Is this really Malibu? Homes selling for less than $500,000? A Malibu two-bedroom condominium that once could've fetched $600,000 closing escrow recently for $340,000? Mobile homes in a city famous for $1 million trailers now going for mostly less than $400,000?
The worst real estate year in Malibu history is ending with the feel of a tornado just passed by. In virtually every neighborhood, whether it is of homes, condos, or the two mobile home parks, recent sales have been breathtaking. As in, prices so low it makes one hard to breathe.
On Heathercliff Road near the Point Dume shopping plaza is a collection of 42 townhomes, some with a view of the ocean out the back toward Zuma Beach. Every sale among the units for the past four years has been above $800,000. This year there was one sale: $451,000.
The bell weather neighborhood of Malibu West has seen a handful of $2 million sales over the years. Most recent sale price: $935,000 for a three-bedroom home in the lower canyon. Right across the street is a similar house that sold for $1,550,000 just two years ago.
If the regional market is most focused on low-end housing first, the word has not yet gotten to Malibu. Our most affordable neighborhood, Corral Canyon, had only four sales in all of 2009. The highest priced of those was for $690,000. The average sale price in Corral had been more than $1 million from 2004 - 2007, including a peak of $1.3 million in ‘06. Two sales for about $460,000 have occurred there recently.
Condo sales were in very short supply, about 30 percent of the number of sales from the peak of the market. At Malibu Canyon Village, where there are 104 units, just one sold this year, for $467,000, while 11 others failed to sell. The unit with the highest record sale in the complex, at $720,000 in 2005, was recently on the market at $442,000.
From 2004 - 2008, the Malibu Villas across from Paradise Cove had 37 sales above $600,000, and a few at more than $1 million. About that many units have attempted to sell above $600,000 in the past couple years. Year 2009 brought just two closed escrows among them-for $500,000 and $450,000.
Zuma Bay Villas had its first sale at less than $1 million since 2004. So too is the case of the Vista Pacifica townhouses, the relatively new complex on Lunita just north of Trancas. After 34 sales upward of $1 million since 2004 began, one sold this year at $865,000 (the same unit had sold in 2005 for $1,230,000). The other sale at Lunita in 2009 was for $1,280,000, exactly $300,000 reduced from its 2006 purchase price.
A three-bedroom townhouse on the beach near Moonshadows sold for nearly $2.5 million in 2006. This year it got $1.6 million.
The only sale all year in 104-unit Tivoli Cove went for $900,000. The same unit had sold in 2004 for $1.1 million.
Almost every sale is pre-2004 now throughout Malibu, as the buyers have maintained their firm grip on the market and negotiations. Only the most desperate sellers are letting go as the full brunt of the housing collapse has permeated our city. A home in the west part of Malibu hit the market last week-and immediately into escrow-that had sold for $1.5 million in 2005. Last week's price: $875,000.
A home in Big Rock that brought $1,530,000 in 2005 just transacted for $1.2 million. Three of the other five sales in Big Rock this year were of properties that also sold in recent years-at a higher price the first time (and one sold a notch above its 2004 price).
Another bell weather neighborhood for Malibu is Sea View Estates atop Las Flores Canyon. For the first time since 2003, a home there has sold for less than $1 million. The home in question has four bedrooms, partial ocean view and a pool. Many similar homes were bringing more than $1.5 million in recent years.
The sales stories for 2009 are few. But among them, tales of tough battles are many. The average time on the market for current sales has exceeded 15 months. Compared to past Decembers, the inventory is the highest since the 1990s. The number of buyers is as low as it's been on a percentage basis since perhaps the 1960s.
The condos at Malibu Gardens had four sales, averaging more than $600,000, just two years ago. This year, two of the four sales have been at $350,000 or less.
Higher priced markets still have more sellers unwilling to accept the new realities, but some sales indeed slip through the cracks. A Winding Way-area home closed escrow in August for 10 percent less than its 2005 sale price of $3.2 million. A home in the Saddle Peak area has reported in escrow after a price reduction about 20 percent lower than what it had sold for in 2005.
One home in Malibu had seven price reductions before it sold this year, at a price less than half its original asking price. The latter feature is not uncommon in Malibu. The former matter, many price reductions, is becoming almost standard practice.
Homes on the beach have not been immune. A La Costa Beach house that just dealt at $9 million was a million dollars less than its 2005 value. A Broad Beach home that was on the market for $7 million earlier in the year did not sell-even though its last established value was more than $11 million, from a closed deal in 2007. A Malibu Road house attracted a buyer for about $2.5 million less than the owner had paid in just 2007.
It was once thought impossible that Point Dume would ever see the light under $2 million but a few such homes have traded for less this year, and one recent listing was for less than $1.5 million, even with three bedrooms and an acre of land.
The more affordable mobile home parks of Paradise Cove and Point Dume Club enjoyed $1 million-plus fortunes for many years but only three such units were recorded this year (one for nearly $2.3 million). It was back to more modest numbers for the other 17 sales of 2009, all at less than $1 million and the majority of those went for less than $500,000.
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