Laguna Beach Gated Communities

One of the newest features added to our MLS is being able to view coming soon listings.  These properties are technically not active on the market and are in the pre-marketing stage of being put on the market.  The coming soon feature was added so agents can get there home available to other real estate agents and potential clients while they are getting their professional photos and other marketing materials together.  The advantage of doing it this way for agents is that the days on the market will not start counting until it's officially switches to active.  If you have been familiar with real estate for awhile these were commonly known as pocket listings where real estate agents would only share these potential properties to clients they are currently

Laguna Beach is one of the few locations in Orange County, California where you can find homes that are located on the sand.  Neighboring beach towns like Newport Beach will also have beach front homes but often times have a boardwalk right in front of them.  Back in the 1960's it wasn't uncommon to build homes that were located literally on the sand in Laguna Beach.  Popular neighborhoods like Victoria Beach are a perfect example of where you can find these beachfront homes that have a lot to offer.  Of course, real estate in Laguna Beach is never cheap and you will pay a huge premium to have one located right on the beach.  A great example of this is a new listing that just came on the market in Victoria Beach and located at 2800 Ocean Front.  It

One of the hottest trends right now are 3D virtual home tours.  Since most showings are very limited agents in Laguna Beach are now making sure they every listing they have on the market comes with a virtual tour.  We checked all of the recent listings in Laguna Beach that have come on the market in the last week and every single one had a virtual tour.  The most popular virtual tour company by far is by Matterport which shows a 3D image of the property as if you were looking above the house and allows the consumer to walk through every single room as if they were at the house.  This makes a lot of sense since we have been getting a lot of calls lately of potential buyers asking for the virtual tour links of any given property.

One of the additional

Laguna Beach is well known for having some of the most expenpsive and exclusive gated communities in Laguna Beach.  Gated neighborhoods like Emerald Bay, Irvine Cove and Three Arch Bay can have homes listed well above $20 million dollars.  There are also smaller gated communities that still offer a secure gated entrance but with far less formality.  One of these smaller neighborhoods that even most locals may not know about is the Hidden Valley Canyon community.   If you are familiar with the city of Laguna Beach imagine driving up Temple Hills Drive and then coming back down Park Avenue.  About halfway done is a small gated street called Hidden Valley Canyon road.  Homes in this community city date back to the 1920's and have a lot of charm and character

We recently had a client who was interested in purchasing a condo in the Laguna Lido complex in Laguna Beach.  The listing had mentioned that the condo was on a leasehold interest.  The listing broker remarks on the listing goes on to say that the "Sellers (Lessees) have the LEASE HOLD Interest until 2059". It goes on to say that the "Lessee pays for HOA, Annual Lease fee of $11,643,21. plus Taxes, Insurance and Utilities. At the end of lease Term, Lease Hold Interest reverts back to Lessor."  Our client wanted to get more information on this since they thought they say some other listings in the Laguna Lido that did not have leasehold interest so we did some checking.  After reviewing previous listings in this complex we noticed a fair number of units

Buying a home in Laguna Beach can be tricky when deciding on which neighborhood to live and the best time to buy.  There are pros and cons to buying at different times of the year in Laguna Beach and often depends on how the current real estate market is doing.  It's first important to establish if the market is a buyers or a seller's market.  A buyers market means that homes will sit on the market longer than usual.  Buyers don't have to rush into buying a home and can often negotiate with the seller off the listing price.  In a seller's market properties are selling very fast and the owners are in control on who they sell it and the price they think the market will bear.  

Most of the homes in Laguna Beach will come on the market between January

The Laguna Lido has recently updated their pet policy when it comes to those who are planning to rent a condo in the complex.  This includes those looking to do a long term lease and those looking for vacation rentals as well.  According to several owners in the building the policy does not effect owners who live there as they are still allowed to have pets.  The rule takes aim at those looking to rent at the Laguna Lido as renters are not allowed to have pets.  We recently had some clients who were looking to rent the property for one month in the summer time and were told by multiple owners that the new policy does not allow for them to have pets, only for the owners.

Located on the oceanfront, the Laguna Lido is widely considered one of the top

Laguna Beach is a unique city that has many small neighborhoods that offer private cul-de-sac locations where homes can be offered for sale.  Real Estate prices will vary a lot depending on where the home is located.  Some of these factors include the proximity to the beach, having an ocean view or not and the proximity to the downtown Village area.  Homes located at the southern end of the Laguna Beach will most likely be more affordable than those located north of downtown.  

Starting in South Laguna area several cul-de-sac neighborhoods like Coast Royal that are located just above Coast Highway and have incredible ocean views.  These homes have close proximity to West street beach, the Montage resort and the Monarch Beach area.  Other notable

Laguna Beach offers a wide variety of properties from majestic ocean front homes located above the crashing waves to small beach cottages located in the heart of the city.  We often get requests for clients looking for homes that offer a guest casita.  This is typically done to accommodate extend family members who prefer to have separate living quarters from the regular part of the house.  It's also ideal for those have have many friends and visitors to the home who want to stay in private accomodations.  As you can image with all the high end luxury homes that exist in Laguna Beach many of the guest houses can be very elaborate and offer the ultimate in luxury living.  

A good example of this is a home that's currently on the market in the gated

This has been a record year for real estate sales in Laguna Beach.  We have seen some incredible homes sell at amazing prices and some of the most premium properties coming on the market for sale.  By far the most exciting part of the year was seeing the iconic Twin Points home come on the market for sale.  Twin Points is a rare property that sits on a huge ocean front parcel of land that splits into two points, hence the name "Twin Points."  The land can be seen from many coastline spots and we never thought we would see this iconic property come on the market this year.

Twin Points is located at 1101 Marine Drive in Laguna Beach.  The home sold for $45,000,000 and closed escrow on 02/02/2016.  It was originally listed at $75,000,000 and was on the