Derby Hill – Carmel Valley

[housingbear]

Thanks to those who initiated and replied to the previous Derby Hill thread. It was very helpful.

My wife and I have rented in Torrey Hills for 3.5 years – saving and waiting for the market to turn. We really like the plan 1 at Derby Hill. Our dilemna is that we are first time buyers and we really do not want to spend more than $1M on the home. Are we out in left field thinking prices might fall this far anytime soon? Any suggestions, thoughts, and/or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

There was a plan 1 on foxhound way that supposedly sold last week. They were asking $1,175,000. Not sure what it sold for. The “available” sign was still in the window today when I drove by.

HB

[gn]

HB,

Now that the lenders are tightening credit standards, the pool of buyers in San Diego that can purchase $1M homes is shrinking. I think the “Plan 1” in Derby Hill will fall into your price range by the end of 2007.

Going forward, the size of the mortgage loans will
be based on incomes. Where as, in the past, any John Doe
who makes $30k can get a $800k loan

The question is: why would one buy at the end of 2007 ?
IMO, this correction has a long way to go before we
get to the bottom.

[Anonymous]

i noticed that back in Sep-Nov 06, there were 5-6 homes available and somehow many got sold and now they are down to 2. I do feel that buyer traffic in CV is definitely picking up a bit compared to Sep-Nov. Talking to my agent, # of SFD homes that went into/close escrow (in 92130) in Nov, Dec, Jan+few days in Feb were something like 3, 18, and ~40. May be those who made money else where are moving to CV? I don’t know.

I tried to shave the price on a DH plan 2 by ~100k, but they wouldn’t budge… It may take longer than end of 2007 to see that drastic of price cut here.

just my 2 cents.

[SD Realtor]

I agree wontanamo. The developers in CV have pretty much stopped negotiating altogether. Traffic has been brisk over there. I think that a tightening of credit standards will help the market revert to sanity. However I personally do not believe that this will happen in the near term. I believe it will take quite awhile for this to happen.

SD Realtor

[housingbear]

Thanks for the insite GN. I agree that the pool of $1M + home buyers should be shrinking and hopefully running dry soon. However, I’ve noticed that the existing/built inventory has unfortunaltely decreased over the past couple of months. My hope is that it is just buyers who may have been intimidated by recent realtor schemes.

One schemes I have witnessed recently is realtors pulling homes off the MLS and marking them as inactive – leading potential buyers to believe that the home was sold, when in reality the agent is just trying to hide the longevity of the home’s time on the market. These homes then re-appear 2 to 3 weeks later as “NEW” listings. Another scheme that seems to be prevalent in todays market is for the listing agent to have a home on the market for say 120 days or more and then increase the asking price, leading potential buyers to believe that the market is running away from them and they feel compelled to move quickly.

I really hope all this nonsense shakes out soon and we can get back to real values.

[Anonymous]

I literally laugh at those; anyone who’s been following the market for more than a month or two would recognize those schemes easily. WHen my agent sent a new listing the other day, I knew right away it was a re-list, with different picture & higher price. So at least for me, those schemes didn’t work.

I was tracking starting Sep, and started making offers in mid Nov, and got scooped on a 3 (went into escrow the day I tried to make offer), and got outbid on 2 very reasonable offers (~5% off asking price). So I do think the market is picking up a bit, after the initial correction back in Sum 06. I hope (& pretty sure) it doesn’t continue to heat up. Probably a cyclical thing.

[housingbear]

Thanks Wontanamo. When you say they wouldn’t budge, do you mean they would not drop the price by 100k or that they would not move on the price at all?

In any event, the next few months will be very intersting as the next couple of phases are released. One thing is for certain, the days of preselling these phases are over. Just about eveywhere you go in CV, there remains existing inventory among the new home builders. My guess is that if we see a decrease in the number of $1M + home buyers, these builders will be singing a different tune when October rolls around and the corporate parents of these builders put the pressure on to get the inventory sold before their fiscal year end numbers are locked in.

[Anonymous]

sorry, I meant the full 100k. I was able to get ~30K pretty easily (on available lots with nearing completion date), but nothing on just-released lots. I think there might be a line waiting for those canyon-view lots, which are later releases. (next few releases will be those next to Carriage Run)

When negotiating, it appears that much of decision on sale price is determined by builder, since the sales rep told me that they had to contact builder to get approval on discounts, etc.

IMO, another possibility in the future might be bimodal distribution of buyers on low (now middle class) and high ends (real estate moguls & old money riches).

[farbet]

There are sone real con artists for Realtors. Its buyer beware with them. They are just looking at the bottom line.
Have you noticed “The L— team” gets all the builders listings.How come no other agents get these?
Its not a level playing field.
I agree with housingbear. I just think the traffic is hyped.
The salaries do not match addordability. Financing scams are still rampant.
Its hard to get a true DOM figure.

[sdcellar]

WHen my agent sent a new listing the other day, I knew right away it was a re-list, with different picture & higher price. So at least for me, those schemes didn’t work.

This is the kind of thing the agent should be pointing out to their clients. If it were my agent, I’d let them make this mistake exactly one time and for that one time, they better have a good explanation.

I just saw another one of these re-listings today as well that had the added bonus of a higher price (and it’d only been on the market a little over 8 months). Definitely seems to be a bit of a new trend. I’m annoyed with seller’s agents who pull this kind of thing, but I’d be downright pissed off at my buyer’s agent if they didn’t advise me of it.

[Anonymous]

I hear ya; but i do have a trusting agent, and this was from the agent’s automated system…

I wonder if we’re talking about the same prop; I was referring to the one on Flintwood (Bordeaux), was listed at 1.05 all winter, now at 1.075. I’ll take it for may be 9-950K, for the nice lot. (also the current price of Saratoga)

[sdcellar]

Well, he certainly can’t be faulted for that. I’m curious though, does he comment on any of this, or just send you automated listings?

The property I’m talking about is in Santaluz. Originally listed in May for $1.1-$1.25, went to fixed pricing of $1.155 and continued to lower to $1.095. It relisted at $1.15.

Funny how these properties are somehow worth $25-50 kilobucks more all of a sudden…

I’d have noticed your CV listing as well, but my wife says I’m not allowed to track any more areas! (even though we’ve expanded our search to include CV. She must not be serious about it…)

[Anonymous]

my agent knows me pretty well & points out certain prop that fit my criteria. This is in addition to automated stuff. Also, my agent previews properties, to see if there are big noisy roads, etc, which saves me a lot of time. Also I get those stats on pending & sold homes and the sale price every so often. (i had to work at it though)

Santaluz is a nice area too; i love the homes there but I am really focused on CV with good schools (that excludes Torrey Del Mar area)…

[sdcellar]

Since I posted, another Santaluz property came back from the dead (at a higher price!). This one was had been off market for about a month and had already been relisted at least once. It’s effectively been on the market for over a year. Here’s the recap:

Listed 1/26/2006 $1,299,000
Reduced 3/31/2006 $1,239,000
Reduced 5/10/2006 $1,187,000
Reduced 5/31/2006 $1,129,000
Reduced 7/11/2006 $1,090,000
Reduced 8/29/2006 $995,000

Relisted 12/12/2006 $995,000
(off the market after 3 days)

Re-relisted 1/30/2007 $1,089,000-$1,195,000
(listing went active today)

I’m sure it’s worth another 90 to 200 kilobucks today.

Must… rush out… and buy…

Okay, maybe not.

[sdcellar]

Bringing this back to the question at hand–Derby Hill and the Pardee family of fine homes…

The developers in CV have pretty much stopped negotiating altogether. Traffic has been brisk over there.

I kind of thought the same thing myself having visited the models for Arabella, Santa Rosa, and Derby Hill for the first time recently. It sure seemed like things were peppy, people were checking out models, walkin’ lots. They also talk a pretty good game (I will admit they’re nice), but are the homes actually selling?

A bunch of Arabellas and Santa Rosas were listed on the MLS over the last couple of days. It’s the same standing inventory they’ve had for at least a little while and they just had new release events as well along with the accompanying mail and email. To top it off, I just got an email today regarding a special one-day only (!) invite only (!) pricing event for Arabellas.

These don’t seem like the marketing tactics of somebody with houses flying off the shelves… If you ask me, the non-negotiating angle is just another sales approach–gee, if they won’t negotiate, I must need to hurry or something.

This was the same tactic I saw with a couple of developers in Del Sur–right up until they dropped prices $50-75K.

Patience my friends, patience.

[Author]

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