Every year, the City of San Marino holds a 4th of July celebration in Lacy Park.  This year, San Marino community is invited to celebrate this family event on Friday July 4th.  

This is an all day event featuring ongoing game booths, bingo from 4 until 7 pm, stage entertainment from 5:30 until 9 pm and of course, the most amazing firewords display in the area (starting at approximately 9 pm.)

The Virginia Road entrance (1485 Virginia Road) to the park will open at 8 am.  No entrance will be allowed via the back park entrance at St. Albans Road until 3 pm.  Guests may reserve areas using blankets, chairs and ropes.  No stakes will be permitted in the ground.

Read also:  The run of the wild - San Marino Tradition

Also, same day the Annual Fourth of July Parade sponsored by the Rotary Club of San Marino will begin at 5 pm.  Young kids on decorated bikes and accompanied by an adult are welcomed and encouraged to participate.  This is a true hometown parade. 

If your child would like to participate, registration is not required.  You can just proceed to the front section of the parade. 

Read also:  2007 preparations for 4th of July parade in San Marino

If you are a resident of San Marino, you can pick up to 10 complimentary wristbands at the San Marino Recreation department starting on Monday June 9th at 8 am. 

If you are not a resident of San Marino, you may purchase wristbands for $10 per person at the San Marino Recreation Department also.  San Marino rec is located at 1560 Pasqualito Drive in San Marino and is open Monday through Thursday from 8 am until 5 pm.

If you purchase the wristband on the day of the event, the cost will be $20 per person.

If you do not live in San Marino and would like to join us for the 4th of July activities, I will be giving away 2 wristbands each to the first five people that will email me at Irina@Irina4RealEstate.com.

See you on the 4th of July at Lacy Park!

My last post identified the price point for luxury homes and estates for sale in San Marino, California.

It is clear that the top 10% of the San Marino Real Estate market is for homes costing $3,000,000 and above.  I wanted to take a look at the 13 luxury homes in San Marino that were sold in 2007 and see what affluent San Marino home buyers expected to get for their money.

Below is a list of amenities and features of almost all the San Marino luxury homes reviewed:

• LOCATION:  All of these San Marino estates were North of Huntington Drive in close proximity to the Huntington Library or Lacy Park.
• LARGE LOTS:  Affluent San Marino luxury home buyers can expect at least 1/2 an acre of land.  A lot of these homes had an acre of land or more. 
• FIVE is an IMPORTANT NUMBER: Almost all these San Marino estates had five or more bedrooms and offered more than 5,000 square feet in living space.
• FORMAL DINING ROOM and FAMILY ROOM:  All these San Marino homes had a formal dining room and a family Room
• TWO STORIES:  12 out of 13 San Marino homes sold over $3,000,000 last year were two stories.  Some had lifts.
• POOL & SPA:  Most of these homes had a pool and a spa
• FIREPLACES:  All San Marino estates had fireplaces.
• CLOSET SPACE:  All homes listed walk-in closets.

Surprisingly, the following list of features that you would expect be necessary for most of San Marino home buyers were NOT a given in the luxury San Marino market place.

• GUEST HOUSE:  Less than half of these San Marino Estates had guest houses.
• LARGE GARAGES:  Most of these San Marino homes had a two to three car garage
• TENNIS COURTS:  Only 3 out of 13 estates had tennis courts.
• RENOVATION:  Quite a few of these San Marino luxury estates required significant renovations and upgrades.

Some additional amenities listed included gourmet kitchen with Viking appliances, a butler pantry, bomb shelters, finished basements and area zoned Air Conditioning units.

SEARCH SAN MARINO HOMES FOR SALE

My question to you is, if you were to spend over $3,000,000 for a luxury estate, what would you expect to get?  Are the amenities and features above in line with your expectations?  Please comment below.

If you are ready to find your dream home in San Marino or need a FREE market analysis of your San Marino home, please do not hesitate to call me at  626-627-7107  or email me at Irina@Irina4RealEstate.com.

An average price of a San Marino CA home for 2007 is $1,750,000.  With San Marino Real Estate prices being so high, are all homes in San Marino considered luxury homes.

It's hard to come up with a definition of a luxury home.  What's luxurious to some is just average to others.

Real Estate Agents in San Marino California and the rest of the country usually agree that a luxury home is usually at the top 10% of the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) prices for a particular area.

Looking at the last 136 home sales in San Marino, it's clear that if we apply the definition above, the luxury price point in San Marino starts at $3,000,000.

Currently, there are three luxury homes in San Marino California that fall into this category:

1390 Oxford Road, San Marino

Offered at $2,980,000 (a little below the $3 million point, but by just a touch.

2065 Courtland Avenue, San Marino

Offered at $4,530,000

1385 Old Mill Road, San Marino

Offered at $9,300,000 

READ MORE:  What can you buy for $9.3 million in San Marino

For a list of luxury homes or estates in San Marino California available for sale today, please click the link below:

SEARCH SAN MARINO LUXURY HOMES AND ESTATES HERE

To start your dream home search in San Marino, California, please call Irina at  626-627-7107  or email me at Irina@Irina4RealEstate.com.

Today, I want to focus on a beautiful pocket of San Marino, California behind Huntington Middle School - the corner of Twin Palms and Sherwood.  Earlier this month, we looked at the "San Marino real estate home prices".  Average price per square foot in San Marino is currently running at $593.

The San Marino real estate around Twin Palms and Sherwood seems to be on fire.  A few homes came up on the market recently and sold within a manner of several weeks.

Here's the activity within a 1/4 mile radius of this intersection:

This San Marino pocket is very desirable since it's right next to Huntington Middle School, Valentine Elementary School and the new San Marino Public Library - Crowell Library.

It's also just minutes away from the local Starbucks, The Ice Cream Shop and a variety of San Marino restaurants.

San Marino City Hall and Fire Department are also minutes away making this corner of Twin Palms and Sherwood a very desirable San Marino location. 

For more information about San Marino, California Real Estate and San Marino homes for sale, please give me a call at  626-627-7107  or send a quick email at Irina@Irina4RealEstate.com.

I love the new San Marino Public Library, now known as Crowell Public Library. 

Living in San Marino, one of our family's most favored traditions has been our Saturday morning visit to the library.  I have to admit that we do not go each Saturday as we used to when the kids were little, but we still try to go as often as we can.

The library always offered a world of never ending mysteries, travel, romances and answers to any questions that I had as a kid and as an adult.  Finding a book to read and the anticipation of the read is just one of those little pleasures in life.  My hope was to relay my love of reading and the library to my kids and I think I did a pretty good job of it.  :-)

As I get a lot of questions from home buyers looking to relocate to San Marino, I thought that it would be great to share a couple of great videos SCBarr about the San Marino library - the old and the construction of the new one. 

It's really mind boggling that our new library was built so quickly in just a year or so.

Here's a couple of videos that I think you will enjoy.

This first video was posted on YouTube only a year ago - May 11, 2007.  Take a look, it has some nice history of San Marino, as well as some aerials.  A nice reminder of the library we had before.  Way cool and Kudos to director.

This video captures the Topping Out of the San Marino Library.

Unfortunately, we don't have a video of the new Crowell San Marino Library, but for now here're a couple of photos courtesy of www.Flickr.com and Daryl Chan.

If you are interested in getting more information about San Marino real estate, you might find the following post interesting:  May 2008 San Marino Market Report

For information and a list of homes available for sale in San Marino, California, please click on the button below: