Single Family Home for $100k | Arcadia Housing Blog

38 W. Forest Ave.

Asking Price	$100,000	:::	Sq-ft	1,685
Purchased Price	$610,000	:::	Lot Size	7,500 Sq. Ft.
Purchased Date	07/8/2005	:::	Beds	3
Days on Redfin	98	:::	Baths	2
$/Sq-ft	$59	:::	Year Built	1947
20% Downpayment	$20,000	:::	Area	Santa Anita/fwy
Income Required	$25,000/yr	:::	Type	SFR
Est. Payment*	$505/month	:::	MLS#	A08005262

*Estimated monthly payment assume 20% down, 30-yr fixed @ 6.50%

Am I dreaming? A single family home in Arcadia for $100,000? Yeah right. In another case of agents trying anything and everything to get homes sold, Joshua Chao of Help-U-Sell Smart Realty has listed this property for an unbelievably low price in order to get your attention.

And it worked. I clicked the link only to find out that this is really an auction with bids starting at $100,000. If you really like this property, there’s a convenient Buy it Now price of $799,000.

So let me get this straight:

California home prices are down 26%.
California foreclosures are up 20%.
The median sales price of single family homes in zipcode 91006 are down a whopping 33.2%.

So after 90+ days on the market and despite the direction this housing market is heading, the seller still wants to makes $189,000 after owning this home for under 3 years. That’s a 31% return on his original purchase price of $610,000.

Check out the transaction history. It was bought and sold for a lost during the last bubble. It looks like history is ready to repeat itself.

Sales History
Mar 14, 1989 – $260,000
Apr 10, 1992 – $225,000
July 08, 2005 – $610,000

Comments (6)

george8 · April 19, 2008 #1731

$500k might find a knife catcher.

puckhead · April 21, 2008 #1759

$799K is a little on the high side considering it’s close to the freeway. It’ll probably go in the mid-high $600K’s. On the plus side, this house is part of the Arcadia school district. So what you say? I have three small kids, putting them through a decent private school K-12 will run me around $500K. The recession has not hit private schools, still long waiting lists and higher tuition every year. So yeah, I can see a family bidding this home up with and eye towards good Arcadia schools.

TheArcadian · April 21, 2008

puckhead, the Arcadia school district is definitely an added value to property in this city.

Since you have children, do you know what the approximate monthly/annual cost of private schools in Arcadia is? (i.e. k-8, high school)

puckhead · April 21, 2008 #1761

My ballpark figure is around $400K for 3 kids just for tuition, add in another $50K or so in “donations” and “service fees” and it comes up to $450K-$500K. That’s estimated annual tuition of $7.5K for K-6, $12.5K for grades 7-9 and $15K for grades 10-12. That’s for SGV area private schools and not just Arcadia private schools. It’s frustrating in that the only really good public schools in this area are San Marino, South Pas and Arcadia and houses in San Marino are more expensive and the inventory in South Pas is scarce. Housing prices are to the point where it may make more sense for me to keep my current house in Pasadena and just rent a house in one of the above cities for the schools. Just the thought of dealing with a landlord again makes me cringe.

TheArcadian · April 22, 2008

wow. for that type of money and having 3 kids, then it’s probably worth buying a home in Arcadia even if it hasn’t bottomed out.

gotforeclosure · April 29, 2008 #1984

This “auction” was supposed to go down last weekend. Did anyone go and see what happened?