Calabasas Mulwood children walk to school

Walkable neighborhoods offer incredible benefits to the environment, our health, and our communities.  Cars are a leading cause of climate change according to walkscore.com, but your feet are zero pollution transportation machines.  Calabasas is not exactly the city that pops to mind when you think of a walkable community.  With its sprawling neighborhoods and gated communities, it seems that more people get around by car than on foot.

Fortunately there is an area of Calabasas that is wonderfully walkable.  Mulwood is located in eastern Calabasas near the Woodland Hills border.  Mulwood includes two areas; Greater Mulwood and Mulholland Heights.  Greater Mulwood includes the area bounded by Old Topanga Canyon Road on the East, extending to Gelson’s on the West, then continuing across Mulholland Highway up the hill almost to Topanga Canyon.

Encompassing about 1,500 homes, this is the largest non-gated community in Calabasas.  This neighborhood is ideal for children because Chaparral Elementary School, Alice C Stelle Middle School and Calabasas High School are walkable from every Mulwood home in fifteen minutes or less.  Before school starts middle school students can be seen riding their bikes and skateboards down Dardenne Street to Dagueere Avenue, and then racing the rest of the way down Mulholland Highway to school. A quick cruise around the parking lot and the bike racks fill up quickly.

Just a few more blocks from the middle school is Gelson’s grocery store, which includes an indoor and outdoor dining area, a bakery and deli.  This is a favorite after school gathering place for students to grab a slice of pizza or some ice cream.  The virtually zero pollution Calabasas Trolley, runs on natural gas, and has four stops in Mulwood while making its loop through Calabasas.  From Mulwood, the trolley continues to the Calabasas Tennis and Swim Center, then to The Commons at Calabasas and stops at the Library before it continues to Las Virgenes Road.

Home prices in this kid friendly neighborhood range from $600,000 to $1,400,000.  For more information about homes for sale in the Mulwood neighborhood of Calabasas or to find the value of your Mulwood home please call Tracey Thomas at 818-652-2937.

Gulping for Air

Calabasas Homeowners will be holding their breath until 2015 according to First American CoreLogic as positive Equity Won’t Return For Most Underwater Borrowers for about five years.

First American CoreLogic estimates that the typical US homeowner who has negative equity in their property will not experience positive equity until late 2015 to early 2016. CoreLogic projects more than 11.3m, or 24% of all residential properties with mortgages had negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter 2009. While the largest decreases in home prices appear to have already happened, it remains to be seen when borrowers will return to positive equity.

To predict how long borrowers will remain in a negative equity position, CoreLogic projected future home values and unpaid principal balances to gauge how long it will take for the average underwater borrower to return to positive equity.

According to the projections, it will take the typical borrower until late 2015 or early 2016 for negative equity to disappear.  Negative equity is widely considered a trigger to strategic default, and a Treasury Department program announced Friday attempts to address the problem by pushing lenders and servicers to offer borrowers principal reductions on their mortgages.

Although house price appreciation will, over time, offset negative equity, amortization, the paying down of loan balances, will in most cases be a more significant remedy to negative equity, a research note from CoreLogic economists states. Over the next 10 years, the average loan balance will decrease by an annual rate of 3.3%; meanwhile home price are expected to increase at a 3% annual rate over the next decade.

If five years seems like a long time to be holding your breath, call or email Tracey Thomas to find out your options.  There are programs available to help underwater homeowners such as loan modifications, short sales and owner financing.  Our team specializes in solutions for distressed and underwater homeowners.  Please call 818-652-2937 now for more information.

Affluence and luxury surround Calabasas with the median home price close to $1,000,000. This means that most Calabasas homebuyers end up shopping for a jumbo mortgage. Since the mortgage meltdown of 2007, it has been difficult for a buyer to get a conventional mortgage, let alone a jumbo loan. In 2004, all a home buyer had to do was fog a mirror and he could get a mortgage, no income check, no asset check. But this hasn’t been the case since 2007 when banks became extra cautious. it’s been so bad lately, the famous Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov had to pull out of a real estate deal and lose his 53 million dollar deposit on a property due to financing woes.

Luckily the jumbo mortgage market has finally started to open up. This is great news for Calabasas home sellers and would be buyers. We’re finally seeing hordes of Calabasas buyers pre approved for a mortgage and ready to buy. I’ve hosted several several open houses in the past two months. Can you say “jam packed”? Home buyers are out there in droves and the inventory is low. There is less than 4.5 months of inventory for sale right now, down from 34 months of inventory in February 2009. Normally we say that six months of inventory is a balanced market. Anything more than six months of inventory is considered to be a buyers market and less than six, a seller’s market.

Home prices in Calabasas have started to creep up. During January 2009 there were 24 closings in Calabasas. Homes sold at approximately 93.67% of their list price for an average of $306 per square foot. The least expensive per square foot, a three bedroom, two bath, bank owned property with a damaged foundation sold for $231 a square foot. On the other end of the spectrum, true luxury sold for $420 per square foot. The exquisite Calabasas Oaks, celebrity style, five bedroom, six bath home included a home theater, recording studio and resort like backyard with jetliner views sold and for $2,700,000. In February there were 16 escrow closings in Calabasas. Homes sold at approximately 95.74% of their list price at an average of $337 per square foot. February sales ranged between a three bedroom, two bath condo on Las Virgenes Road for $410,000 to a Spanish Colonial estate in The Oaks with Brazilian Oak floors, cabana and dramatic views. This mini mansion sold for $2,800,000 or $413 per square foot.

Spring is prime home buying time. As buyers scramble to buy a home before school starts in September, expect to see Calabasas home prices continue to inch up.

To find out what your Calabasas home is worth or to buy a home in Calabasas please call Tracey Thomas at 818-652-2937.

Calabasas Homes in Escrow February 2010

Calabasas Mulwood Real Estate Sales as of Feb 21, 2010

Looking back ninety days there have only been four sales in Mulwood.  Two of them regular sales, one short sale and one bank owned property.  As of today, February 22, 2010 there are fourteen homes in escrow within the Greater Mulwood area of Calabasas.  Of these fourteen homes, seven (50%) are short sales, six are standard sales and one a relocation company sale.

Because Mulwood is in the lower price range for Calabasas, the area is very desirable, especially for families with children.  Most homes in Mulwood are within walking distance of the elementary, middle and high school.

Homes in a pre-foreclosure status have continued to decline in this area and indicates that we are getting closer to the bottom for troubled homeowners.  The prediction is for housing prices to stay flat in Mulwood for the next ninety days.

For more information regarding home prices and short sales in Calabasas, CA please call me at 818-652-2937 email me at tracey@traceyrealtor.com

Calabasas Mulwood pre foreclosure

In The Oaks at Calabasas there are only 17 homes for sale. You can get a four bedroom, five bath, 4479 square foot mini mansion for $1,599,000 or scoop up a luxurious seven bedroom, nine bath estate with a pool, water slide, guest house, security cameras and more for a cool $12,500,000. In Mountain View Estates off of Mureau Road there are nine houses for sale, all of them over 6,000 square feet, ranging from $1,999,999 to $4,500,000. In Mont Calabasas there are only three homes for sale and 26 in Calabasas Park and Calabasas Hills combined.

If the demand for homes continues to outweigh the supply, prices will certainly start inching up. The graph below shows the housing inventory decreasing almost 40% since the fourth quarter of 2006. The mortgage meltdown occurred in July of 2007 and you’ll notice this is when houses under contract (in escrow) fell sharply.

For more information on Calabasas home sales and prices, please call me at 818-652-2937 or email me at tracey@tracey@traceyrealtor.com.

Supply and Demand Calabasas Number of Units

More than 10% of the distressed properties in Calabasas are located in the The Oaks. According to Dataquick there are 205 properties in Calabasas, CA that have a Notice of Default filed, Notice of Trustee Sale, or are Bank Owned as of today. Of these properties, a whopping 28 (13%) are located in The Oaks. Not surprisingly most of these homes were built in 2006 and 2007. Chase seems to be the big loser here holding 10 (36%) of these super jumbo mortgages.

In reviewing the histories of these homes it  doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there was trouble in paradise long before real estate prices started to decline.   All of these homes but two have a first and second mortgage and some even a third. Most of them have been refinanced several times in their three short years increasing the balance each time. Some of them have mortgages totaling 178% of their estimated current value according to Dataquick.

Not all of these distressed properties are listed for sale…yet. In fact of these 28 in The Oaks of Calabasas, only 8 are are currently listed on MLS. Many of these homeowners manage to refinance yet again or liquidate other assets to hang on yet another few months. But deals exist for savvy buyers if you’re willing to wait long enough for a short sale to be approved or be aggressive enough to have your REO offer accepted.

If you’d like more information on Short Sale and Bank Owned properties in The Oaks of Calabasas call of email me for a list that is updated daily.

The excellent Las Virgenes School district plus the low percentage of foreclosures in Calabasas has helped Calabasas homeowners to hold on to their equity.

To get monthly Calabasas Real Estate reports sent to you please call me at (818) 652-2937 or email me at tracey@traceyrealtor.com.

Calabasas Real Estate Median Price

Calabasas Real Estate Median Home Price List

The town of Girard was born on February 4, 1923, on 2,886 hilly acres purchased from the Brant dairy. The young real estate developer, Victor Girard Kleinberger, came to Los Angeles from Louisville about the turn of the century as an ambitious 18 year old that would develop towns all over the county. He was called a “devious genius, a natural dreamer and big spender”. His dream for the west Valley was a little crazy. There was no streetcar access to Girard, as there was to other Valley towns. Girard expected motorists to negotiate Cahuenga Pass plus miles of twisty Ventura Boulevard and pass countless new real estate ventures to reach the 6,000 lots that Girard hoped to sell.

To lure prospects, Girard ran ads emphasizing that his town was closer to the beach than any place in the Valley, since there was a winding road through Topanga Canyon. He also published the Girard News, built stables and a riding club, and opened the Girard Country Club and golf course with a championship size pool and tennis courts. Today the golf course is known as the Woodland Hills Country Club. “Sucker buses’ brought potential buyers out to the far end of the Valley, where teams of sales agents put on the pressure.

In 1941, the community was renamed Woodland Hills, an appropriate name because of all the trees that Girard had planted years earlier. There are still a few “Girard” homes in Woodland Hills today. One of them is 21339 Castillo Street, off of Canoga Avenue which is currently for sale. This home was built in 1925 as a two bedroom, one bath cottage. It has been lovingly restored from the bottom up and includes new beams, copper plumbing, and all new electrical wiring.

Dont miss this rare opportunity to own a piece of San Fernando Valley history. We will be hosting an open house this Sunday March 9, 2008 from 2:00-4:00 PM. Please join us for a tour of this wonderful home with guest house.

21339 Castillo Street, Woodland Hills Ca

Offered at $749,000