Irvine Housing Blog

Glen Garden Homes in Turtle Rock

Address: 25 Rainbow Falls, Irvine, CA 92603 (Turtle Rock)
Plan: 1572 sq ft - 3/2
MLS: S472630 DOM: 101
Sale History: 5/20/2005: $725,000
1/8/2003: $490,000
Price Reduced: 03/13/07 -- $798,000 to $789,000
Price Reduced: 03/14/07 -- $789,000 to $778,000
Price Reduced: 03/22/07 -- $778,000 to $760,000
Current Price: $760,000

It looks like this is the first property in the village of Turtle Rock to be featured on our blog. Turtle Rock is the original hilly village of Irvine and in the future, we may do a Community Profile on it. This Plan E in the Glen Garden Homes tract was purchased in May of 2005 and then listed on the market early this year for $798k. After a month and a half, the seller started reducing the price. 3 reductions later brings us to the current asking price of $760,000.

If sold at the current asking price and assuming 6% in selling costs, the owner will lose about $10,000. When this home was listed on 1/22/07, there were about 900 properties for sale in Irvine; now there are close to 1200!

There is only one other property that I see for sale in this tract:

• 12 Cool Brook (MLS #P572667) - 3bd/2ba 1628 sq ft - $629,000

Here's the description for 12 Cool Brook: "Want a 'Hot Deal'? This is it! This is a Turtle Rock estate sale that has been a rental. Seller priced it $120,000 below our competition for a fast sale. Most buyers will want to update paint, carpet, and flooring. The low price and unbeatable location far outweighs the need for TLC. Cul-de-sac location, backing to a greenbelt hillside. Move fast, going going gone."

And the private remarks for 12 Cool Brook: "Seller will provide a termite clearance, otherwise the home is being sold as-is. Seller has not lived in the property and acquired the property by inheritance."

Sure enough, it was priced well and the status in MLS is now 'Accepting Backup Offers'. 12 Cool Brook has been on the market for 15 days (compare that to the 101 DOM for 25 Rainbow Falls).

As some of you may know, I'm a big fan of the Turtle Rock area. Did anyone have a chance to check out 12 Cool Brook? Once this property closes escrow, I imagine it'll be harder for 25 Rainbow Falls to sell at the $760k price.

Protestors trouble Liarnar Homes

Saturday I received a phone call from a friend that went like this: "Hey do you know why there are people protesting Liarnar at Riverbend? They have a big ole sign that says buyer beware of Liarnar Homes." I said, "Probably because they build crappy homes." Now I wasn't sure that was going to be the case because it is a much better story when it's the FBer's protesting the price reductions. Like a good blogger I decided to go check it out for myself and here is what I found.

Sure enough the protestors were local 2361 carpenter union members letting people know that Liarnar builds crappy homes. Unfortunately the gentleman in the picture wouldn't say much but he did give me the flyer below and the business card for an attorney. He said the attorney would be more than willing to give me more information. I called the attorney late yesterday and I will try again today to get some more info. I know it is not Irvine but he did say that there are others protesting at Liarnar projects. If anyone else has seen something like this in or around Irvine please let us know.

Now I am not sure how many people read Mish's blog but he has been following Mike Morgan's fight against Liarnar in Florida for their faulty construction. Mike Morgan is in so deep that Liarnar is even suing him over his website. If you have not read some of the stories on his site and Mish's I highly recommend that you do. Some of the stories are so disgusting that you may never look at Liarnar the same again. As you can tell from the flyer it sites an OC Register article that can be found here. As with most in the MSM the Register has not done any follow up. I checked www.occourts.org and searched for Liarnar but nothing came up. It will be interesting to see how Liarnar handles these types of things because they have a majority of the units in the pipeline for OC. They have a big pipeline in Irvine with the Great Park project of 9500 homes and 1400 homes at Central Park West. Of course Liarnar touts its commitment to quality.

For the record I have nothing against Liarnar nor are they the homebuilder that I used to work for. I just do not know of any other major homebuilder who receives as much negative news about faulty construction as Liarnar.

Whiner, Whiner, Whiner