Often when we look at the broader world of the real estate market it’s hard to notice
just how dramatic a shift can be. It’s equally amazing just how quickly we forget the market we just left…as if we’ll never be back. I focus much of my attention in terms of marketing, selling and blogging about a small gated community in the Hollyglen known as Fusion South Bay. It’s just a pocket of newer townhomes in the South Bay but nowhere have I seen a more drastic turnaround and the implications it has had. I sold a few units at the height of the market and have struggled with the fact that values went down so dramatically and so quickly. As they were constructed in 2005-2007 almost every buyer was truly buying at the peak of the market. The result was a % of short sales and foreclosures not seen anywhere else in the area. Less than a year ago almost 75% of the closed sales were short sales and values plummeted. I showed most of them and, at the time, I almost felt as though you couldn’t give them away….no buyer motivation, no sense of urgency and most of those buyers are probably now kicking themselves. It was truly a buyers market.
Just a year later and oh how the real estate world has changed. Units that had been in the low $300,000s are now in the mid to high $400,000s and buyers are lining up for the next owner that decides to sell. At the moment the one 2 bedroom home for sale, the smallest floor plan in Fusion, is listed at the same price that a 3 bedroom sold for just a year earlier. Those clients that had bought a few years back are once again looking good and those that didn’t purchase at the bottom when they had the chance are certainly wishing they had. In one short year this micro market has gone from barely being able to give away these townhomes, to having buyers and agents eagerly searching off market for the chance to own one.
My how quickly things change and how quickly we forget where we just were.
