Recent Sales Wrapup

Posted on Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 at 5:15am.

Some of the most interesting sales these days are going on off-market.

We'll get you some details here at MBC over the coming days and weeks as we get the OKs to discuss pending deals.

Meantime there are a few recent sales that hit our radar as being interesting in one way or another:

801 11th (4br/3ba, 3025 sq. ft.), the Hill Section "foreclosure flip" near MBB, has a deal. The home is a 2004 build that failed in a couple of resale attempts in recent years, went back to the bank and came right back to market.

Turns out an investor saw profit potential, grabbing it for $1.320m in July. (See "2nd Foreclosure Flip in a Week. ")

The home was priced at $1.599m at first, but after a cut to $1.499m, it posted a deal just before Thanksgiving.

3011 Valley (4br/4ba, 3250 sq. ft.) is a big, charming home purchased in April 2006 for $1.9m. Two years later (in April 2008), we thought it news when the listing began below acquisition (see "A Loss at 2 Yrs?"). The coming downtrend wasn't quite so evident yet – back then, 3011 Valley was providing merely a hint of what was to come.

The 2008 listing quit, as did a 2009 effort. This year's try was at $1.599m after a cut – a brutal $301k down from acquisition, on the face of it. We've got the sense that the losses will get worse when this one wraps up.

1809 Walnut (5br/5ba, 3125 sq. ft.) is a pretty typical bubble-era speckie, a Mediterranean ("Tuscan") on the outside and a vanilla family home inside. The location's a plus.

Sellers paid $1.665m new in May 2004. After an ambitious start at $1.899m, it's in escrow now and we're guessing it closes just south of $1.8m – higher than we'd have predicted at first. We note that nearby 1821 Poinsettia, 5 years older, just closed for $1.675m, with a lesser location.

563 33rd (3br/2ba, 1650 sq. ft.), very close to Sand Dune Park, offered a bigger-than-normal (5400 sq. ft.) lot and a house we called "flawed" with a "peculiar layout," but with "some nice attributes and, as they say, 'potential.'" (See our full review from mid-November here.)

The start price of $1.149m was clearly meant to help buyers get over a range of issues and picture a redone, workable house in the 90266 at some point in the, perhaps, not-so-distant future. The listing lasted less than a month.

2301 Oak (3br/2ba, 1150 sq. ft.) is a 50s cottage that was very recently prepared for market with a serious modernization. (For more see our recent "Weekend Opens" post.)

This one launched at $939k, and we pointed to what we called the "closest comp," 3005 Oak (3br/2ba, 1175 sq. ft.), which was then in escrow after a cut to $925k. Turns out, 3005 Oak closed significantly lower, at $890k, just a few days later.

It's certainly worth noting that 2301 Oak lasted just 11 days. Say what you will about Oak and other periphery streets – the lower prices seem to keep drawing buyers who want the ZIP code and don't like their options east of the highway.

With all that activity, it still sounds like a bit of a Sand Section shutout.

Not intended. There are 6 homes currently pending in the Sand Section, almost all of them having merited a previous mention here at MBC, so they didn't make the cut for this story.

But then, the biggest off-market deals have been beach-adjacent, so rah-rah for the Sand – we'll get you more details soon.