South Bay Homes and Real Estate

Are you interested in retiring in the South Bay Real Estate region? Here are some reasons to retire here.

Baby Boomers are coming up on their retirement and many are hoping to find a new home to retire in.  Long ago people used to live their entire lives in a single home.  Now, more and more people are relocating once they are no longer bound by family and employment constraints. Torrance is an ideal location for retirees because it is beautiful, warm and close to many amenities without being in the middle of a bustling city.  

If you are looking for the perfect retirement home, here are a few reasons to contact a Torrance real estate agent:

1. Torrance real estate is affordable and won’t break your bank.

2. The South Bay is home to many inviting amenities: golf courses, shopping, community activities, and beaches.

3. There are many Torrance homes for sale in our retirement communities—putting you amongst people who are going through the same things you are and are interested in the same things that you are interested in.

4. Torrance is close enough to Downtown Los Angeles and the Westside to give you all of the benefits of living in or near a big city without having to worry about all of the things city dwellers have to worry about like high crime rates and higher property taxes. 

5. In addition to affordability, the Torrance homes for sale offer retirees comfortable living in a comfortable climate—a climate that is ideal. 

The South Bay real estate market is a growing market that is full of beautiful and affordable property that is ideal for retirees.

If you have been considering retiring in the Torrance area, contact the Rocky Rockwood Group to schedule some Torrance open house viewings.  We offer free financial consultations to every new client!  Call 310-809-0203 or e-mail ryanrockwood@kw.com for more information.

You already know the basics of wholesaling Torrance Real Estate.  You know about buying low, reselling and pocketing the difference.  Of course, there are a lot of little tips and tricks to help you ensure that the process goes smoothly.  Here are a few tips to make your South Bay Real Estate wholesaling be as profitable as possible!

1. The wholesaling process shouldn’t exceed twenty days.  Any more than that and you might lose money on your investment.
2. Don’t agree to pay too much on your Torrance Real Estate investment.  Always remember that to turn a profit you’ll have to re-sell the property for more than you paid for it.  If you pay too much, you’ll have a hard time selling it later.
3. Try to sell your property for cash.  This will ensure that the transaction goes smoothly and quickly because you won’t have to wait for financial approval.  
4. Consider using the assignment of a contract with your closing agent.  This way you won’t ever have the title signed over to you (which can make things complicated, tax-wise).  You simply pocket the profit as your original seller turns the property over to your buyer.
5. As a wholesaler, your “ceiling” should be twenty percent of the selling price.  If you try to increase your profit by more than this, you will probably have trouble finding a buyer.  

These are just five tips to help you make the most of your new South Bay real estate wholesaling business.  If you would like more advice, the Torrance Real Estate agents at Rocky Rockwood can help you learn how to best run a wholesaling business.  

For a free financial consultation and wholesaling advice session, call 310-809-0203 or e-mail ryanrockwood@kw.com to set up an appointment!

By now, you’ve probably heard all about flipping real estate for a profit, but have you considered other ways of using real estate investing to make money?  Here are five South Bay real estate investment methods that can also make you quite a bit of money.

#1:  Buy a large piece of not yet developed South Bay Real Estate, split it into lots and sell it.

This method will earn you an extremely large return on your original investment.  The downside is that it can take quite a bit of time to sell off each of the lots.  This means your capital can get tied up for quite a bit of time.

#2:  Turn a larger house into a into a boarding house.

Boarding houses can earn you quite a bit of money because you are renting out individual rooms instead of renting the whole property to a single person or company.  The downside is that you might end up losing money during down time when the boarding house isn’t full.

#3:  Invest in Torrance Commercial real estate.

The longer term triple net leases mean that you won’t have to do a lot of site management and will provide you with a larger return on your original investment.  The problem is that commercial real estate can be a tough market to get started in, and you can lose quite a bit of money while you wait for someone to lease your storefront.

#4:  Purchase a Torrance home, live in it and then sell it.

The biggest advantage to this is that when you actually live in the home before you sell it, you won’t have to pay as many taxes on your profits.  The downside to this South Bay real estate investing method is that you will have to move quite a bit and that can be rough on you and your family.

#5:  Purchase an outer lying piece of South Bay real estate and then sit on it.

Eventually the property values on the land you have purchased will go up and you can make quite a large return on your original investment.  The problem is that the market isn’t predictable and you could end up sitting on a vacant lot for quite a long time before you can make a profit. 

Flipping houses is one of the best way to make a profit in Torrance real estate. The Rocky Rockwood team has experience in real estate investing and is happy help you decide which method is best suited to your financial situation. For a free and complete financial consultation, call 310-809-0203 or e-mail ryanrockwood@kw.com to set up your appointment.

It was startling to see the images of the Montecito Fire on the news last night. Many of the newscasts focused attention on a small Christian college in the foothills of Montecito called Westmont. Westmont has a special place in my heart as it’s my alma mater. I’m sure most people are familiar with Montecito as a small enclave near Santa Barbara best known for it’s elite Hollywood residents. Lesser known is the 1,200 student Westmont College that sits in the mostly residential neighborhood among the fantastic walled estates of the celebrity rich and famous.

On a brighter note, as far as I know the buildings damaged by fire are not historically or architecturally significant. In fact, only the main administrative building (once a residence) would truly be irreplaceable. In fact, it sounds like the residence halls took the brunt of the fire and that’s probably pretty good news. All the schools dorms, particularly the Clark building that burned, are badly designed and dated. It has been reported that the Physics building has been destroyed - however, no clarification on which physics building. Of course, the old-growth school grounds are probably badly scarred. But nature is amazingly resilient. But I’m certainly glad to have had the chance to give my wife a tour of the campus last year. 

“Liars can figure and…

…figures can lie!” With these words I opened our annual corporate planning meetings for many years. Smart, well-trained and ambitious marketers from each division would vie for corporate dollars

to fund their pet acquisitions or expansions. The caution was a reminder that numbers can be manipulated to support whatever argument you are making and to let the numbers guide your thinking, not the other way around.

Nowhere has the phrase been more apropos than in the current South Bay Real Estate downturn. Just for fun, I just tried to “torture numbers” to confess to contradictory results. For instance - home prices on the Palos Verdes Peninsula have already stopped declining and are heading upward -  for homes over $2.5MM, sales in Q3 2008 averaged 11% more per s.f. and took 22% less time to sell. Conversely, homes prices on the Palos Verdes Peninsula continued their decline in Q3 - homes with 3BR dropping a full 6% from prior year and taking 21% longer to sell than just 12 months ago . See what I mean?

How about Torrance? Sales have increased by 9% Q3 ‘08 vs. Q3 ‘07, but the slide continues as prices are off by 17% and Notices of Default have tripled in 90505 in that same period!

So let the numbers guide your thinking and don’t be fooled! That’s called “street smarts”.

My wife, Marisela, and I were so proud today because our (almost) 2-year old son Lucas bravely endured his first haircut ever!

Times have changed, let me tell you. My first haircut was performed about 31-years ago by my grandfather in the basement of his home in Duluth, MN. My grandfather was actually a barber by profession so he had a full-on old-school barber chair setup in his home. However, his styling tastes were simple (basically a bowl cut)! 

We headed over to the new Sparrow’s Hair Salon in Lomita on Pacific Coast Highway. We were there for the sole reason that we’d seen a banner saying something like, ‘Children’s Haircuts!’ It turned out to be a good decision as the salon owner Sarah turned out to be great with kids. Also, they have a whole dedicated children’s room with a flat screen TV, cool wallpaper, chaulk board - basically all kinds of cool stuff. 

Please enjoy our video of the experience and be sure to COMMENT to let us know what you think! 

Rent vs. buy - preventing South Bay teen pregnancies?!

“If you are a homeowner, you are happier and more satisfied with your life, your children are better educated and less likely to get into trouble, your daughters are less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, you vote more often and are more active in your community, you are more likely to recycle and less likely to get mugged.”

Doesn’t that add a little wrinkle into the rent vs. buy question?

These are findings published from a study by Robert Dietz, professor of economics at Ohio State University , titled “The Social consequences of Home Ownership”. Essentially, it comes down to the fact that homeowners feel more vested in a community than renters do.

I didn’t really care who my neighbors were when I rented because I was probably moving in a year, not so with my neighbors now. I’m more likely to be active in my community now because I know I’ll be here for a while. I’ll be more active in the political process because those decisions will now have lasting effects on my life and my finances.

So, add these to the long list of financial advantages to home ownership. Call me to start teen pregnancy prevention for YOUR family!

Rocky Rockwood is the father/son Real Estate team of Mike and Ryan Rockwood. Torrance home buyers and home sellers can reach the Rocky Rockwood Team at (310) 809-0203 or Ryanrockwood@kw.com.

Good News, Bad News…or, One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!

Good = Southern CA home sales skyrocketed a record-setting 65 percent in September, compared to a year ago! Wow!

Bad = However, the median price dipped below $300,000 - plunging more than 33 percent, according to DataQuick. Throughout the region a full 50 percent of all home sales were in some stage of foreclosure. That’s what is driving home prices down now. There’s plenty of demand…just too many foreclosures.

Good = The foreclosure numbers do show a 12 percent decline from August to September.

Bad =  ”Much of the 12 percent decrease in September can be attributed to changes in state laws that have at least temporarily slowed down the pace at which lenders are moving forward with foreclosures,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Most significantly, SB 1137 in California took effect in early September and requires lenders to make contact with borrowers at least 30 days before filing a Notice of Default (NOD). Follow this link to view current Torrance Foreclosures. In September, we saw California NODs drop 51 percent from the previous month”, he added.

That reduced number of foreclosures may not amount to a hill of beans, according to the blogger Sean O’Toole, founder/CEO of ForeclosureRadar.com.

“Be careful with drawing any conclusions from the declines. The reality is that this only delays the process, and unless lenders radically change their position on loan modifications with principal balance reductions, it will likely have little impact other than a delay of the inevitable,” O’Toole writes.

So, trash for South Bay sellers and treasures for South Bay buyers! Call me to help you do either!

Ryan ‘Rocky’ Rockwood

310-809-0203

Ryanrockwood@kw.com

Pricing for last month’s buyers!

Have you heard of the phrase “chasing the market”? It’s the all-too-common practice of sellers in the South Bay in this declining market where they realize the lost value about 30 days too late. Then, the resultant price reduction is enough to have satisfied last month’s buyers…but not next month’s buyers…and the cycle get s repeated again and again until the seller feels they’ve made huge concessions and the market still yawns!
The antidote for this malady is to have an open and frank conversation about pricing before listing the property. 5 key elements:

1. The market determines the price. Not the owner, not the realtor, not the appraiser…the market. That is, there is a certain amount of $ that a well-informed, qualified buyer will pay for your property in today’s real estate market…
2. Professionally marketed, the home will be seen by 60% of qualified potential buyers within the first 15 days. The initial listing period is extremely important. For a variety of reasons, interest in the property diminishes dramatically after 15 days. 
3. Buyers shop by price range. They search the internet by price range and stipulate a price range to their agents. Agents automatically notify buyers of available homes in their price range. If you overprice your property, by as little as 10%, you will miss as much as 50% of the qualified early viewers. 
4. Property valuation is an art and a science. So, take your love for the home and appreciation for how special it is and couple that with the objective analysis of an appraiser (in declining markets I always pay for an appraisal of my listings upfront) and your Broker’s Price Opinion (BPO). 
5. Price should be calculated to accomplish your goals…speed of sale vs. net.. In a declining market there are just two alternative goals - fast and WRONG. Later in the season is not good, later in the year is not good…later is not good. Your equity is diminishing…whether it’s at 1% per month on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, or 3% per month in Carson. You need to sell quickly or lose. 

I’m writing this from an open house (mls # Z08100276) that I am conducting for a friend. It started on the market 115days ago at $2.45MM and has “chased the market” to $1.89M today. The number of internet site visitors, sign calls, and open house visitors has dramatically declined and the sellers would probably entertain an offer 10% below list price.  I guarantee that, had they offered the home for $1.69MM 115 days ago, they would have had multiple offers and sold it within days.

It’s so easy when it’s not your own money!!!

Mike “Rocky” Rockwood is part of the father/son real estate group, The Rockwood Group. Torrance home buyers and home sellers can reach the Rocky Rockwood Group at 310-809-0203 or Ryanrockwood@kw.com.