By Keith Kyle
I received an odd phone call yesterday from a potential buyer that said she had been given a real estate flyer for a listing at 16808 Delia in North Torrance. She said it was a well priced short sale and it was. The only problem was that I sold this house at the beginning of 2012. It had been a while since I thought of this house and upon pulling up the old listing I struck me just how dramatically the market has changed since then. It was a very nice home, with a great yard and pool but unfortunately the owners were struggling and had to do a short sale. We listed the home at $520,000 and it closed at $502,000.
What would it sell for now?
It would be just about impossible to find any single family home in that neighborhood, regardless of condition and size for that price in the 
current market. That home that sold only 2 years ago would now sell for at least $750,000 which is simply incredible. The speed with which the real estate market in Torrance and the South Bay was stunning and the changes to value equally unbelievable.
How Quickly we forget?
Another aspect of all this that struck me was just how short our memories can be. Just 2 years ago there were so many homes with great prices and most buyers thought it would continue and go even lower. These days the poor buyers that didn’t buy are priced completely out of neighborhoods that would have been very affordable. The thought now is that it of course can only continue going up, but is that really the reality and has that much changed? It’s certainly a great time to be a home seller, but not necessarily a great time to be a buyer.
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Bay, it has been a very good indicator of how much of a factor short sales and bank owned homes have been on the local market. Short sales first became a factor in mid 2007 with a high point in 2010. In August of 2010 there were 159 active short sale homes for sale in Torrance. Those numbers started to decline in April of 2011 and have continued downward to the current level which has seen an average of 4 homes for sale for the past few months. What was a source of the “deals” sought by buyers is no longer putting downward pressure on the market and has basically ceased to be a factor. View short sale homes for sale on our distressed home site for Torrance and all of the South Bay
