Hidden Buyer's Markets in Los Angeles: Sept. '21

Let’s face it, this is a generally challenging time to be a home buyer. Rising construction costs, low inventory of homes for sale, a strong seller’s market, and a large pool of buyers. Exacerbated by the fact that you’re a home buyer in one of the most competitive markets in the country, Los Angeles. But in challenging situations, we all face a choice to be an architect or a victim of our circumstances. We can choose to design our own future or allow circumstance to design it for us. In this article, we will share some areas within LA where a buyer can find leverage. Areas where your dollar has stronger buying power and your offer carries more weight. Hidden ‘Buyer’s markets’ within a larger Seller’s market. I know, we went deep quick, but it’s important to understand that no matter what the circumstances are, there is always opportunity. It’s like choosing the third side of a coin in a coin toss.

My wife and I moved to LA some years back, and our dream was to buy a single-family home. As our internet search began, we quickly realized we were priced out of 95% of the areas we wanted to live. And we were 100% priced out of single-family homes. But we knew that if we could just get into home ownership in LA, then we would be able to start gaining equity and later roll that equity into the purchase of what we really wanted. We bought a townhome in an area of the city where we could compete, two short years later we sold it for profit, rolled our equity, and bought a single-family home in an area we really liked. The point is, the two sides of the coin said you can either “buy” or “not buy” a single-family home, so we chose the third side. An alternative way to get to our desired outcome.

By definition, a Seller’s market is a market where there’s more demand for homes than there is supply. And although LA as a whole is a Seller’s market, when you look at it by neighborhood you start to see areas that are not seller’s markets by definition. These areas are little emerging ‘Buyer’s markets’ within the larger Seller’s market of LA. These are the areas that are increasing in inventory, decreasing in Average Sales Price. Areas where buyers are getting homes for less than asking and where homes don’t fly off the market at break-neck speed. As a buyer, these are the areas where you have more leverage. We have analyzed Single-Family home sales results over the last 3 months across LA, using buyer friendly criteria like inventory increases, sold prices under asking, and increases in Days on the Market to bring you the LA’s Hidden Buyer’s Markets for September.