4362 Clybourn, Burbank/Toluca Lake -- there's a lot to this story

This is yet another short sale tale. I promise to stop telling these. The property above is 4362 Clybourn, in the Burbank portion of Toluca Lake.  The house and guest house combined are over 5,000 square feet.  The lot is over half an acre.  And it is spitting distance from the Toluca Lake Country Club.  It's a real trophy property.  It's also a short sale, and listed for $1,349,000. If you've seen this property, or made an offer on it, there's a lot to this story.

I represented some buyers who made an offer on this in December, when it was listed for $1,350,000. The seller accepted our offer. It went back and forth between my clients and Bank of America for four months, the bank wouldn't budge on it's counter of $1,820,000, and they wanted a cash contribution from the seller. My clients weren't willing to pay that amount, nor were any of the other folks who had submitted offers around the same time.

The file was closed in April when it looked like the foreclosure sale was imminent, and my exhausted clients indicated that they were not going to pursue the property further. Somehow, the seller managed to have the foreclosure sale postponed then -- for the fourth time. That must be a record. It subsequently listed with another Realtor (it was a different listing agent the first time around) for $1,349,000. The mls says the house has several offers on it now and the prevailing offer is in to the bank. Will the bank still want $1.8+ mil? Did it get offers in that range? How many appraisals have been done so far? What's the story with the seller?  Why did Countrywide, BofA's lending predecessor on the property, fund a loan of $3.2 million on it in 2009? Ah, sweet mysteries of short sales! Perhaps we'll have answers some day.

Universal City expansion: necessary for growth or traffic nightmare?

Update 11/10/10: the terrific Burbank, CA blog has a great post about this. As you may know, Universal City plans to expand by adding more buildings to its lot.  This includes almost 3,000 housing units.  Here's the article about the environmental impact report from today's L.A. Times.  Some of the more interesting items in the article with my comments in color:

"The 39,000-page report identified noise and solid waste removal during the construction process as the primary negative effects of the development. " Hmm, since construction is slated to go on for twenty years...

"Our principal concern continues to be traffic," said Daniel Savage, president of the local residents group Hollywood Knolls Community Club. "Especially traffic driven by the apartments on the back lot." I'm with you, Daniel.  Traffic comes to a standstill on Barham on a regular basis.

"About half the $100 million would be spent on improving traffic flow on nearby streets and intersections, which would have to handle an additional 2,750 car trips each afternoon.  That's similar to the traffic generated by a regional shopping center (italics mine), said Patrick Gibson, a traffic consultant for NBC Universal. Mitigation measures such as street widening would ease the flow at most intersections, though Lankershim would remain a bottleneck where it is flanked by the subway on one side and an office tower on the other." Yes, that's similar to a regional shopping center -- especially on those days when all 2,750 cars try to get into the Costco lot between 6:05 pm and 6:15 pm.

I just don't see that traffic won't be a nightmare.  I also don't see that the area needs another 3,000 housing units.