Pasadena CA Real Estate - Irina Netchaev

Last week, I was privileged to attend a presentation by Leslie Appleton-Young. Leslie is the Vice President of California Association of Realtors and their Chief Economist.

I have never heard Leslie speak before and was surprised with her vibrant personality and down to earth style. it's always hard to deliver bad news to a room full of Pasadena realtors, but she did with style and ease.

It turns out that Leslie is a resident of Pasadena and has been living in our community for the last year and a half. Pretty exciting for me since I'm hoping that I'll run into her one day at Pete's and will have an opportunity to pick her brain a bit.

I will be writing a post over the next few days to share my thoughts on real estate market expectations for 2009 in Pasadena, but in the meantime, here's what Leslie shared with the real estate community.

Personal Consumption:

American consumers have been spending more and saving less. For the first time since 1992, personal consumption dropped. Simply, this means that people buy less which causes employers to cut back jobs.

California is losing more jobs on average - California's unemployment rate in August 2008 was 7.7% while United States as a whole was 6.1% in September 2008.

California Housing Permits:

New Housing Permits are down by 45.1% year to date in California - under 50,000 units compared to over 100,000 in 2007. Builders are waiting for the existing inventory to be absorbed.

National Economy Outlook through 2009:

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Here's the latest and greatest report for Pasadena's real estate market inclusive of statistics going back to August 2008.

Pasadena's real estate inventory of homes has decreased in October to 127 units overall - inclusive of single family residences, condos and townhomes. It is not surprising as folks are getting ready for the holiday season and in the natural annual cycle of real estate, we expect to see less inventory to choose from. The sales have closed strongly in October at 117 units. Next month, we will see a marked decrease in this number as evidenced by the decline in the Pasadena home buyers going into escrow in October.

This month, I was able to catpure the median Pasadena home sales price and will be adding that information to all future reports. Median home sales prices provide a more accurate picture since the median signifies that 50% of Pasadena homes sold for more and 50% of these homes sold for less. Hope that you will find it useful.

Market Action Indicator for Pasadena's real estate is currently in the buyer's zone though not strongly so. The 90-day Market Action Index stands this week at 22 so buyers should expect find reasonable levels of selection. Inventory levels have been relatively consistent relative to sales. Despite the fact that there is a relatively high amount of available inventory, this Buyer's market is still seeing prices move higher. Given inventory levels, these price conditions are relatively fragile. If the market cools off further, the price trend is likely to reverse.

The highest sold home in Pasadena for October was at 485 South Grand Avenue, a 4 bedroom/4 bath luxury estate with 6,000 sq. ft. on a 24,345 sq. ft. lot which sold for $4,300,000 at 95.56% of its asking price.

The lowest sold home in Pasadena for October was 476 East Mountain Street, a 1 bedroom and 1 bath with 624 sq. ft of a 2,580 sq. ft. lot whcihc sold for $233,000. This home sold over its original asking price of $226,900.

Overall, October's single family residences sold at 95.20% of their asking price.

Housing Market Statistics for Pasadena California for August 2008 through October 2008:

Data compiled from ITEC (Pasadena Foothill Association Multiple Listing Service).

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If you are interested in receiving a weekly Pasadena real estate market report with the Market Price Index, you can request the Pasadena Market Real Estate Report here and it will be emailed to you automatically each Monday. This is a report that I order specifically for the readers of my website from Altos Research who specializes specifically in real estate housing market activity throughout the country.

For the full report including Pasadena Foreclosure lists and property searches, please visit my Pasadena Real Estate blog.

Over the last couple of days, I've been taking long walks around Pasadena and San Marino and looking at all the amazing decorations that are gracing our beautiful homes. It's no small feat to put some of these up. I, for one, am not much for decorating - maybe it's the lack of time or just not enough creativity - I don't know. My decoration was three huge pumpkins (2 of which unfortunately walked away off of my porch a few days ago) and a door hanger.

This morning, as I'm watching my kids put together their costumes, get the cookies and cups ready for school parties and talk about this evening's activities, I'm reflecting on how commercialized Halloween is getting. This is not going to be a rant, but out of curiousity, I wanted to look at some Halloween facts as presented by National Retail Federation.

• "This year, the average person plans to spend $66.54 on the holiday, up from $64.82 one year ago. Total Halloween spending for 2008 is estimated to reach $5.77 billion."

Read the rest of the Halloween Article

What a fun day we had in San Marino yesterday.

In the morning, my family and I joined the rest of the community for a pancake breakfast at Huntington Middle School. Later, we made our way to Lacy Park for it's first Annual Halloween Dog Parade.

Take a look at additional photos from the event on my flicker page - San Marino Photos.

I had a pleasant surprise this morning. A group of middle schoolers from Huntington Middle school were practicing their "band walk" for tomorrow's annual parade.

Tomorrow will be a huge day for San Marino. San Marino High School football teams both JV and Varsity will be playing San Gabriel for their homecoming football game.

At 3 pm, Huntington Drive will be closed for the annual homecoming parade which you just don't want to miss. And, Saturday, October 11th, the kids will be celebrating by having the night out and dressing in their finest for the "Coro" Dance!

In the meantime, enjoy the photos of the marching band kids practicing for the big day tomorrow!