The Malibu Cove Colony, La Costa Hills and Malibu Colony led the way to the best year ever in Malibu real estate, posting record high sales and values in 2000. Other neighborhoods such as Rambla Pacifico, Serra Retreat, Corral and Latigo Canyons, Malibu West and Point Dume hit price levels never seen before.
A staggering 344 homes were sold during the year, at prices that averaged $1.7 million.
Everywhere in Malibu, values have gone up. The chart on page A9 tracks all known sales from a thorough investigation of multiple listing reports, public records and word-of-mouth revelations during the year.
Only single-family residences were charted in this study for all areas within Malibu City and the 90265 zip code. Neighborhoods of similar characteristic and location are grouped together. While a small number of sales can misrepresent the true movement of neighborhood values, the overall totals indicate Malibu enjoyed a better than 10 percent increase in home values for the second year in a row. The median average of a home has reached $1.25 million, after a hefty one year jump from $800,000 to $1.1 million in 1999.
Virtually every neighborhood in Malibu shows an increase in values, regardless of the sampling size. The geographical center point of home sales used to be closer to Kanan, but now has inched eastward. It is now located near the Gulls Ways estate, just west of Latigo Canyon.
The data is best utilized to get a general idea of values for each neighborhood. In Malibu, homes may have wildly different values even if they are next door neighbors. Your home value can be determined best by a survey of Realtor and appraiser opinions — and even more so by a testing of the real world marketplace.
The 344 homes sold is the closest Malibu has ever been to one sale per day, and significantly higher than all other years except 1998.
Rick Wallace of the Coldwell Banker company has been a Realtor in Malibu for 13 years. He can be reached at RICKMALIBUrealestate.com