Real Estate Broker Is Surviving Hard Times : Economy: Bill Baur is working 12-hour days and most weekends amid housing sales slump. He is starting to see some signs of a turnaround.

In September, 1990, The Times profiled Bill Baur, a hard-working, pavement-pounding residential real estate broker based in Woodland Hills. At the time, the housing sales slump had just started. Like other agents, Baur was scrambling to make sales and hoping that the market would rebound in six months.

But three years later, the real estate downturn continues. Last year, only 9,805 previously owned houses and condominiums changed hands in the San Fernando Valley, the first time in a decade that annual sales fell below 10,000. So far in 1993, Valley housing sales are 5% behind 1992’s dismal pace. And the average price of a single-family house sold in May in the Valley was $259,700, down 9% from a year earlier.

So Baur is working harder than ever . . . .

Bill Baur figures he’s doing a little better than the average real estate agent in the Valley. His total commissions are only down about 25% since the market peaked four years ago.

Housing sales continue to be hurt by Southern California’s sluggish economy, and particularly by aerospace industry layoffs, Baur said. As houses sit on the market for long periods of time, sales prices keep falling. And with many homeowners having lost their jobs, foreclosures have been running at high levels, further depressing prices.

“I don’t think anyone can really forecast when prices are going to stabilize,” Baur said. “It all comes back to the economy.”

For Baur, 57, real estate is a second career. A former chemical engineer with an MBA degree, Baur worked for many years as a senior planning analyst at Atlantic Richfield Co. After retiring, Baur joined Coldwell Banker in Woodland Hills eight years ago. Last summer he moved to Fred Sands, also in Woodland Hills, because the brokerage “in my opinion is the foremost and dominant marketer in the San Fernando Valley.”

Baur specializes in the Carlton Terrace neighborhood in Woodland Hills, bounded by Pierce College on the north, the Ventura Freeway on the south, Winnetka Avenue on the east and De Soto Avenue on the west. The area includes more than 1,000 houses in the $200,000 to mid-$300,000 price range.

Working 12-hour days and most weekends, Baur keeps voluminous records on the local real estate market, and said he knows virtually every house in Carlton Terrace.

That’s not hard to believe, given that Baur publishes a bimonthly newsletter on the housing market and often hand delivers 1,800 copies to local residents, past clients and other contacts. Lately, he confessed, his feet have been too tired to make the trek and he has resorted to mailing the newsletters.

But Baur’s philosophy remains. “It’s really incumbent upon the successful listing agent to be the most knowledgeable about the area you work in.”

Despite his professorial approach, Baur also uses some of the marketing gimmicks widely employed in his field. When holding open houses for his listed properties, he figures that one way to grab the attention of other brokers--particularly those who represent possible buyers--is through their stomachs.

“I bill myself as having the best root beer floats in the West Valley, bar none,” he boasted. “In the wintertime, I cook up a mean chili.”

The most important factor, though, to closing a sale is price, Baur said. Houses in his area have depreciated by 30% to 35% over the past three years, he said. That means a house in Carlton Terrace that once had a market value of $300,000 would fetch only about $200,000 today.

“The price is the predominant factor in determining the amount of attention a house gets from brokers and buyers,” Baur said. “The further away a house is from its true market value, the longer time it will take” to sell.

There are currently about 40 houses for sale in Carlton Terrace. Baur has four of those listings, preferring, he said, to work with a few clients at a time who receive his personal brand of service.

Baur continues to see the typical 6% commission paid in real estate transactions, with half going to the listing agency and half to the agency representing the buyer. A few listing agents trying to drum up sales lately have offered to cut their commissions in favor of the buyer’s agent, or have tried to persuade sellers to boost the commissions they pay to buyer’s agents.

Baur is hopeful that lower housing prices and continued low interest rates will soon begin to attract more buyers to the market. “I think that people wanting to purchase property and that have been waiting for a while might be getting to the point where they think this is the time to do it.”

In Carlton Terrace, Baur believes that he might be seeing signs of a turnaround. So far this year, 16 houses have sold in the area.

If that pace keeps up, 1993 would still be a far cry from the late 1980s, when 50 to 55 sales per year were the norm. But it would be an improvement over 1992, when only 24 houses sold in Carlton Terrace--although, Baur added, the prices paid for homes this year have been well below 1992 levels.

In the meantime, Baur gets by on smaller and less frequent commission checks. He is fortunate, he said, to have medical coverage from Atlantic Richfield. His four children are grown and he now lives alone with his wife of 36 years.

But in a sign of the times, Baur observed that his own house in Woodland Hills was probably worth about $550,000 in September, 1990.

He believes that its current market value is in the low $400,000 range. And when the lease on his BMW expires in a few months, Baur plans on buying an American-made car.