Thanksgiving Real Estate Report

The market continues cool, but not cold. Homes are neing removd from active market play during the Holiday period -- and I suspect that will continue during the Christmas Season as well.

The market has every indication of remaining stable at a low level. Only well-priced homes will easily sell between now and February. In February we start a new sales year...

Meanwhile I have received my first phone call from someone in Florida who wishes to escape the constant threat of hurricanes! During the eight Florida hurricanes of this past year, we all probably asked the question, "Why does anyone live there?"

Obviously I am not the only one who is or soon will be showing homes to escapees from Florida. My clients are serious -- they have their home for sale and expect to arrive lock, stock and barrel in a moving van..so they are looking in Rancho Bernardo for a vacant home.

They will not be the first, or the last. Unfortunately, the price of a home in Florida does not easily equate to a home in Southern California...

A Blip in the Market?

There was a lot of activity in the past 96 hours – three new listings and three new sales.

We will have to see if this is an anomaly, or if this perhaps is the beginning of a turnaround for local sales.
The Meadows actually has homes that SHOULD sell, even in a cool market. With five sales this month…and we are not yet at the end of the month…we have the most sales in months.

With the holidays upon us, it is not likely to continue.

It certainly would be a nice thing if it did!

New Condos?

Apparently there is a kerfuffle about to explode in the Meadows – at least a conceptual plan has been floated by the Meadow Lake Golf Course to permit some sort of development within their bounds in return for a new clubhouse.

This concept had a hearing before the Hidden Meadows/Deer Springs Sponsor Group.
While there are as yet no concrete plans, there was some initial talk of converting the driving range to condos/townhouses/etc.

One relatively rational person asks the question: What is the value of the golf course to the community, and what price must we pay for the continued good financial health of that golf course?

Good place to start in the discussion. This community has a habit of being 50/50 on every proposal, and I suspect this one will not be different.

Latest Sales Information

The home at 9528 Sage Hill Way (Listed at $825,000) went into "Pending" today...this is the third "Pending" this month.

Oldest Home in the Meadows

A seventh grader in Hidden Meadows asked an interesting question by e-mail today: What is the oldest home in Hidden Meadows?

I assumed she meant the oldest remaining home – many old homesites have disappeared, like the old ranch house of the Meadow Lake Ranch, which was converted to a restaurant alongside three lakes off Meadow Glen Way West. That burned in the 60s, and the lakes dried up and disappeared.

I am convinced there is a 1940s home on Mountain Meadow Road, but in modern terms there is a 1955 home on Rolling Rock Road, a 1959 home on Calle de la Reina, and three 1965 homes on Red Stone Lane.

I have several photos of Bob Pierce’s home in 1974, when it was the first home on Par View.

If anyone knows of a home older than the ones I have uncovered, please comment on-line or send me an e-mail.

Statistical Report

Competition dictates that this Blog get a lot better, and fast – so it will.

There are 40 homes listed for sale today in Hidden Meadows and Rimrock – the average listed price is $846,165, the average listed size is 2,934 square feet, and the average dollar per square feet figure for those listed homes is $301.

Recent sales have been slow, but they continue: There were two sales in August, one in September, three in October, and two thus far in November.

Generally, there is a direct correlation each year between temperature and home sales throughout San Diego, but the correlation is more pronounced in Hidden Meadows.

A Weekend Open House Report

Just to place the market into perspective, today we had a 6-hour Open House – and for the second week in a row we only had one party come through our Open House. A friendly competitor had an Open House yesterday and had ZERO visits! Last weekend, she had the same person we had through.

We can also judge the market by the small number of flyers that are being picked up from flyer boxes in front of houses. I can barely recall the days in the past 10 years when I printed fewer flyers!

We certainly can’t blame the weather!

Links to Commentary

Rising to a point of personal privilege – which I intend to do at least monthly – to remind readers that I have a Blog of "outrageous opinions" available at http://www.allenhemphill.com/point/welcome.html

As some of you know, I have published some 2,000 columns in newspapers and am a regular columnist for the Rancho Bernardo Sun and the San Diego Business Journal.

Those columns and more are regularly published on my opinion Blog.

Competition

Dolphin Realty welcomes Krueger Realty to the world of electronic newsletters. We have been doing that for years.

Competition is good for Hidden Meadows readers, and it will challenge both newsletters to serve the residents better.

Our electronic newsletter has been published for more than three years, and is now in BLOG format – which means:

You do not need to subscribe or give away your e-mail address

It does not clog your e-mail

It can be read 24/7/365 at your convenience

Past issues remain available for research

It can be updated daily…or even hourly

You can post electronic comments for everyone to read

The "Meadows Blog" is available today at
www.allenhemphill.com/weblog/welcome.com

The Meadows Blog will improve because of competition…it will offer news and links to views.

Last month, 253 people read our on-line newsletter – with competition our product will improve and the numbers will grow.

November Real Estate Report

It would not be an exaggeration to declare the Hidden Meadows real estate market as moribund, if not dead.

People in real estate tend to put the best face on the market, but 'facts is facts."

I have closed a million dollar house, two condos and a 4 acre parcel of land in the past month -- but those were in the pipeline for several months.

This is normally a cold time of year -- Un-anxious Buyers do not want to do a major house move over the Thanksgiving or Christmas Holidays -- and Un-anxious Sellers have friends and family coming for the Holidays, and they do not wish to be constantly picking up the house.

Many Sellers simply take their homes off the market for the Holidays.

Add to that the demographics and psychographics of Hidden Meadows: People do not NEED to sell.

One of the reasons that Rancho Bernardo homes are still selling is that RB is populated with people who must sell -- they have job transfers, or they lost their current job, or they are going to a new job...

When you must sell your home, you have an incentive to price your home to sell. Well priced homes keep the market honest because everyone else must stay relatively low to match the homes that must be sold.

That is far less prevalent in Hidden Meadows. Few people in the Meadows must sell...Most simply wish to sell, but it is not necessary to sell this month, or next, or even next year. Consequently, there is no need for Meadows Sellers to price their homes for a quick sale.

So, Rancho Bernardo homes sell, and Hidden Meadows homes do not. It is not unusual for a Sunday Open House in Hidden Meadows to generate only one "lookie-loo" in five and a half hours!

A "new market" begins in February...