Start of the Blog

Ok, this blog isn't going to be too detailed nor really that intersting. What it comes down to is that I am looking into buying a house in the South Bay area of Los Angeles county. Currently, the market is insane.

I'll be referring back a lot to this other blog as I admit that's where I'm getting over half of my information: http://sbbeachbubble.blogspot.com/

1st impressions: Last weekend (5/6/2006 and 5/7/2006) we went house hunting. What struck me is the following:
1. The prices were all over the map.
2. My girlfriend was kind enough to look up the houses on the LA county assesors web site and boy were a lot of the places on 2 year "flips" asking for, on average, 50% more than they bought it.
3. Real estate agents were hungry for buyers. A year ago, none cared if they "locked in" a buyer. This time, they all were hungry to have us sign up with them.
4. Some of the homes were listed at "hail Mary" prices. For example, one house went for $1.2 million while in better areas similar homes were going for $1.05 million.

We looked at about 20 homes over two days (just for the fun of it).

I'll let you know more as we move along in the buying process.


Neil (aka Wannabuy)