March 2018
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1246 El Vago St., La Cañada Flintridge<br />
WHAT YOU GET FOR…<br />
BY BETTIJANE LEVINE<br />
PHOTO: Rita Benelian<br />
Area real estate experts say the seesaw stockmarket and bouncy consumer confidence<br />
stats have not affected the housing market here. They predict that the good<br />
times (for sellers) will continue to roll. Housing inventory and interest rates are<br />
at a low ebb; with so little on the market, multiple offers on desirable homes keep prices<br />
escalating. They’re not talking about McMansions, which take longer to sell, but about<br />
quality moderate-size homes in quality neighborhoods. In Pasadena’s leafy Linda Vista<br />
neighborhood, for example, there’s virtually nothing under $1 million, and even the smallest<br />
homes there can cost a few hundred thousand more than that. So it’s still a seller’s market,<br />
Realtors say, because there are so few properties to choose from and so many competitive<br />
offers. (For tax reform’s negative impact on housing prices, see page 13.)<br />
Many hundreds of people have visited a meticuously upgraded midcentury modern house in<br />
Glendale’s Whiting Woods area, says Realtor Valerie Levitt Halsey of Berkshire Hathaway Home<br />
Services. “We’re really in no hurry to sell,” she says. “We want everyone to get a chance to see it,<br />
and we’ve set a date on which all offers should be submitted.” Interest is exceptionally high in an<br />
area like this, she says, because so many buyers are seeking well-built family homes in the peaceful<br />
woodsy residential neighborhoods the area is noted for. In Whiting Woods, she says, the setting is<br />
bucolic, schools are good and homes rarely come on the market. “People tend to buy their forever<br />
homes there, and settle in for decades. It’s a big challenge under current market conditions, especially<br />
for those trying to set themselves up to get a good education for their kids. There’s so little to<br />
choose from, and so many more buyers than there are properties. And that keeps prices going up.”<br />
Would-be buyers who already own a home and want to move to a bigger or smaller one face<br />
the trickiest situation, Realtors say. “It’s hard to figure out how to sell your current home and buy<br />
your next home successfully in this market,” Halsey says. “If you need the equity from selling<br />
your home in order to buy your next home, you have a problem. The great properties that people<br />
want are so competitive that if you haven’t sold your house yet, you can’t make an offer competitive<br />
enough to buy the new home. Someone else will snap it up. And if you sell your house before<br />
buying a new one, you have no idea how long it will take to find that right new home, and then<br />
make the winning bid. You’re faced with having to rent for an unknown amount of time. This is a<br />
problem we’ve been seeing and lots of us are talking about.”<br />
While most top Arroyoland residential neighborhoods have remained architecturally intact<br />
thanks to Pasadena’s fervent preservation community, there are signs that is slowly changing —<br />
already massive homes are being enlarged or torn down and replaced with something even larger,<br />
introducing architectural styles that are anything but the hallowed traditional style of the neighborhood.<br />
An example is a newly constructed home in La Caňada Flintridge, which Rita Benelian,<br />
a Realtor with Keller Williams’ West Hollywood office, calls “an entertainer’s dream home,” with<br />
one level that’s an extraordinary “man cave” that would have suited the Rat Pack. The upper levels<br />
are traditional in design, the kind of home you might find in Beverly Hills or Doheny Estates, she<br />
says. But “it would be about $20 million if it were on the Westside,” she adds. Because it’s in La<br />
Caňada, it’s what she calls a real bargain.<br />
Condominiums with spacious open floor plans are having a heyday in Arroyoland, Realtors<br />
say, not just because prices can be more affordable, but also because increasing numbers of people<br />
are deciding to embrace the freer lifestyle that comes with owning a condo. Realtor Ryan Sarkissian,<br />
with Compass Pasadena, says that much the same situation exists for condos as for private<br />
homes. “There’s not a lot on the market now in an affordable price range, in good condition and<br />
that has a nice, spacious layout,” he notes. “Prices are escalating for condos, because so many buyers<br />
have so little to choose from.” And when something good comes on the market, he notes, the bidding<br />
competition will be stiff, the price will go up and it will go fast.<br />
Following is a sampling of what you can get for your money:<br />
–continued on page 42<br />
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