The luring force of a residential sales marketplace like no other has been the lack of homes available for sale. In Malibu, prospective buyers are startled at how little choice they have. While prices escalate at rates of 1 percent to 2 percent per month, the opportunity to buy is confined to an ever-decreasing supply of listings.
It’s getting worse. And fast. In the last month, the number of homes for sale dropped 20 percent in one incomparable fell swoop. The market has been reduced to so few homes for sale, then selling so quickly, the market is taking on a life of its own.
In mid-January, the number of homes in the Malibu/90265 residential area was a scant 133. Four weeks later, it had dropped to just 106. Based on a 10-year history of inventory tracking, 250 homes is the yardstick where supply and demand would seem most equitable.
It is almost certain that never before has the inventory of Malibu homes for sale dropped 20 percent in just a 30-day period. To further dramatize the point, there has been virtually no month in the past 10 years that the number of homes dropped by 27 in one month-let alone a time it was historically low to begin with.
At the bottom of the floundering market of the early-mid nineties, in August 1995 there were 379 homes for sale in Malibu. How things have changed. Some homes are entering escrow so fast that many willing, able and previously burned buyers are missing a chance to even hear about them for sale.
One might think that the number of buyers would begin to deplete. For the moment, it doesn’t even matter. Listings are so scarce and buyers plentiful enough, the buying rage continues at crescendo force. Following a year in which prices leaped more than 20 percent in Malibu, the first two months of this year, in the heart of winter, have been simply raging hot.
Amazingly, only 33 homes in all of Malibu are now listed for less than $2.5 million. Compare that to just one year ago: 89 such listings existed, including 25 homes listed under $1 million. Now just nine homes teeter under the $1 million threshold.
The upper end is in the same circumstance. Just 27 homes on the beach, for example, are active. Exactly five years ago, there were 93 listed, a typical number.
For condos and mobile homes, the phenomenon is the same.
Malibu may be expensive, but there is plenty of movement headed here from lower-priced areas, as crushing demand on Southern California housing sends homeowners of every level up the ladder. Plenty folks end up in Malibu, with nothing to choose from.
The focus on “pocket” listings, homes not officially listed but with willing sellers, are most intense. The local industry has come to a place never before imagined: There are less than half the number of homes now for sale than there are agents working the area.
Combined with the changing face of the business, including Internet information and ads readily available to buyers and unavoidable interest rate opportunities, the marketplace has become utterly unrecognizable.
Rick Wallace of the Coldwell Banker Company has been a Realtor in Malibu for 16 years.
He can be reached at www.RICKMALIBUrealestate.com