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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 />

03.18 | ARROYO | 41

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