Monthly Archives: March 2007

Land of the Rising Sun

Rising Sun Kitchen

Asking Price: $918,000

Purchase Price: $678,000

Purchase Date: 6/9/2005

Address: 43 Rising Sun, Irvine, CA 92620

Beds: 3IrvineRenter

Baths: 2.5

Sq. Ft.*: 1,708

Year Built: 2005

Stories: 2

Type: Single Family Residence

View: Mountain

Neighborhood: Woodbury

$/Sq. Ft.*: $537

MLS: S479901

Status: Active on market

On Redfin: 11 days

Craigslist, Redfin, Zillow

$918000 SELLER NEEDS TO GET OUT !!!

This according to the ad on Craigslist. I call BS on this one. This flipper is so desperate, they only want to make $184,920 in profit (after 6% commission) in less than 2 years? If this flipper is successful, their house will have made them more than the median income in Irvine over the last two years ($83,891 * 2 = $167,782). That is one hard working house!

This seller is not the only one cracking the whip on their house. The neighbors at 32 Rising Sun want $1,139,000 for the Former Woodbury Model Home they bought for $940,500 on 6/29/2006. They are working their house even harder. After a 6% commission, they stand to make a profit of $130,160 after only 9 months.

.

Devo rising sun

When a prop’ty comes along

You must flip it

Before the home sits out too long

You must flip it

When somethings going wrong

You must flip it

.

Now flip it

Into shape

Shape it up

Get straight

Go forward

Move ahead

Try to detect it

Its not too late

To flip it

Flip it good

Bamboozled

39 Bamboo Kitchen

Asking Price: $879,500

Purchase Price: $869,000

Purchase Date: unknown

Address: 39 Bamboo, Irvine, CA 92620IrvineRenter

Beds: 4

Baths: 4

Sq. Ft.*: 2,492

Year Built: 2004

Stories: 2

Type: Condominium

Neighborhood: Northwood

$/Sq. Ft.*: $353

MLS: S477978

Status: Active on market

On Redfin: 23 days

Redfin, Zillow

Do you get the feeling flippers are getting nervous? There are 46 addresses on Bamboo Street in the Northwood neighborhood adjacent to Woodbury; 7 of them are for sale. 41 Bamboo just sold on 2/13/2007 for $820,000, so there is activity in the area. There are 7 other homedebtors looking for the greater fool to save them. The owners at 39 Bamboo just got nervous and decided to sell even if it is at a loss. Zillow thinks the property is worth over a million dollars. Apparently the market does not agree.

Bamboo Spreadsheet

Real estate always goes up, or so buyers are bamboozled into believing by realtors. It only takes a few nervous neighbors to drive down property values in an entire neighborhood. Comps are set at the fringes where the transactions take place. I’m sure the owner at 57 Bamboo would like to make his $211,106, but it is more likely that 39 Bamboo is going to lose his $42,740 first.

Canyon's Edge – Is it worth more than it was in May 2005? – UPDATE #1

Originally posted November 17, 2006

Address: 29 Shade Tree, Irvine, CA 92603 (Turtle Ridge)
Plan: 1993 sq ft – 3/2.5
MLS: U6603755 DOM: 4
Sale History: 5/13/2005: $1,010,000
06/02/2003 — $701,500
Current Price: $1,150,000

Here we have a detached condo in the Canyon’s Edge tract built by Standard Pacific in Turtle Ridge. This home was purchased in May 2005 with 5% down.

I don’t have much to say on this one yet. If they get their asking price, they stand to make about $71k after 6% in selling costs. Pretty nice return on their $50,500 investment in 18 months.

Has anyone been inside this tract? It’s part of Turtle Ridge but it is completely separated from the rest of the homes in Turtle Ridge which are all off Summit Park. Strange location…

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UPDATE #1 – March 26, 2007

Thanks to a tip from Owen in the forums, I’ve come to realize that this home has been relisted (MLS U7000708) and the price has now been reduced to $1,099,000. Assuming 6% in selling costs, their expected profit is now about $23k. Where did the other $48k go?

Bitter Buyers say William's Lyin'

Today was a beautiful, blue-sky kind of day, the kind of day that reminds me why I love Irvine so much. My little boy and I played for quite a while at “Bob the Builder Park” (aka, Colonel Bill Barber) as well as a small pocket park in Westpark. But first, on our way over to Bob the Builder park, I couldn’t resist making a short detour. I pulled into Columbus Grove and saw the line-up of protest signs along the main thoroughfare, Sweet Shade. I pulled up to the curb, put on my blinkers, gave my boy his Clifford Reading game on his Leapster, and chatted for a few minutes with homeowner Bob Spillar. He was sitting in a beach chair with, at the time I was there, two other men whom he identified as neighbors. I told Bob I was a blogger, writing for a blog on the local housing bubble, and Bob didn’t quite seem to get what I was referring to. (First clue, right? Too bad Bob hadn’t spent some time here, or over on

Ben’s housing bubble blog or on Rich’s site…) Bob was very eager to share his story with me. Here it is:

This is their second weekend protesting William Lyon Homes, Inc. He and 17 other buyers of Phase I Lantana homes plan on sticking it out for the foreseeable future, until Lyons makes appropriate restitution. They have clearance from the Irvine police to hold this protest; they are on public land and Lyon has no recourse to remove them. Bob said that Lyon has not tried to make them leave.

Mid-2005 Bob decided to buy one of the homes in Phase I. He closed in May 2006. He received lots of assurances from the salespeople that prices would not drop in future phases. He said that he feels “coerced, manipulated.” Bob acknowledges that he should not have signed the contract without reading it in its entirety (no kidding!), however he said the sales team promised him he didn’t have to do so. After the purchase, he and his 17 neighbors read “Addendum G” in their contracts which apparently states the standard legalese stuff about this written contract being the only legal agreement, that any verbal agreements not included in the contract would not be considered valid, etc.

So now, Lyon has dropped asking prices significantly in newer phases, and he and the neighbors are hoppin’ mad. Bob told me that he put 20% down when he purchased this home – he said that it was a requirement and you couldn’t buy the house from Lyon unless you put 20% down. (I don’t quite believe this could be true, however this is what he told me). He further told me that he took out a 100k second mortgage to pay for landscaping, etc., and that its rate is going to adjust in August and he is going to be forced to refinance in order to afford his payments. He believes that most of his neighbors also took out seconds that will be adjusting and they are all in the same boat. The whole “I put 20% down but took out a 100k second” just didn’t quite sit right with me, but I didn’t push it since my boy was itching to get going to the park!

He handed me a copy of the protest letter he and his neighbors wrote, letter to Lyons (new information: here’s the back of the petition)as well as a one-page flyer they are apparently giving to would-be new homebuyers who come to check out the models. Take a look: Experience the Lies

In their letter to Patrick McCabe, Project Manager for Lyon Homes in Newport Beach, the neighbors have this to say, “The undersigned phase I residents in the Lantana neighborhood are writing to you today to ask for your consideration to make things right…During the selling process, given the real estate market uncertainties, we had numerous conversations with the sale staff (Nancy, Jennifer, etc) about prices and we were reassured that the home purchase prices would remain stable throughout the development of our community. We believed in the community and you. We understand fluctuations and economics, but a $75,000-$200,000 price reduction? What does that say to your phase I buyers?…Given all the startup problems we endured through the first phase of development, we are asking for William Lyon to consider some type of compensation to all of us. Afterall, when we think of the sub-contractors and laborers that completed work; the quality was average at best. We trusted in you and now feel like we were misled and betrayed…”

So I asked Bob what exactly he wanted from Lyon. He stated that he does NOT want a “refund.” He wants Lyon to refinance the Phase I owners into lower-rate loans; he wants a “small stipend” and he wants free upgrades, retroactively. He said Lyon had already met with the protestors and informed them that the contracts they signed were completely legal and they had no intention of giving the homeowners anything they were asking for now.

So I thanked him and drove away, not having the heart to tell this poor, sweet guy that the carnage had just begun and his equity evaporation was just going to get worse over the coming several years. Best of luck to you and your Lantana Phase I neighbors, Bob.

Who is responsible for this mess?

I launched into a diatribe on Quiggleme.com on who bears responsibility for the bubble we are now watching deflate. I wanted to share it here. So who is responsible? Borrowers, lenders, investors, the FED: IMO, they are all responsible; it is only a matter of degree.

Irresponsible borrowers are like children, if you offer them something they want, no matter the terms, they will take it. The federal government realized this basic fact years ago when they passed predatory lending laws. Does that make the borrower any less responsible? No, but by definition, sub-prime borrowers are irresponsible. If they took responsibility for their debts, they wouldn’t be sub-prime. So if you offer a bunch of money to the most irresponsible among us, what would you expect? I would expect them to spend it irresponsibly and not worry about paying it back. That is their history, is it logical to expect anything different from these people? In my opinion, it shouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to see this sub-prime experiment was going to end badly.

That being said, when will people start being responsible for their actions? Has our entire culture become based on having victim status and not being responsible? These borrowers should not be bailed out by any government program as it would just create more dependence. These fools who paid too much and can’t pay it back need to lose their homes, lose all their assets, and file for bankruptcy. Tough $hit. They may live their lives being irresponsible, but it doesn’t mean the responsible among us should pay for that. This is one of those instances where they will be made to take responsibility. It will feel like they are getting their noses rubbed in it, but that is what they deserve.

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However, the lenders are also responsible in this matter. I have a dim view of the lending industry, particularly of credit cards. Consumer debt lenders are akin to drug dealers in my mind. They serve no function in our society other than to leach off people by taking advantage of their inability to save money. But I digress, at least mortgage lenders provide a service because without them most people would be dead by the time they saved enough money to buy a home for cash; however, when they start handing out HELOC’s for consumption, they are as bad as the credit card / drug dealers preying on people’s reckless irresponsibility. Once mortgage lenders crossed that line, they ceased to be serving the needs of homebuyers and instead began serving the wants of the credit addicted: Shame on them.

Of course, none of this would have happened without the enablers at the Federal Reserve and on Wall Street. Greenspan lowered rates and then told borrowers to take out adjustable rate mortgages. As one might suspect, he did this so his fellow bankers would not be stuck with low-interest loans for 30 years, but he gave the world of homebuyers the “green light” for taking on high risk loans. Then Wall Street investors flooded with liquidity from cheap money from home and overseas started chasing returns. These high-interest sub-prime loans looked attractive, and as long as house prices went up and nobody defaulted, everything was fine. Who do you blame for that situation? The bank of Japan for creating the carry trade? The federal reserve for lowering rates to avoid a recession? Investors chasing high yields? I don’t know. That one is too big for me to ferret out a culprit.Credit Addiction

In my opinion, the borrowers are certainly at fault; if for no other reason than they signed the papers and took the money. The lenders are also at fault because they should have known better than to give sub-prime borrowers loans they could not afford. Lenders simply cannot abdicate responsibility in this matter for financial, legal and moral reasons. The Federal Reserve and Wall Street investors are also at fault for creating the situation and enabling this to occur. In the end, all the responsible parties will be ruined: borrowers will lose their houses and go bankrupt, lenders like New Century will go out of business and/or lose billions, Wall Street investors will be sharing in those losses with the lenders, and Alan Greenspan will be remembered by history as the architect of the largest, most painful financial bubble in history.