Marc's TV

Marc's television spent a night on the porch.

Me: "Is your tv sleeping outside?"

Marc: "Someone's coming to get it"

Me: "When."

Him: "I don't know.  Eventually."

To Be Continued

Arches

Arches?  Not just any arches, multi-foil cusped arches.

Can you believe those elaborated cuspings?  Crazy.  Check out the stilted arch in the gable, wherein the center is higher than the impost.

The Shrine Auditorium and more cusped arches.  A lot more, an arcade.

The Conflict of Interest Myth

The Los Angeles Times business section featured a story Sunday about the declining ranks of real estate agents, Realtors are Abandoning a Listing Ship.  Amongst other items, the article details conflict of interest concerns, whether agents push more expensive product to secure richer commissions.  I'm sure it happens--all things happen, but I don't believe it's prevalent.  Moral and ethical obligations aside (and those aren't easily hopscotched for living, breathing, licensed, 

regulated professionals), practice of the sort would be a bit uncomprehending.

For starters, commissions are not fixed.  Sometimes a lower priced property compensates more amply.  For example, a three percent sales commission on $500,000 bears a greater sum than 

2.5% of $585,000.  Some listings even offer bonuses to the selling agent, further complicating the assumption.  (As an aside, I showed over 30 properties last weekend and I haven't the 

slightest sense of what was offered by whom.)

But perhaps what derails the conceit altogether: the difference in the numbers is de minimus, because buyers usually court properties in a fairly narrow price range, plus/or minus 5-10%.  Supposing all things equal, commissions of 2.5%, and a 75/25 agent/brokerage split, consider the following scenarios:

Property A: Sales price $330,000.

Property B: Sales price $300,000.

Brokerage commission Property A: $8250.00

Agent take home: $6187.50

Brokerage commission Property B:  $7500.00

Agent take home: $5625.00

The pre-tax difference is $562.50.  Would anyone really 

jeopardize a client relationship, in a highly competitive marketplace, for 500 smackers?  That's just crazy talk.  Sure, as the numbers get higher the spread increases, but so does the payday. 

I always want my buyers to get the best deals and the best properties, regardless of the remuneration.  In part because I want to be affiliated with the best houses and potentially represent them at a later date; but, also because I'm highly competitive, desire to be liked, and have a big ego.  Ahhh, but you readers already knew about the ego part.   

Gunnite

Gunnite (or Gunite), is mortar conveyed through a hose and pneumatically projected at high velocity onto a surface.  (Mortar is a sticky cement/sand/water, and usually lime, mixture designed to adhere.)

The force of application and "peening effect" of the larger particles results in a very dense, waterproof mass. 

 

Trademarked in 1909, the form-less process gained popularity amongst architects in part for its resemblance to the rough pebble dash finishes of England: crushed rock set into an outer coat.

While "shotcrete" has become the all-inclusive term for sprayed or "gunned" concrete, several processes exist, and gunnite refers to a specific dry-mix technique.

The finish, typically a pale grey, was usually left unpainted.  

As styles changed, many examples were foolishly stuccoed, and are subsequently disguised, made more adobe-like, or smooth coated like this work by architect Charles Whittlesey.  Deformed.

On the Prowl for Prow

Prow-shaped Gables or prow-shaped projections in the gable are another dimensionalizing feature found in that greatest period of home building in wood, as I heretofore christen the architecture of Americana Victoriana and decades one and two of Century number twenty.

Now that we've that business out of the way, let us feast our eyes on image left, a ferocious pink pyramid, a convergence of diagonal boards, forming a stickwork beak.  Raw and forceful, Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky forceful.

A sad case, blunted in composite shingles.  Grounds to repeal old house ownership license!  You need further cause?  Exhibit B, directv dish!  Stick that stupid, headphone shaped piece of grey along the side or back, on the double!

It Ain't V-shaped

Seems like just the other month, my scribblings about the Hover Market (4/9/2009), paralyzed buyers, and a torporific real estate climate.  Things now couldn't be more different.  

The reporting frequently trails the phenomenon, and it isn't long term recovery I herald; but, a buying orgy has commenced around Los Angeles, with transactions hard-packed around the credit-accessible, conforming loan limit figure of $417,000.  The 

pending home sales index (PHSI), a forward looking indicator, noted the transaction swell nationally; while, many in-house tabulations (by area brokerages) claimed an exponential jump in volume.  Additionally, the median home price registered a 2.2% increase from March to April, a significant watermark, and the biggest month-to-month gain, according to a source reported on Bloomberg.com, since June 2005.

More than mere "Spring Bounce," many buyers are emboldened by good ol' fashioned affordability, and the prospect of a mortgage, helped by low interest rates, that shadows their rental payment.  Multiple offer scenarios have returned, while opens are flooded with first-time buyers eager to burst from years of cocooning.   Stay tuned for the April/May numbers.

Roof Returns

Complex roof lines, a quaint, traditional notion abandoned by the supposed vanguard, are at their zany best when features are asymmetrical (see Fraternal Twin Dormers? 12/11/2008 ), or even discontinuous.  

In rare cases, the bargeboard is truncated, interrupted by another element (like the chimney, above; or, turret, left).  

Rarer still are examples like below, from a work by the Heineman Brothers.

A shed roof bargeboard that originates not at the junction of a wall, but rather just below a knee brace, masking a slight, second-floor projection.   The partial return, attended to by the ubiquitous pigeon busting owl (see Owl Decoys 10/29/2008), is demented.

Chateauesque-lite

During the interbellum period, Revival styles crowded the stage, including several based on precedents established in French domestic architecture.  The second phase Chateauesque shared many characteristics with the Chateauesque, chiefly towers, the use of narrow, vertical windows, and steeply pitched roofs. 

In Los Angeles, this largely asymmetrically-massed second wave was often grafted to the high-whimsy, and similarly medieval-inspired Storybook style. 

Most of the original thatch-emulating roofs, which featured shingled courses of great--and seemingly random--variation have been lost, though the rolled eaves (visible at the gable ends) endure.

The style is also sometimes conflated with the Normandie Revival which features the sort of half-timbering associated with the Tudor.

Entrances are almost always through arched openings in the towers.

Leftovers

Close to Mankind

I root through property descriptions daily, in print and online. Many are colossally unimaginative, and more than a smattering resort to the 'tired trinity': close to schools, shopping, and transportation.

Close to Schools. It's Los Angeles, there's schools flippin' everywhere. LAUSD alone operates 658 campuses. One online source lists over 100 private K-12's. Throw in a few hundred pre-schools and few hundred colleges, from Pacific States University to the American Film Institute to Cleveland Chiropractic College, and you get the picture.  Pick a Thomas Guide page, any Thomas Guide page, there's enough flags to fill the U.N. lobby.

Close to transportation, you mean a busline? Wow, welcome to the greater basin, beaches, foothills, and valleys. The Metropolitan Transit Agency web-site lists 200 express, local, limited, shuttle & circulator lines.  Even the seemingly insufficient MTA rail system stretches over 73 miles (soon to be 80 with 2009's Gold Line extension), to say nothing of Metrolink commuter trains.  

Shopping? Commerce, in the city that drove a retailing revolution? A mere place to spend money? Ninety-nine cent stores?  Lazybones corner market?  Tacos de Adam?  

Really, isn't some of the most desirable real estate, deep in the canyons, high in the hills, sequestered at the cul de sac's end, the furthest from schools, transportation, and shopping?