What Is a Pocket Listing?

Pocket listings can relieve a great deal of stress from the seller. However, there are several things to consider before listing in this way.

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Today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about pocket listings. A pocket listing is one that the seller intends to sell but hasn’t yet officially listed or put into the MLS. 

Therefore, these listings won’t be found anywhere online. When it comes to a listing like this, the seller has often met with an agent who they’ve asked to find them a buyer. 

Pocket listings have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. One of the biggest advantages is that you can maintain your privacy throughout the sale.

Since pocket listings aren’t readily available to just anyone in the public, you have a lot more control over who sees your property and who sees your home. 

Pocket listings can work very well depending on your circumstances.

This also means you have fewer buyers and fewer showings to deal with. Days on market is much less of an issue for this kind of listing since they aren’t on the MLS. 

When my team and I work with these kinds of properties, we put them on something called the off-market property list. As soon as a person tells us they’re interested, we do our best to match the listing with homebuyers who we’re working with. 

This has been very successful for us and many of our sellers. However, there are clear disadvantages to pocket listings. While fewer buyers do mean less stress, it also means that certain benefits associated with higher exposure are greatly reduced. 

With pocket listings, our full, aggressive marketing package doesn’t work. These kind of listings naturally see less activity and foot traffic. 

Ultimately, pocket listings can work very well depending on your circumstances. The decision whether or not to list in this way is really up to the seller—as only they can truly know and understand their individual situation. 

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

A New Website to Connect the Whole Valley

Today I wanted to talk to you about this great new website that the Valley Relics Museum has set up for residents of the Valley.

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Today I’m joined by Oscar Urrutia, the vice president of the Valley Relics Museum. Today we’re going to talk about their new website.

The Valley Relics Museum began over 30 years ago when Tommy Gelinas, the founder and curator of the museum, began collecting artifacts from iconic places in the Valley area. As places began to close down, he went out and grabbed these artifacts himself so that they could be enjoyed by generations to come. This museum is open to the public every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with free admission. 

The museum’s new website, MyValleyPass.com, was created to bring you a curated list of all the arts and entertainment events happening in the San Fernando Valley. The website now has some of those events posted, so be sure to check it out to plan your weeks ahead.

What’s so great about this website is that it puts all the events on one page so that you don’t miss ones you wouldn’t have known about because you live in a different part of the Valley. 

The Valley Relics Museum is open to the public every Saturday.

The Valley Relics Museum also has their own events planned in the coming weeks, including the San Fernando Valley Summer Drive-In Nights, where they will be showing locally-filmed movies including "E.T." and "The Karate Kid." You’ll be able to listen to the movie through your car stereo when you drive up, and there will be a live band performance before each movie—so be sure to show up early.

The museum has also set up a new historical film bus tour that will be starting in September, where participants will be taken to historic film locations around the San Fernando Valley. There will be two tours available for you to choose from, so look out for news of those tickets going on sale as well.

If you have any other questions about MyValleyPass.com, you can contact Oscar at 818-678-4934 or through their website.

If you have any questions for me or you’re looking to buy or sell a home in the area, give me a call. I’d be happy to help.

Southern California Real Estate Market Update

How is the market doing in the San Fernando Valley area? I’ve got the recent numbers in my latest video.

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How does the summer market look in our area? Before we launch into the update, I wanted to let you know that we have a couple of links for a list of all the local fireworks shows happening on July 4th. 

Inventory has increased since April. That’s fairly typical of this time of year, where we see an uptick in inventory as the spring season moves into summer. The properties are still selling, but the inventory numbers have definitely increased. 

In the end of April, we had about 2,200 homes for sale in the entire San Fernando Valley, and now we’re looking at almost 2,700 properties that have been listed. In Porter Ranch, there were 65 properties for sale in April, and now you’re looking at closer to 90 properties.

With these numbers, the inventory is still quite low.

With these numbers, the inventory is still quite low. Obviously there is more to choose from for buyers than there was a few months ago, but that inventory is still quite tight. Furthermore, even though we’re seeing more properties come onto the market, it doesn’t make much of a difference in inventory because demand is so high. 

You can really see that reflected in the amount of closed escrows, which is up 30% from this time last year. In May of this year, we saw over 1,700 closed escrows in the San Fernando Valley, which is up from 1,300 in May 2016. 

The other big news is that the Fed raised the interest rate again, but the rates really haven’t been that affected. We’re actually hovering around 4.5%, and buyers are currently qualifying with rates between 3.75% and 4% interest. 

Right now the market is still very strong and properties are selling if they’re priced correctly. If you have any questions or you’re looking to buy or sell a home, please give me a call. I’d be happy to help you!