iBuyers transferring into Oceanside dwelling market
Mark Paskin: “You may remember me from the TV show Secret Millionaire.”
“This house is in trust and has never had a sign or an open house.”
Mary Ellen Reese has lived in the same house in South Oceanside for 37 years. She was puzzled when a similar two-story house four doors down not only sold without traditional marketing, but also cost $ 200,000 to $ 300,000 more than she thought was worth.
From the MLS list of the Oceanside house north of Cassidy Street.
The just sold 3 / bed / 3 / bath, 1,648 square foot home was listed on May 5th. According to the broker, a buyer was secured in about a week.
A year and a half ago, a similar house in the same wing sold for $ 670,000. The MLS (Multiple Listing Service) announced that the house just sold was quoted at $ 980,000. Tamara Strom, who handled this new sale, declined to disclose the agreed price until the escrow account was closed, but says the buyer actually agreed to pay more than the asking price.
“Today it is not unusual for you to receive 10 or 15 offers after two or three days,” says Strom.
Neighbor Reese is not complaining about the skyrocketing value of the houses in “South O”. But she wondered if the super-fast, non-traditional sale in her neighborhood might be related to a disturbing trend she was talking about in the 21st edition of the Wall Street Journal – called “iBuyers” like Opendoor.com to get hold of homes before they even hit the free market.
Cerberus and similar funds bought 200 homes across the country in the first quarter of this year to avoid the traditional real estate agent, and are betting that demand for homes and rentals will outstrip supply for the foreseeable future. Reese wondered if it was venture capital that was buying the house nearby.
“It was a buyer from Tucson who wanted to live there,” says Agent Strom. She says most of her shoppers who come to Oceanside are from cities like “… San Francisco, Foster City, Palo Alto … are friendlier. Where they can walk to the beach. “
But the pinball machines are out there. Opendoor.com or other companies like Redfin or Zillow are known to pay 10 percent below the market price, for example, so they can turn them over with a profit in a few months.
A local looking to be identified wants to sell their second home in the Eastside neighborhood of Oceanside. The appeal to receive a cash payment with no intermediaries urged him to turn to opnedoor.com. He received a payout of $ 681,000. After a five percent fee that opendoor.com collects, the local would leave with about $ 646,000. He says he’s considering the quick, no-hassle cash offering.
Could local real estate agents be completely cut out of the loop?
Agent Strom says she’s not afraid of losing potential clients to venture capital monoliths. She says if Browning or anyone else accepts a cash offer from opendoor.com, they are missing out on a market where competing buyers are constantly increasing the offer.
In addition, it is the agents who ensure that the paperwork is in order and that their customers are not “ripped off”.
His fellow real estate agent Chris Abad agrees that buyers will continue to be highly competitive to get a single family home in Oceanside. He recalls a recent sale on Cornish Drive in Oceanside’s Fire Mountain neighborhood that started with an asking price of $ 575,000. “It ended up being $ 675,000, all in cash.”
Marc Paskin of La Jolla has built a real estate portfolio for over 30 years by amassing hundreds of rental properties across the Southwest. He’s just joined a group of four or five other buyers interested in flipping homes that are advertising on television. On June 1, he started a series of 30-second TV commercials on channels 8 and 10 that began with the line “You may remember me from the Secret Millionaire TV show, and I want to buy your house”. Paskin tells you that if you let him buy your house for cash, “you don’t have to worry about open houses and you don’t have to worry about strangers walking through your house.”
In fact, until recently, open-house showcases were not even allowed due to Covid. South Oceanside Agent Abad says there is increasingly no need for open houses and courtyard signs in this currently hot market.
“Everything is online now,” says Abad. “Signs are old school. You are not really needed for real estate marketing now. They are there to market the agent more than the buyers selling the home. ”He says that some sellers are so confident that in some cases, only the cash-only offer wins in the end.
But when will it end? When will the insatiable desire for homes in the North County coastal area wane? Is there a bubble in our future?
Agent Abad says he doesn’t see a burst bubble. But he sees a less intense market than it did five or six months ago.
“Back around New Year’s Eve you listed it on Thursday, you got offers over the weekend and on Monday you would make a decision. Now you are seeing offers that have been on the market for more than a week. There is one [South Oceanside listing] this has been on the market since May 19 and another one that has been listed since April 29. That hasn’t happened in about six months or so. “
