Dog Crossing A Bog🐕🌱-Real Estate Blog

I’m super excited about our new listing at 664 S Highland!  The offering is a 3534 sq ft Spanish Hancock Park Home on a 10,511 sq ft lot near the corner of Highland and Wilshire in the Third St School District.  The property has 3 beds + 2 baths upstairs and a large primary suite (that would also make the perfect family room) downstairs.  The owners entirely remodeled the house from 2013-2015.  The grand kitchen has so much storage and countertop space, stainless steel appliances, and modern design.  The floor plan is open with the living room opening to the dining room, which opens to the kitchen and family room.  There’s an office and a powder room downstairs.  The yard is an oasis with an outdoor covered dining area, a large pool, a sizable grassy lawn with verdant landscaping, and an outdoor bathroom poolside.  There are handsome wood floors, central HVAC, and a center hall plan.  We’re excited to show Tuesday 11-2!

It was very fun to meet Dmitri and Vicki, our lovely buyers, and hand over the keys to 126 N Poinsettia, which closed this week!  Devin and I have been working with Dmitri to find just the right house for almost 2 years now and this house was worth the wait!!!  We’re excited to close 6306-6308 W 6th St this week Tuesday.  It’s our second time working with the sellers and both times were an absolute honor and pleasure!  

One of our buyers is in the market to buy a house because their landlord gave them notice that the house they currently rent will go up for sale as soon as the tenant’s lease is up at the end of June.  The landlord rents the main house to our buyers and the ADU to a separate tenant.  Since the property now has two legal rental units on it, with separate tenants in each of the 2 units, does that make the property subject to Los Angeles County Rent Control and relocation laws or is it a single family that’s not subject to rent control?  

One of our buyers wanted to get a relationship discount on his loan, which comes with a deposit of cash to the lending institution while the loan is underwritten and at least until the close of escrow.  The buyer pulled cash out of a Home Equity Line Of Credit and deposited the funds with the lending bank.  The cost of paying for the HELOC money for 30 days is far less than the smaller mortgage payments due to the discounted rate over the life of his loan. He plans to return the HELOC money as soon as his loan closes.  Looking at the numbers, it’s a creative and ingenious way to lower his interest rate and monthly payments. One of our buyers is shopping rates and it’s fascinating that the difference in rates between 2 big box banks for the same loan product and the same borrowed amount is ½ percent!  With interest rates still relatively high (compared to Covid days) It absolutely makes sense to shop rates and to figure out the best deal on a loan before buying a property!

It’s fascinating how many buyers and sellers talk about price per square foot in discussions on value.  I don’t like price per square foot based discussions.  I believe that value is based on the sum total of all the features and attributes of a property – square footage, curb appeal, location, finishes + fixtures, systems, design, floorplan + layout, sunshine, outdoor space, pool, ADU, parking, neighborhood, school district, walkability, bells & whistles.  Just basing value on square footage is way too narrow and also way too manipulable.  The highest price per square foot will always be small houses that are extraordinary.  The lowest price per square foot will always be large houses that are tear downs and sold for land value. In both cases, the square footage is not what’s driving the value, but the price per square foot of those extreme outliers will inevitably be sprinkled into discussions on value by buyers and sellers who are building their case for the price they’re trying to support on their purchase or sale.

We are going to have serious withdrawal and miss the kids like crazy when their visit comes to an end!  In the meantime, on our outings, our thoughts always seem to come back to one of the favorite books we read over Facetime.  The spectacled owl at the LA Zoo stared right back at us and it wasn’t even the darkest part of night or completely silent like when father and son went owling in Owl Moon.  The diver with scuba gear and an underwater microphone in the Coral Reef Exhibit at the Long Beach Aquarium looked just like Mr. Carp in Otto’s pool in A Fish Out of Water!  Walking across a wooden plank on a wet patch of dirt on the hike to get to the Tide Pools from the Donald Trump Golf Course in Palos Verdes, we felt like the dog crossing a bog in The Smartest Giant in Town!  And even though we saw a grey whale and not a humpback whale off of Redondo Beach, and there was no snail on its tail, it still reminded us of The Snail and The Whale.  What I love most about spending time with the little kids is their open-eyed curiosity, high energy exuberance, eagerness to go on adventures, infectious giggles set off by nothing, and of course my very favorite is always the squishy hugs and kisses! 

Wishing all who celebrate a meaningful and joyful Passover!

Xoxoxo,

Sheri