🏡 How to Find a Deal in 2025. 🤝

Brock's newsletter | November 22, 2024

The 2025 home price forecasts are in, and they’re pretty much the same: Goldman Sachs: +4.4%, Wells Fargo: +4.3%, Housingwire: +3.5%, Zillow: +2.3 %, etc.

Now, these are national averages—in some markets like Austin, prices are dropping fast from their pandemic peak.

But the consensus is that home prices will continue to slowly rise overall, including in Los Angeles.

We're not talking COVID-style appreciation numbers, but any buyer holdouts still wishfully thinking prices will go down - it's time to give up that dream.

We can blame the lack of supply. How’s this for a crazy stat: In the first eight months of 2024, only 2.5% of all the homes in the U.S. were sold, the lowest home turnover rate in 30 years.

And which city was #1 among major metro areas for lowest turnover? Yup, you guessed it. Los Angeles.

But things should improve in the new year. In the last two years, buying and selling activity exploded after the long weekend in January, and we foresee the same in 2025, with lots of pent-up demand (election, rate cuts, etc.) spilling over.

I can confidently say that a housing crash or downturn isn’t happening in 2025.

Research shows that prices only adjust significantly when 40% of the sellers are highly motivated to slash their prices, and there’s only one kind of seller who does this in bulk: banks. That’s right - bank foreclosures drive market drops, and I haven’t seen or heard of a foreclosure in L.A. in years (read more about this in my July 12th newsletter).

And you can thank the city of L.A. for the lack of new construction. The once-a-decade city rezoning plan, about to be finalized, “will fall far short” of what the city needs to keep up with population growth, let alone satisfy present demand.

So, no crash coming, no new houses, and values are holding strong. Any good news for buyers? Yes - you can save 20% right now. It’s true - absolute steals are happening every week.

Don’t believe me? Just pull up the last 20 sales in a zip code of your choice on Redfin. I promise you, at least three of them will make you go, “Wow, they got a really good deal on that.”

How? You can’t wait for a deal; you have to go out and make it. And not by lowballing. Deals are found when homes are mis-marketed and/or mis-priced, almost always by an out-of-area or inexperienced agent, and the only way to find them is to see them in person and see where and how the agent screwed up.

Oliver Stone said, “The secret to writing a screenplay is keeping your ass in the chair.” I like to say, “The secret to finding real estate deals is keeping your ass in the car.”

Get off the internet and go look at homes. There are great buys out there. Fewer homes for sale means you just have to look a little harder.

Our Top Weekend Open House Picks

🔑 2350 Glover Pl, Frogtown - Gorgeous newly-built Frogtown home with a vibey ADU - Listed at $2,195,000 - Open Saturday 1-3pm & Sunday 12-3pm w/ Just What I Kneaded pop-tarts & cold brew!

🔑 319 N Avenue 53, Highland Park - 1907 beautifully restored Dutch Colonial Revival originally built by Fred E. Palmer - Listed at $1,575,000 - Open Sunday 1-4pm

🔑 621 N McCadden Place, Hancock Park - Perfectly restored Spanish on one of the best streets in Hancock Park - Listed at $3,500,000 - Open Sunday 2-4pm

🔑 8917 Holly Pl, Laurel Canyon - Idyllic Laurel Canyon Cabin with ADU - Listed at $1,900,000 - Open Sunday 12-4pm

🔑 3501 Crestmont Ave, Silver Lake - VERY cool Silver Lake Craftsman - Listed at $2,799,000 - Open Sunday 1-4pm

Until next Friday,

-Brock

P.S. I get asked a lot if I write these. Yes! I write each one personally, by myself, on Friday morning, in my bathrobe. Thanks for reading. ;-)

P.P.S. We know of a few great off-market opportunities. If you’re an unrepresented buyer looking in northeast L.A., please reply back.