From March 1st to March 5th, Anne and I were visiting Carmel, one of Northern California's most beautiful areas and were stunned by what we saw. On Saturday afternoon, March 3rd, we took a drive through Carmel, a place we have visited periodically since 1965. We have been real estate investors for 37 years, and well recall home prices skyrocketing there just a few years ago, as many homes sold immediately. Not now.
What I'm going to share with you is from personal observation. On street after street there were homes for sale, many of them held open by Realtors. Never before have we seen so many open houses in Carmel and this wasn't even Sunday, the day California Realtors typically hold homes open, which told us they are under pressure from their sellers to find buyers.
We spoke with one homeowner of a lovely home two blocks from a magnificent beach who after about six weeks of trying to sell his home, had lowered the price $200,000 under pressure from a home listed across the street from him.
If Carmel, an area many people find desirable to live in for its scenic beauty, and a vibrant area with fine schools, low crime, a good job base, plus top quality medical care and higher education is going begging, what does that say about the California economy? And California is by far the U.S.'s biggest state. But Carmel home pricing may be too expensive for an average buyer so I went to the website of Lawrence Lyonhardt, a leading realtor for many years in the Monterey Bay Area which not only includes Carmel but more affordable areas such as Salinas, Seaside and Monterey. The following are the area statistics Lawrence has compiled http://images.intelitouch.com/custom/gfx/gfx_css_8/211_market_update.pdf
On Saturday and Sunday, Anne and I visited Carmel's Crossroads Shopping Village on Highway One, a lovely and popular place to shop. In the past, we had to park at a distance and walk to the shops for their immediate parking was taken. Not this time. Parking was plentiful and shoppers were relatively few.
My intent dear reader is to encourage you to be as prudent as you can be with your money in a very shaky economy. For despite the heavily publicized economic recovery, I'm not seeing signs of it but instead a marketplace still in decline. One day it will get better but not now.
Dick
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204520204577251090065551210.html
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