New All-Time High for Housing Prices

By MICHAEL EDLEN | Special to the Palisadian-Post

As of Dec. 31, 2014 only 56 single-family Palisades residences were listed in the Multiple Listing Service. The current level of inventory is the same as last year’s Dec. 31 available inventory.

A total of 304 homes sold in the Palisades in 2014. Median sale prices were up by 12 percent from 2013. The median list price is at $4,175,000, which is down 14 percent from the end of 2013. There are currently 24 escrows opened in the Palisades.

In 2015, the lowest-priced residence currently available is a 2-bedroom, 1-bath home on Bienveneda Ave., which is being offered at $995,000. The highest-priced available property is a 7-bedroom, 11-bath traditional estate on Toyopa Dr. in the Huntington Palisades, which is listed at $21,950,000.

The most affordable areas in 2014 were the Lower Marquez/Bel-Air Bay Club and Sunset Mesa/Pacific View Estates areas with respective median prices of $1,701,000 and $1,917,000. The Riviera and Huntington areas continue to have the highest median average sales prices.

The lowest sale price in 2014 was $825,000 for a residence on Sunset Blvd. The highest sale in the MLS was $15,730,000 for a property on Chautauqua Blvd. As 2014 came to an end, there was only one Palisades home available in the MLS under $1,000,000.

There are only five condominiums/townhouses on the market as of Jan. 1, which is slightly down from the beginning of 2014. They range from a 1-bedroom, 1-bath in the Edgewater Towers on Sunset Blvd. offered at $749,000 to a 3-bedroom, 4-bath on Palisades Drive being offered at $899,000. Seventy-two condominiums were sold in the Palisades last year, ranging from a 1-bedroom, 1-bath in the Edgewater Towers on Sunset, which sold for $349,000 to a 3-bedroom, 4-bath penthouse unit in the Rockwell building at Sunset and PCH, which sold for $2,520,000.

The median sales price for condos for all of 2014 was $855,000, which is up just over one percent compared with 2013.

There are currently 10 pieces of raw land available, ranging from $195,000 for a 3,697-ft. sloped lot on Posetano Rd. in the Castellammare neighborhood to $4,200,000 for one on Via Santa Ynez in Marquez Knolls. There are four lots currently in escrow, and two pieces of land that sold last year.

There are 35 leases in the Palisades, starting at $2,998 for a 2-bedroom, 2-bath on Sunset and asking as high as $45,000 per month for a 6-bedroom, 8-bath house on Via La Costa in the Highlands. There were 217 Palisades properties leased in 2014, ranging from a 2-bedroom, 2-bath on Sunset, which leased for $2,200 per month, to a 5-bedroom, 7-bath home on San Remo in the Riviera, which leased for $37,500 per month.

Michael Edlen, an agent with Coldwell Banker, has been keeping and analyzing statistics of Pacific Palisades housing prices for the last 29 years.