Living in Los Cabos: Real Estate 2013 Stats

 

 

Year End Real Estate Report: Baja California Sur

 

Summary

It’s traditional at this time of year to look back and see what the old year brought and what that might bode for the year to come. In real estate it’s no different. These  statistics are from our Multiple Listing Service for 2013 versus 2012. Although we know they are not 100% accurate (agent input error) they are the best we have available.

What we’re seeing, and these numbers back that up, is that the market picked up in 2013 with more sales logged for condos, single family homes, and even raw land. That said, the median sales price (point at which half the sales are above and below) fell for condos and land, and was stable for single family homes. It is still a buyer’s market, and bargains are being had. But that is part of any market recovery. All in all I’m very encouraged by the year we’ve had and the year to come.

One caveat about this report: it is for the whole state. And the market is distinctly different among the various areas. For example, the inventory of condominiums in La Paz more than doubled—an increase of 116%. But on the Cabo San Lucas section of the corridor the inventory dropped by nearly half – a decrease of 45%. You may want to contact me for the breakdown in your exact location.

 

Condominiums

Sold:  This year: 146   Last year: 150  Percent Change: -2

Number Under Contract: This year: 180   Last year: 162  Percent Change:  +11

Sold Volume:  This year: 40,915,636   Last year: 46,584,254  Percent Change: -12

Average Sale Price:  This year: 280,244   Last year:  310,562 Percent Change: -9

Median Sale Price: This year: 199,340   Last year: 216,000  Percent Change: -7

Percent of Asking Price Received: This year: 90   Last year: 90  Percent Change: 0

Number on Market: This year: 959   Last year: 1104  Percent Change: -13

Houses

Sold:  This year: 203   Last year: 185  Percent Change: +9

Number Under Contract: This year: 212   Last year: 203  Percent Change: +4

Sold Volume:  This year: 139,445,888  Last year: 106,240,119  Percent Change: +31

Average Sale Price:  This year: 686,926   Last year: 574,271  Percent Change: +19

Median Sale Price: This year:  279,000  Last year: 275,000  Percent Change: +1

Percent of Asking Price Received: This year: 88   Last year: 89  Percent Change: -1

Number Currently on Market: This year: 1451   Last year: 1315  Percent Change: +10

Land

Sold:  This year: 136   Last year: 125 Percent Change: +8

Number Under Contract: This year: 151   Last year: 128  Percent Change: +17

Sold Volume:  This year: 26,782,765   Last year:  25,735,432 Percent Change: +4

Average Sale Price:  This year: 196,932   Last year: 205,883  Percent Change: -4

Median Sale Price: This year: 78,500   Last year: 91,666  Percent Change: -14

Number Currently on Market: This year: 2097   Last year: 2025  Percent Change: +3

 

 

Terms:

Sold: number of transactions completed

Under Contract: number of accepted offers

Sold Volume: value of all transactions

Average Sale Price: the numerical average: in this market HIGHLY DECEIVING

Median Sale Price: point at which half the transactions are above and the other half below

Percent of Sale Price: also deceiving as it does not account for price reductions

On Market: Currently for sale

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of Cabo Realty Pros. She has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for over twelve years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine. You can read more of her articles on the website blog www.caborealtypros.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541. You can listen to our 24/7 broadcast on http://www.livecabo.net for a mix of happy music, weather reports and local information.

 

 

 

© 2013 Carol S. Billups

 

Living in Los Cabos: Are You Ready To Sell? Or Just Wasting Time?

Living in Los Cabos: Are You Ready To Sell? Or Just Wasting Time?

It’s been a frustrating week, and I may as well vent. I’ve got two clients, both have listed their homes with me to sell and both are completely preventing me from getting that job done. Argh! So, on the off chance someone reading this might be in the process of trying to sell their home, or is thinking of putting their home on the market, here’s how to go about it. And remember, almost 100% of this applies no matter where home is.

Time Waste #1: Pride of Price

Both of these clients have over-priced their homes. Significantly. They are also both quite accomplished successful men who have a stubborn streak a mile wide. If I hear “I’ll get my price’ once more from either of them I’ll scream. Truly I will. Look, you can’t take the global economic crisis personally. You haven’t been singled out by the recession. Your home may no longer be worth what you paid for it. That’s a fact, albeit not a happy one.

Over and above the effect of the recession you’ve got to price realistically. One of these gentlemen is refusing to budge off his price because the comparable market analysis (which I provided… ouch) shows that on average homes in his area sold for X dollars per square foot. Multiplying that number by the area of his house is how he set his price, about 35-40% over my estimate of what his home would bring. My estimate was so much lower for three reasons:
1. View. If you live anywhere near the ocean, or any other scenic wonder, view totally trumps square footage. This gentleman’s view was severely impacted by a very large and very ugly Cultural Pavilion that was erected since his home was built.
2. Floor plan. Square footage matters only when the useful area makes sense. A 350 square foot laundry room may have made sense to him when he built the home, but for most buyers it’s only a waste and won’t factor into what they are willing to spend. His home is huge, but it also has no pool, no hot tub, and no garage. You’ve got to price based on what buyers are seeking.
3. Out-dated finishes. No matter how fastidiously maintained ceramic tile counters and back-splashes knock down the eventual selling price of a home. If your finishes are not up to date you must price accordingly.

This client rejected the final price recommendation on the comparative market analysis which took these factors into consideration and focused in on a meaningless statistic that would help him rationalize the unrealistic price he’d prefer.

Time Waste #2: Pride of Possessions

The minute you put your home on the market it ceases to be yours. It belongs to someone else, we just don’t know who yet. The other absolutely true thing about real estate is that people buy houses; they don’t buy other people’s homes. There are too many good blogs and websites on staging a home to go too far into it but, but let’s just say that neither one of these gentlemen is an interior designer. Rattan furniture with mauve and gray upholstery has been out of fashion for quite a while. But both homes have it proudly serving still. Most of our homes here are sold furnished; do they really think that people want to pay good money for thirty year old furniture? And so much of it! I cannot get the one gentleman to take anything out of the house, he thinks it’s wonderful that he has four couches and two barcaloungers in the living room and they fit! Gee, I wonder why at the open house we got comments about the house being ‘cramped’. Anyway, you get the picture. Especially in today’s market where supply far exceeds demand the house must be pretty. It is not easy to tell someone that you need them to clean their closets, especially if the agent is also a friend, so when your agent screws ups the courage to have that conversation with you, please pay attention. In one case two interior designers and I spent several days coming up with a staging plan that the client requested. When we presented it he didn’t even consider it but told us he’d changed his mind and decided he liked the house the way it was. Too bad nobody else does.

It’s not fair to your agent to expect them to sell a house that is cluttered, too personal, or looks poorly maintained for full asking price. For political reasons I didn’t have the choice of saying no to taking either of the listings, but frankly, I’m not going to spend my time or money marketing them aggressively. It would just be a waste. Thanks, I needed to vent.

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of Cabo Realty Pros. She has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for over eleven years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine. You can read more of her articles on the website blog http://www.caborealtypros.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541. You can listen to our 24/7 broadcast on http://www.livecabo.net for a mix of happy music, weather reports and local information.

© 2012 Carol S. Billups

Real Estate in Los Cabos: State of the Real Estate Market

Real Estate in Los Cabos: State of the Real Estate Market

It’s that time again. With only a few days left before the start of a new year we think about the year about to expire; what was accomplished and what we hope to accomplish in the coming spin around the sun.

I’m preparing a year-end market report for clients, looking back at what’s been happening in Cabo’s real estate market this year. Two significant events are that we started using a new on-line system last January, so comparing over 2009 is tricky. All I can say is that 2010 was better, at least for me and my company, than the prior year.

The other change is that, with the merger of AMPI (our local branch of the national realtor’s association) and our former local MLS group our on-line system became a state-wide entity, so some of the numbers can be misleading if you don’t know how to carve them up properly.

So with those two caveats, here is what I consider the significant market data for 2010*.

SOLD properties:
• Median sale price = $350,000 USD, down 41% from 2009
• Days on Market = 425, up 248% from 2009
• Number of closed sales = 232
• Number of closed sales by area:
o Cabo San Lucas = 41
o Tourist Corridor = 55
o San Jose del Cabo = 28
o East Cape = 26
o Other (Todos Santos, La Paz, Loretto, etc) = 82
• Price ranges by area:
o Cabo San Lucas = $41,600 – $3,050,000 USD
o Tourist Corridor = $95,000 – $ 8,700,000 USD
o San Jose del Cabo = $32,000 – $650,000 USD
o East Cape = $12,500 – $700,000 USD

Some of the more important stats here are the Median Sales Price. Have values really fallen over 40%? My experience, that of my colleagues and the Notarios I’ve spoken to are that 30% is more like it. Prior to the whole organization switching to the new system there were only a few companies here using it and many of the listings were from a broker who does internal sales for very upscale developments; adding the general real estate trade might account for the large drop. Or, what I noticed this year was that potential buyers were shopping below their means. Either of these could have accounted for some of the change. That said, if you look at final sales price versus original listing price almost all properties did experience a loss in value. And buyers almost always got a great deal.

Days on Market is simply an indication of how few sales and how many listings are available. In fact, the system shows that at the current rate of sales to new listings we have 10 years of inventory! Below is a breakdown of properties currently for sale.

ACTIVE listings: 2,366 total
• Houses: 670
• Condominiums: 565
• Building lots: 1,111
• Other: 20

The bottom line is that our market is recovering. It might be a while before it can be described as ‘robust’ but it has improved in the past year and I’m looking forward to a much better 2011.

*All data taken from the AMPI LOS CABOS FLEX MLS system December 23, 2010.

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of REALTY EXECUTIVES Los Cabos. A Certified Home Marketing Specialist, she has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for over nine years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine and the real estate co-ordinator for the Los Cabos Now program on CaboMil FM (www.cabomil.com.mx). You can read more of her articles on http://www.reloscabos.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541.

© 2010 Carol S. Billups

Living in Los Cabos: How Much Does Gas Cost

Living in Los Cabos: How Much Does Gas Cost

I keep being asked “How much is gas in Cabo?”. Frankly I don’t care. But here’s your answer.

First, let’s address that answer which is totally unlike me. I’m not that callous. But the deal with gas is that it’s a government monopoly and the price is the price. You can’t cross town and go to a cheaper provider: whatever PEMEX says the price is in your area is what you are going to pay. So it is what it is. I know that 200 pesos used to get me ¾ tank and now is more like 2/3, but that’s just something I have to live with. So I, nor anyone I know, pay any attention except in January when PEMEX posts the new rates.

That said, many people looking to retire or vacation here in Cabo want to know the price of gas. So here goes. While I was putting gas into the Blue Cruiser today (December 16, 2010) I jotted down the pertinent info to calculate it for the interested parties.

So, OK, I paid 8.45 pesos per liter. There are 3.79 liters per gallon. So then I paid 32 pesos per gallon. I should add that was for Magna, which is the normal octane rather than the premium.

So, how much does that mean to you in dollars? Now that’s the key. The “tipo de cambio” or exchange rate at the gas station today was 12:1. So, if you bought one gallon of regular gas today using US dollars at the PEMEX you’d pay the equivalent of $2.66 per gallon. BUT!!!

The exchange rate other places in town was more like 12.5. So, if you bought pesos at the bank, and then used those pesos to buy gas, you’d pay about $2.56 US per gallon.

I should add that this is always full serve. If you tried, you couldn’t pump your own. The attendant will offer to check your oil and water, if you refuse they will at very least clean your windshield. You should give them a five peso or so tip.

So that’s the scoop on gas prices. I haven’t been north in nearly a year but it seems to me that gas is a bargain here compared to the States or Canada. You only have to worry about whether you’re getting every drop you’re paying for. And there are ways to make sure. But that’s another blog……..

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of REALTY EXECUTIVES Los Cabos. A Certified Home Marketing Specialist, she has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for over nine years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine and the real estate co-ordinator for the Los Cabos Now program on CaboMil FM (www.cabomil.com.mx). You can read more of her articles on http://www.reloscabos.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541.

© 2010 Carol S. Billups

Living in Los Cabos: Real Estate Report

Living in Los Cabos: Real Estate Report

For those who were listening to last night’s Los Cabos Now radio show (and those who were not) here are the stats I pulled from the MLS that show the state of the real estate market going into the final quarter of 2010. We didn’t get into all of them and sometimes numbers are hard to process when you hear them on the radio so I wanted to get them all here.

First off, I don’t want to mislead anyone. The stat’s we used on the air were for the total MLS which is pretty much the entire southern part of the state. The number of reported closed sales for 2010 year to date is 95: way up from 2009 but still a longer way shy of a normal year. I think it’s important to note for what *I* think of when you say Los Cabos (San Jose, Cabo San Lucas and the corridor between them) there were 32 reported sales; which confirms that the action is on the far East Cape and near Todos Santos. Here is the breakdown by price point:

Year to Date Sold Homes, Condos and Townhouses

All of Los Cabos MLS, including Las Barilles and Todos Santos

From FLEX on September 20, 2010

Price Number Percentage
Total 95 100
< one million 67 71
< 750,000 59 62
< 500,000 49 52
< 400,000 44 46
< 300,000 33 35
< 250,000 27 28
< 150,000 10 11

When I look at the price points it really drives home to me that although we’re known as a high priced, high end market that what people are buying right now are the more moderately priced homes, those under about $700,000 US. That’s certainly where I’m focusing my attention these days.

Now those are the closed sales. If you look at the listings still on the market you get a better picture of what is happening. Here are the stats for active listings, again for the whole southern part of the state, also taken on September 20, 2010.

Price Number Percentage
Total 1,143 100
< one million 836 73
< 750,000 728 63
< 500,000 574 50
< 400,000 498 44
< 300,000 372 33
< 250,000 265 23
< 150,000 83 7

The listing volume (total value of all properties being offered) is a staggering $407,000,000 US! That’s more than the annual GNP of some small countries! The average list price is a whopping $848,750 US.

Now here’s the thing: I can’t absolutely prove it with these numbers (or if I can I haven’t figured out how) but I am firmly believe the big listings are just not getting any attention from today’s buyers. We need affordable inventory, not palaces. JMHO

Whatever the price range, if things continue to move at the same pace as the rest of the year we currently have on our system enough inventory to last 148 months, or just over 12 years!

I’m going to let those numbers sink in and come back with some ideas for people who are trying to sell their property in Los Cabos and strategies for anyone looking to take advantage and snatch up a bargain.

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of REALTY EXECUTIVES Los Cabos. A Certified Home Marketing Specialist, she has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for over ten years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine and the real estate co-ordinator for the Los Cabos Now program on CaboMil FM (www.cabomil.com.mx). You can read more of her articles on http://www.reloscabos.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541.

© 2010 Carol S. Billups

Price versus Perception

Now I’m going to blog an important question: is it possible to price a house too low? I really don’t know the answer to that, but let me tell you about a situation I recently had with some very motivated sellers.

The house, a really great house in my opinion, was in a prestigious gated community in Los Cabos. When we started out at what seemed to be fair price I got lots of compliments from fellow agents. Then we started dropping the price. At first the reductions got rave reviews, with agents commenting that this was the best value in the community. Of course the market at the time was as close to dead as it gets; so agent comments were about all I was getting. And the price kept dropping, until it was at about 60% of the asking price of similar homes in the same community. And that’s when the comments began to change (and the market began to pick up). What ensued was a virtual feeding frenzy, showing the house way more often than any other listing in town. If there was someone looking, their agent brought them to my house.

“What’s wrong with it?” was now the most frequent comment. The price was so low that it seems that it was being perceived as a fixer. Prospects and their agents were looking for something that justified that low a price in such a nice community. And they found it. Well, sort of.

Now I need to make it clear that NOTHING CHANGED. NADA. The only change from the time I took the listing until it sold was a change in the comforters in two of the bedrooms and the microwave replaced, good things from most perspectives. And there was no difference in the way I presented the house. The only difference from the start of the campaign until the end was price.

Now the feedback I was getting was that the house ‘needed too much work’. Just a general, vague comment with no specifics to be had. When the house did sell it was with a home inspection contingency, something kind of rare in these parts.

So here’s the question: since we know that nothing about the house changed (other than price), did we price it so low that the price actually became a negative? These days in Los Cabos there are so many great deals that we’re all asking ourselves if they are really steals or if the ‘bargain’ prices are our new reality. And now I’m wondering what being the best bargain in town does for prospective buyer’s perception of the property. Hmmm.

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of REALTY EXECUTIVES Los Cabos. A Certified Home Marketing Specialist, she has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for over nine years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine and the real estate co-ordinator for the Los Cabos Now program on CaboMil FM (www.cabomil.com.mx). You can read more of her articles on http://www.reloscabos.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541.

Search more than 2000 listings on the new http://www.lovecabo.net

© 2010 Carol S. Billups

Living In Los Cabos: Buying Gas

It’s that time of year! A very pretty time, skies are blue, seas are calm (unless a whale jumps up in front of you and that’s a good thing), temperatures are reliably in the high 70’s. So what’s up? Taxes. All taxes are reconsidered and recalculated and the changes go into effect Jan 1, even though no self-respecting Notario comes back to work before the 15th.

Federally set prices also go up Jan 1, including the cost of gasoline at Pemex. I’ve learned recently that the price actually does vary nationally, although within town it’s all the same. Here in Cabo the price went up. Geez! Why didn’t I fill up the Suburban on New Year’s Eve? Anyway, here’s the new cost.

Thanks to my engineer hubby, who is the only person possible who would take the time and have the patience to convert liters to gallons and pesos to dollars the new going rate for gas in Cabo is $2.20 per gallon. This is, according to my administrator Carlos, about a 70 centavo per liter increase.

No getting around it, the price is the price is the price. Pay it or walk or get on the bus.

So, in the public interest, I’m just posting the change. As per the above paragraph we have to live with the change. IVA, the sales tax, has also gone up one percent. In Cabo that’s 11% up from 10% and on the mainland 16 versus 15. Not a killer.

Capital gains tax has also gone up to 30% of the gain, and there are some changes in the rule for being exempt. But more about that one later….

So FYI, if you knew how much of your tank $200 pesos would fill it’s time to re-calibrate.

Welcome to 2010, and let’s face it: it’s a small, small price to live in Paradise1

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of Realty Executives Los Cabos in Cabo San Lucas. She loves to put clients in touch with their dream home in Mexico. She is the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine and the Real Estate Co-Ordinator for the Los Cabos Now talk show on Cabo Mil FM, Los Cabos only radio station.sd You can read more of her articles on http://www.reloscabos.com or contact her at loscabos@realtyexecutives.com. Her phone from the US or Canada is 1-760-481-$7694 or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541. You can search hundreds of listings in all of Los Cabos by visiting her website http://www.lovecabo.net

© 2010 Carol S. Billups

But We Have To Sell It Twice!! (Putting a Price on Your Home)

Here’s the thing: these days we’re selling homes not once, but twice. And it’s not an easy sale.

It’s no secret our market is ‘challenged’. This is the worst downturn I’ve experienced. Period. There are very few buyers, and many of them are looking to finance their property. We have great cross-border mortgage companies and the interest rates are the lowest ever. So you’d think that would be good news, right? But it isn’t.

About 95% or even more of the properties in Los Cabos are owned out-right. And our carrying costs are very affordable. So, in prior downturns no one lowered their prices, they just hung onto the property until the market turned back in their favor. Many of our sellers are treating the market this way again: refusing to lower prices or lowering them only a percentage point or two. It’s just my opinion, but I think this time that strategy is fatal.

It’s really too soon to say what the recovery will bring, but already I’m seeing signs that financing will play a larger roll than in the past. Not only is it available, and affordable, but many buyers will be reluctant to tie up so much of their portfolio in a single asset. By financing the Los Cabos property they can use only a fraction of their cash for real estate and invest the balance elsewhere. Which is all great news; except that it also means that now we have the sell the property not once but twice. Once to the prospective buyer and after that to the loan appraiser.

If you will be financing your home here it’s critical to tell your real estate agent and get yourself pre-qualified for several reasons:
1. Only a pre-qualified buyer can really negotiate. These days any contingency for the buyer to obtain financing weakens the offer.
2. Only by being pre-qualified are you sure of your price range.
3. Your agent will select homes to show you based on their ability to get them closed. The harsh fact of the matter is that it’s immaterial what you are willing to pay for a home: the more important factor is how it will stand up to the appraiser.

Even with pre-qualification, if the banker can’t be convinced that this home is a good value and worth the price they won’t complete the loan. Therefore, when deciding which of many homes on the market to show my buyer I need to focus in on those I think are priced well enough to make it through the appraisal process.

So far the movement we’re seeing is on smaller, more affordable properties whose price has been reduced significantly. Of course the first buyers are going to go for the true bargains, that’s the nature of the beast. Or you could make a case that the actual property values have dropped to the point that those are the new, real values. Homes selling today are selling for 2005 prices: about 30% less than they would have fetched in 2007. Of course there are so few transactions that it’s hard to say for sure, but that’s my gut feeling.

So here’s the dilemma of a listing agent in Los Cabos in the fall of 2009: so many sellers are either in denial that our real estate has gone down in value, or counting on doing the old fashioned wait-them-out tactic. No matter how many statistics I have to support my pricing suggestion they put a higher than realistic price on their home and all I can do is hope the buyer, if we’re lucky enough to find one, is paying cash. Which is unlikely considering most of our ‘cash’ buyers in the past were really self-financing (pulling equity out of their U.S. property) because of tighter restrictions on loans in the U.S.

So here’s a tough love appeal to sellers: get real with your pricing or take your home OFF the market until conditions change. And be ready for a long wait, we’re not going to recover from this mess over night.

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of REALTY EXECUTIVES Los Cabos. A Certified Home Marketing Specialist, she has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for nine years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine. You can read more of her articles on http://www.reloscabos.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541.

Search more than 2000 listings on the new http://www.lovecabo.net

© 2009 Carol S. Billups

How Low Can We Go?

I’m having trouble answering an email from a client, something that NEVER happens. But this time I am. It’s not that I mind saying “I don’t know.” No, what I mind like heck is having to say “I don’t know and I don’t know how to find out.” THAT really sticks in my craw.

Here’s the situation. She wants to know if she should drop the price of her house again, and if that will help it sell. And I really don’t want to answer.

Have property values in Cabo gone down? Absolutely. Oh, of course there are lots and lots of sellers who have not dropped their price and are merely hanging on until the market comes back. And there are others who are dropping their prices. And still nothing is really selling, except a few very small properties. There’s not really anybody looking!

What makes it worse is that there really isn’t a data source I can turn to. The Multi-List’s MLS system shows only one or two sales year to date, but it’s no secret around Cabo that the sold data in particular is notoriously inaccurate. So will dropping the price of the house, which is already the lowest price in the subdivision, bring in a buyer? I just don’t know. Maybe there is buyer out there lurking on the internet, waiting for a house in that neighborhood to slide into his/her price range. Or maybe not. Who knows?

I keep thinking about my ‘hot list’, that list of these-are-so-killer properties that I think are too good a deal to last. Properties like the Villa La Estancia ¼ Share I’ve been watching for months. The thing about the fractionals is that they are all alike, so one unit is really no different than the others; a commodity item. The average asking price for a re-sale quarter share there is $429,000. This seller is down to $180,000 and still owns the condo.

Or how about a pair of building lots with killer views of the arch I sold a year ago? I thought my client got a great deal at nearly $300,000 but the sale fell through. Now they’re being offered at $150,000 for the pair, and no takers. Shocking.

And a gorgeous two bedroom condo at Misiones, all re-done with new marble floors, granite and stainless kitchen, wonderful ocean views. The listing agent has been pounding this divorce sale, which at $299,000 is about half the asking price of similar units in the same complex, for over four months now and it’s not moving.

These are just three examples of what I consider great buys that aren’t selling. I remember about a year ago a friend who sold real estate in a resort community in the States told me “Carol, I could put free on that ad and my phone still wouldn’t ring!”

What I’m wondering is this: have property values really dropped more than 50% or is it just that there are no buyers? Of course, if there are no buyers we might as well say values have dropped 100% but let’s not go there. Yeesh.

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of REALTY EXECUTIVES Los Cabos. You can read more of her articles on http://www.reloscabos.com.
© 2009 Carol S. Billups