generally a conservative, static number because it is based almost entirely on historical data. If the market is quickly moving up in value, the true worth of the property will probably not be reflected.

If the property is going to be priced for sale, more numbers come into play–what the homeowner wants to make on the sale, what the Highland Park realtor believes is likely, what current properties on the market are listed at, and a very gray area of properties that are currently in escrow.

We can triangulate a point somewhere in between Zillow, recent market data, and where we think the market is going. But then there is the most important part of all–how the buying public sees the value. This is a number that is extremely hard to predict. Buyers today are primarily visually oriented, thanks to the Internet and the overwhelming influence of shows on HGTV. If your home doesn’t have the open floor plan, neutral colors, marble or caesarstone counters, tile or hardwood floors that are popular today, then the buyers believe it “needs a lot of work.” It might be in perfect working condition, but the idea of have to do all these “updates” is overwhelming to today’s buyer.

This buyer is also very well educated about the data that is out there about your home – again the Zestimate, among others. Also, they have access to historical data – they know what you paid for your house; and if you paid $500,000 in 2012 and want to ask $800,000 for it today, they want to know why. In fact, we all have access to so much data and opinions about home values today that we are overwhelmed and confused. What is true? What is real? What does it all mean? We need a curator to help us understand what the relevant information is.

I propose that the best curator is the real estate professional who is immersed in the market you care about and can interpret the data out there in a way that points you in the direction of what is relevant to you.

So, Homeowner, how do we help potential buyers see the true value of your home? We present your property in the best light possible and that includes how it looks and also how it is priced. As we know, the buyer sees all the data out there and knows what Zillow says your home is worth. Whether that number is high or low, we can use it for our first data point. Then we look at what other homes are priced at around you. Say there is a similarly sized home that is on the market for $900,000, and you want to sell yours for $1 million. Is yours really $100,000 better? If it is, then if you price your house near the $900,000 price and a buyer sees both of your homes, which do you think they will choose? Will more than one buyer see these two homes and find that yours is the best choice? Will they both be at the same open house and look over their shoulders at each other and realize that they need to pay more for your home if they want to get it? Let’s also look at the home that is priced at $1 million. Is it as good as yours? If yours is better and is priced lower, once again we have the scenario where buyers will see the value in yours reflected in the eyes of the other buyers in the room.

The simple question, “What is my house worth?” has a complicated answer if you are thinking about selling, doesn’t it? Welcome to the world of professional real estate. Don’t be fooled by a website with a Zestimate or even a recent sale down the street. Talk to someone who can really help you sift through all the information out there and come up with a plan to net you the most money possible on the sale of your home.

Acts of Faith in Pasadena, CA Real Estate

It may come as a surprise to you, but buying or selling a home in Pasadena, CA (or anywhere) is largely an act of faith.

As a Pasadena, CA home seller, you want everything to go right. There are always many homes for sale in Pasadena, CA and a certain percentage of those transactions are going to be problematic. But you have faith that your sale will not become complicated.

You hire an agent whom you believe will do a good job for you. You turn your keys over to the person you have chosen to handle one of the largest financial transactions that most people ever make. You believe, or should believe, that they will handle this transaction in your best interest and make you the most money possible. It’s interesting to me that many sellers believe that it doesn’t make a difference which Pasadena real estate agent they hire, that the result will be the same. But that could be a whole article by itself.

Let’s fast forward to negotiating an offer and opening escrow. Let’s assume that you have multiple offers and are satisfied that your agent has represented you well – an act of faith again. You should have confidence not only in your agent but in the agent’s staff, and in the affiliated services they use, such as escrow and title.

Here is a time that really requires faith – the escrow process. Most transactions have contingencies that must be met for the transaction to move forward. The main three contingencies are inspections, and if the buyer needs to qualify for a loan, the loan contingency and the appraisal contingency. Here are new opportunities to practice faith–all these contingencies run concurrently. That means you are expected to complete paperwork, start packing, and possibly even perform repairs before you know for sure that this deal will actually close.

This is where a lot of sellers experience a loss of faith, and they don’t want to complete paperwork unless they know the deal is moving forward. The common question is why should I do all this work before I know for sure this deal is happening? The answer is that if you don’t, you can cause delays in closing on time.

Some deals today contain another contingency – that of either finding a replacement property for the seller, or of selling the buyer’s home so they can afford to buy yours. This really requires faith that everything will happen in a timely fashion. And this is the time to exercise the most faith and to stay on top of a lot of details. One escrow is confusing for many people, two can be more than doubly confusing.

Before we stored all our documents online, I used to suggest my clients buy two plastic boxes with lids and label each box with the property address for their purchase and their sale. Today, create a folder for each property in your Dropbox and copy everything you receive into the appropriate folder.  And here is the most important advice: read everything, especially the checklists of due dates and schedules. And check your to-do list often. The one thing you should not have faith in is your memory-there are too many moving parts to keep them all straight in your head.