Noelle Knox
USA Today
The most expensive Rancho San José de Buenos Ayres, the owner of record, has put this 3.2-acre estate in Bel Air up for sale. The property has a main residence and five guest facilities. Price: $43 million. Bedrooms: 36 combined. Bathrooms: 34 combined. Size: 18,000 square feet. Features: Hand-painted murals; onyx marble floors; double master suite, each with its own sitting room; sunken tennis court; pool and pool house; city and ocean views.
Median-price home This single-story Spanish-style house just sold. Price: $585,000. Bedrooms: 3. Bathrooms: 2. Size: 1,631 square feet. Features: Hardwood floors, Spanish tile floors, wood-burning fireplace, blue granite kitchen counters, two-car garage.
With home sales skidding even with the median price up to a gravity-defying $583,000, it’s hard to believe the Los Angeles real estate market is stabilizing. But while home sales are down sharply from last year’s hyperventilating pace, the sales rate in November would be right about the average if you look back over the past 18 years, says John Karevoll, an analyst at DataQuick Information Systems.
Prices, which continue to inch upward, have stunned nearly every market watcher. “It’s astonishing,” says Karevoll, who still expects prices to decline 1% to 2% in the next three to six months.
“L.A. is big, and it has a huge housing stock,” he says. “There are all kinds of categories: new, old, big, small, cheap, expensive. It’s like turning a supertanker; it turns slowly and moves incrementally.”
Prices at the high end of the market appear to have peaked, but demand is still fairly strong for mid- and low-price homes — which, naturally, are all that a lot of people can afford.
The lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles has reached “crisis” proportions, says Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and the exodus of the middle class is hurting the city.