Quote from Preston Forbes:
Well LA and Socal is such a multi-varied and tough market its not easy to make a blanket statement. But sure the general reality is its still deep in the mud and when you look around town you can see it.
One example is a friend who just bought a short sale ranch style McMansion by Sacramento...330k for a 800k House...huge nice upgraded 4000sqft with 5 acres...so cheap you cant pass it by....BUT grade A credit and buyers only, lots of downpayment cash.
Here in LA theres everything, nice areas are still nice areas but some really big properties are empty or abandoned. Famous parts of the hollywood hills....that had big houses and were occupied 2 years ago, now almost every 3rd house is for sale, empty, in need of repair...lots of richer owners got hit.
Im my friends neighborhood of the real Bel Air...one of the most exclusive areas around...Stone Canyon if you know the street and surrounding areas, you have quite a number of abandoned mansion new builds that have been empty and chained up for over a year now. Some entire mansions are empty and dark with no for sale signs even, its pretty bleak looking at all the high value properties that are dead in the water.
Ambitious Real Estate agent friends who have been in the game a while...are having much better luck selling houses now, finally getting their first deals after a year of nothing.
But look around town every third store front is for lease, lots of large business locations are empty and the unemployment in hollywood biz and service sector jobs looks pretty bad....no one is getting hired. Remember SoCal realestate crashed in 1991 too and didnt get back until 1996-97...so its not a quick recovery.
LA has tons of rich people...they're the ones out there buying now..thats my opinion.