Jon Dishon, an agent with Newport Beach-based HÔM Sotheby’s International Realty, represented the buyer and the seller in a house swap.
The seller of a $4.5 million home at 2601 Waverly Drive in the Bayshores neighborhood of Newport Beach traded houses with the buyer, who lived in the Castaways, a gated neighborhood with 119 homes in the Back Bay area of Newport Beach. The Waverly home was more expensive, and the buyer paid the undisclosed difference in cash.
The Castaways home is now on sale for $1.9 million, and Dishon is representing the seller, a yacht builder who had built the 5,700-square-foot home on Waverly as a speculative property.
“He likes building and creating things,” Dishon said.
The yacht-builder, who is retired and living on Lido Island, sells about two spec homes a year. The buyer and the seller are both one-time local business owners who sold their companies.
The Waverly home was once listed for $5.4 million and was reduced to $4.8 million in April.
The buyer wanted to move out of the Castaways, a neighborhood that has a lot of younger families. His children are older, and one is going off to college.
But he didn’t want to have to put his home on the market and “wanted to be stealthy and quiet about it,” Dishon said.
The buyer had seen the home previously and kept an eye on it, the agent said.
First Half Sales
Orange County had 53 sales of homes priced $4 million and above from January to June, according to Redfin.com.
The biggest month was June, which had 12 closings, followed by March with 10. January saw six sales, February nine, and there were eight in both April and May.
The highest-priced, listed home to sell in the first six months was 1 Pelican Hill Road N. in Newport Coast, which closed for $19.4 million on June 29 in a sale to Japanese magnate Toshiaki Ogasawara.
Rob Giem, an agent with HÔM Sotheby’s International Realty, represented the bank.
The second highest-priced sale was also sold by HÔM Sotheby’s International Realty. A home on the bluffs at 103 Shorecliff Road in Corona del Mar sold for $15 million in April.
The home boasts 119 feet of oceanfront and has been on the market only twice since it was built in 1959. HÔM Sotheby’s International Realty’s Bob Coluccio represented the seller.
Timothy Tamura, an agent with Corona del Mar-based Rogers Realty Inc., represented the buyer.
Faster Pace
Homes in Orange County are taking half the time to sell compared with 2010, according to Reports on Housing.
The research service said an analysis of the local housing market by Ladera Ranch-based Steven Thomas showed OC homes spend an average of 1.5 months on the market. That compares to 3.4 months two years earlier.
The county’s pricier areas break down as follows:
• Coto de Caza: 1.9 months, compared with 4 months two years earlier.
• San Clemente: 2.2 months, compared with 4.2 months previously.
• Corona del Mar: 4.1 months, compared with 7.3 months.
• Newport Beach: 4.3 months, compared with 8.7 months.
• Laguna Beach: 4.5 months, compared with 14.3 months.
• Seal Beach: 4.9 months, compared with 7.8 months.
Only Newport Coast homes were taking longer to sell than two years ago at 5.6 months, compared with 4.8 months two years ago.
The average list price for all OC homes was $1.2 million in June. It was $8.7 million for homes priced above $4 million.
Reports on Housing’s Thomas is bullish on the local housing market.
“There is a palpable sense that we not only have reached bottom, but that we are starting to recover,” he wrote in a recent report.
Sellers are getting multiple offers on homes, and interest rates are low.
“Throw in the fact that there are 15% fewer homes listed this year so far compared to last year and you have what we see today, a hot real estate market,” Thomas said.
Thomas predicts consumer confidence will return by year’s end.
“Everybody will hear that real estate has reversed course and that their net worth is increasing,” he said. “In turn, consumer confidence will increase.”
The local housing market could reverse course, however.
National and global variables that could alter the local market include the European debt crisis, a bigger-than-expected slowdown in China’s economy, and possible deadlock in Congress on fiscal policy.
