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Manta Ray Obama 🤿🐠-Real Estate Blog

Manta Ray Obama 🤿🐠-Real Estate Blog

166 Citrus Ave

I’m super excited about our new listing at 166 N Citrus Ave!  The house is an architectural, emotional, character, and sunshine filled Single Story Spanish with an all white rose garden in front, and a lush green oasis backyard with a vine covered pergola in back.  There’s a remote access gate in the driveway (and a car fits easily through it) to the backyard, and there’s a gate to the sweet front patio (that locks) before you reach the front door.  The living room and dining room have character moldings, high ceilings, and are flooded with sunshine!  There are 3 beds and 3 baths; the bath off the hallway is entirely newly remodeled!  The primary suite has its own bath, walk-in-closet, vanity area, and French doors that open to the pergola and private yard with grass + trees + water feature.  The lovely owner cared deeply for her property and she made continuous upgrades over the years, including new hardwood floors in the public spaces, newer central HVAC, upgraded electric panel, multiple skylights, all new windows (everywhere in the house except for the arched living room window and 1 bed/1bath.)  The house is in Third Street School District on the very best tree-lined street in the neighborhood, Citrus Ave!  I can’t wait to host the open house today from 2-5!

 

We dropped the price on the trophy income property at 500 N Alta Vista to 2,399,000.  While all the other duplexes on the street are a single side-by-side building, this one is unique in that there are 2 duplex buildings on the same property, to make a total of 4 units!  The main building is a single story (with attic living space) side by side duplex on the corner of Alta Vista and Rosewood.  The second building is a 2 story townhouse style duplex on Rosewood.  The total current rents are 12,410 (and there’s significant upside potential.)  All the tenants are month to month now. The property is special because of the striking Spanish architecture, the soaring mature palm trees + verdant landscaping throughout, the sunlight in the units, and how each of the 4 units truly feels like a home.  The owners have loved this property for years and it’s a total gem.

 

I got a call on Friday from an architectural firm that specializes in rehabilitating old character houses.  They are currently working with 6 families in Altadena who lost their homes in the recent fires.  They’re looking to physically move existing houses that are about to be demolished in other parts of the Greater LA area to empty properties in Altadena. They have permits to move their first two houses from Hollywood and Los Feliz to Altadena.  They search for new demolition permits, and then they contact the owners to see if they’d be open to having their existing house moved instead of getting demolished.  I asked her what compensation looks like.  She said they make individual deals with people (the owners mostly save on demolition costs because these people take the house away).  I asked her if it could be a tax write-off as a donation, and she said they’re working to partner with a charity to facilitate that in the future but they don’t have that in place just yet.

 

We had a cooperating agent do inspections on a listing of ours last week and their sewer inspector said it would be 25,000 – 30,000 to correct the sewer line.  I wanted to double check it, since I knew that the sewer line was new from the house to the back of the property line. I called another sewer company, and they bid 3200 to do a spot repair.  I called the buyer’s original sewer company back to do a second camera inspection and explain their bid to me, and the same sewer company who bid 25-30k (and wrote 35k on their written report) told me the actual price of the fix was 15-18k (in writing on a revised report).  I asked for a video of that inspection and I sent it to a third company for a bid and they committed to 13,000 for the very same repair.  The buyer’s agent said that the buyer was looking to negotiate the sales price and the actual condition of the sewer line wasn’t relevant at all; it was more about generating paperwork to substantiate a request of the owner to drop the sales price. 

 

We have an incredible 1931 Spanish estate by renowned architect George Riddle coming to market this week in Bixby Knolls in Long Beach!  The house is over 4300 sq ft on a 16,575 square foot lot.  It has exquisite grounds with multiple seating areas, gardens, a pool + spa + pool bath, and full guesthouse with bedroom + bathroom + kitchen.  We don’t usually take listings so far away from our area…but this is a special house owned by special past clients who we loved representing in the past!  I’m excited for this property!

 

Seth and I saw the most incredible fish on the snorkeling trip we went on last week!!!!  Every July, we love to go to a remote spot where the waters are warm + pristine and the reefs are mostly unspoiled by humans, so teaming with wildlife, and it’s magical to put on a snorkel mask and enter the aquarium of the seas!  This time, we snorkeled from shore and the bright colored fish were literally up close and personal against our masks!  My favorite finds were a green sea turtle feasting off the coral, and a long eel slinking along the ocean floor!  It was the craziest thing to do a nighttime snorkel with manta rays in the pitch black of night!  The boat operator drops a blue light in the water that attracts plankton, and the manta rays come to scoop the plankton in their mouths.  The manta rays are used to the nightly drill by now, and being perfectly comfortable with the feed sessions and the humans who observe them, the majestic (very huge) creatures literally bump up against you as they glide by, catching their plankton!  Even hearing over and over again that manta rays don’t have teeth and they’re perfectly harmless, that was a little up close and personal for me (not Seth)!  All the Manta Rays are named after presidents by the boat operators; Manta Ray Obama loved me most!   I would love to go with Seth (and the kids) to visit every single spot of raw, remote, natural beauty in the world!!!!!

 

Wishing all an awesome week ahead!  Come say hi at 166 N Citrus today!

Xoxoxo,

Sheri

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