Home Sweet Home🏠🏠-REAL ESTATE BLOG-

 

I am over-the-moon excited for my super cool buyer client, J, who scored the most beautiful Off Market Single Story Designer Done West Hollywood Character Spanish Home just down the block from the weekly Sunday Farmer’s Market!!!  So much about scoring this find was fortuitous and meant to be!!!  Weeks before, we considered a house on Flores and J wished the Flores house would have architectural arches at the front porch, and she sent me a picture of a house she loved with the arches she wanted.  Who would think a few weeks later she’d buy the house in the picture with the “just right” arches!???  We scheduled to go see the house on the market next door, and we noticed a brand new lawn sign in the neighbor’s lawn when we parked for our scheduled showing.  We called the agent on the lawn sign (because we checked and the house was not listed on the MLS), we saw the house the next morning, and we closed on the sale one week later.  The owners asked if J would like to buy their Janus et Cie ping pong table that retails for $23,500 (it’s so cool!).  I’m obsessed with the “Martinique” grasscloth wallpaper designed exclusively for The Beverly Hills Hotel in 1942 by CW Stockwell that’s on the walls in the back house (with a matching fabric flat Roman shade on the backhouse bathroom window.) Every detail of the house is the perfect mix of old world charm, modern function, and whimsical yet timeless designer taste.  The interactions with all the people were as cool as the house we were interacting about!   So many cool people and such a cool house.  I always think buyers and sellers match and that they match their houses too. I’m so excited for my buyer because I loooove the house she bought!!!! 

 

I am super excited for my lovely buyers who closed on their Carthay Square home last week.  Developed by J. Harvey McCarthy as “Carthay Center,” the neighborhood of Carthay Square was designed with six north-south pedestrian walkways to create a cohesive, walkable, and charming environment.  The pathways, designed in the 1920s, are still there and my buyers’ house is right along one of those pathways!!!  The sellers have a bunch of chickens that wander the property and they’re actually pretty funny.  The property is a 2865 sq ft side by side duplex, delivered vacant, on a 7494 sq ft lot with a pool.  It’s a fixer but once remodeled, it will make for a great, centrally located, character large one story single family home for a good price in a neat spot!  I can’t wait to see the final product post remodel!

 

I’m excited that our duplex listing at 806 S Detroit is contingency free, delivered with both tenants in place at the close of escrow.  The downstairs tenant is a dear past client; we loved working with her and selling her house on Ridgeley last year. The new buyers plan to build an ADU immediately after the close of escrow.  During escrow the prospective buyer made deals with both tenants for post close. The downstairs tenant opted to be voluntarily relocated to a quiet construction free rental to avoid living through the construction of the ADU.  The upstairs tenant negotiated a reduction in rent and decided to stay.  The property sold quickly, partly because the uber cooperative tenants were a treat during showings and interactions.

 

We have a property in escrow, representing the seller, where we had multiple offers and we had the chance to pick the buyer.  One buyer was super disappointed that he lost the property.  He didn’t get picked for a few reasons.  First, in an attempt to negotiate, he energetically and emphatically shared a long list of things he didn’t like about the property when he toured.  In follow up calls, he reiterated and embellished all the reasons why the property wasn’t so great.  Turns out he was just trying to negotiate, but his strategy actually made him negotiate his way out of scoring the deal.  Second, the buyer has a real estate license so he would represent himself and he asked that all of the buyer side commission get deducted from the purchase price at the close of escrow.  We find that buyers who are represented by an expert agent have the expert guidance they need to move through the escrow process + to close, and an unrepresented buyer very often is missing the guidance he needs, which makes that unrepresented buyer a cancellation risk.  Third, the buyer thought to initially offer a low price (calling it his best & final) and to not be super reachable during negotiations, again in an attempt to play hardball to negotiate a better deal.  All 3 made this buyer lose the deal.  The buyers who were chosen offered a fair price off the bat, they were represented by their agent to be confident both in the property and in their purchase, and they were working with a strong agent with whom they had a close relationship.  In a multiple offer situation, when there’s a choice between different buyers, price + terms + character + representation all play a significant part in who gets chosen for an accepted offer.

 

We lowered the price on our listing at 1518 n Stanley in Sunset Square to 1,875,000 and it’s a sweet deal now.  The whole property is gated and hedged, there’s lush landscaping throughout, and the location is amazing, close to Bristol Farms, Trader Joe’s, gyms, Beverly Hills, Runyon Canyon.  There are 4 true bedrooms in the main house and a full guest house in the back.  The house has an insane amount of natural light and so much character + charm at the same time!

 

We lowered the price on 1015 N Martel and the owners are ready to sell!   The property has two different structures – a side-by-side single story duplex at the front & a second duplex with one unit up + one unit down at the back.  One unit is vacant.  The other 3 units get low rents from their very long time tenants.  The purchase is a long term play for a development site much like the one across the street that is absolutely amazing post development.  The deal is sweet now and someone smart + lucky is going to snag a property that will be an amazing investment one day some time into the future.

 

After moving out for repairs + remodel, Seth and I finally moved back “home” last week to the house we’ve lived in since 1997!!  First order of business was putting my mom’s touches everywhere – her little bud vases with Trader Joe’s flowers in all the rooms, a Peter Luers picture of My Mom and Me (as a teenager!) in between books on the family room bookcase, some Evesham & Herend serving trays in the kitchen drawers, and the fine linen starched tablecloths Mom bought me so many years ago in the dining room. As I unpacked my Wedgewood Colonnade china, I vividly remembered the trip with My Mom to Geary’s in Beverly Hills in 1988; Mom was convinced that I’d appreciate for life a set of dishes I bought with my own money as a young girl still in high school! The dishes cost $110 a place setting and we bought 16 settings, mostly with my saved money.  My Mom had great taste and I still love the dishes today, almost 40 years since that shopping trip to Geary’s.  On Shabbat afternoon, our 2 grandsons, Eliyahu and Chaim, were singing in our backyard.  Neighbor boys playing in the backyard behind ours called over a shared wall to “stop singing.”  I called back to ask why and they said they “don’t like it.” Wanting to foster more neighborly interactions, Eliyahu, Nechama (who happened to be dressed as a princess) and I slipped on shoes and we walked around the block to invite the kids from the other-side-of-the-wall to come over to our house for treats. It became an impromptu party that ended with neighborly smiles!  It’s interesting how moving back home to our house of almost 30 years brings with it so many memories of so many occasions we lived through here!!! As a real estate agent, I love that feeling all the feelings that inevitably come with a major move means that I know exactly what my clients are feeling as they experience the same.  I’m excited for the holidays and for all the kids to come back to their childhood home and to feel all the feelings along with me!  Thank goodness it’s just 23 days to Passover!

 

Wishing all a beautiful week in our picture perfect weather in Sunny LA!!

 

Xoxoo,

Sheri