In addition to home prices falling, the numbers of sales have taken a dive as well.
By Rick Wallace / Special to The Malibu Times
In the last 10 years in Malibu home prices experienced a meteoric rise in the early part of the decade, only to plummet in the recent two years.
More profoundly, and more than just a slight factor in the change in values, has been the plunge of actual sales units. Whereas 300-plus home sales per year were once the norm in Malibu, the past five years in a row it has been under the 200 mark.
Virtually every neighborhood has gone back in time, using home prices as the measuring stick, as the chart on page A12 demonstrates. Sales within every neighborhood in the Malibu/90265 ZIP code are accounted for in the chart for every even-numbered year since 2000.
Several interesting trends can be deciphered from the tallies, besides the distinct lowering of prices throughout Malibu. Particularly, the higher priced locales have felt less depreciation than the lower priced areas. The beach properties were the last to be hit by the real estate crisis. They are lagging in the rate of value decline. In fact, among the most elite of properties, there is little noticeable change in values. There were two sales on Carbon Beach last year: at $25 million and $37 million. Malibu Colony Beach had a whopping year with nine sales that averaged a staggering $17 million. On the land side, the one neighborhood category that has withstood the market best is the grouping of homes close to the beach, on the land side of the Colony and Malibu Road, and Latigo Shore.
The far right column of the chart notes the past year that neighborhoods most resemble in their average sale price. The samplings are small in most cases, however, the overall trend yields the decline in price. The majorities of neighborhoods saw their high point in 2006, and have drifted far from those levels since. Many homeowners who once had 30 percent to 40 percent equity in their homes have lost it all.
The numbers in the chart take into account every bona fide sale of single family residences with one to four units in the 90265 ZIP code. Most sales are disclosed in the Multiple Listing Service but some are discovered in searches of public records.
Thanks to some mammoth deals on the beach in the last half of 2010, the average sale price stayed above $4 million. Statistics are often skewed by the type of properties that are selling. As a generality, homes more affordable in the lower range and the elite large beach estates had the bulk of action last year. The $1.5 million to $10 million properties faced tough dynamics with increasing inventories and few buyers.
The dark cloud over the entire Malibu market reflects in the tight credit markets, which make for fewer qualified buyers. Seemingly, it is the $1.5 million-and-less market and the more than $10 million market where the essential all-cash or high-down payment buyer can be found.
Also noticeable is the scant number of sales that took place in 2008. It was the same result in 2009. At least the number of sales picked up last year, even if it was partly due to resignation by sellers that their old values were gone.