We're in the process of accumulating tract specific pricing for the various new home neighborhoods in/around Irvine. Sometimes it's nice to know what the exact prices are without having to visit the models or call the sales office up. All the data we've collected is located in our forums here: http://forums.irvinehousingblog.com
Several members have added information they've collected and this makes it easy to see how much prices have come down in some of the new neighborhoods (Over $100k drops in some tracts). If you have info on any of these tracts, I encourage you to share it here. If you feel like creating a thread for a neighborhood that hasn't been posted, please do! 
We'll get back to some blog posts on flips/sales soon!
Originally posted January 8, 2007
Most of our readers are probably familiar with who he is but just in case... Jon Lansner is the business columnist for the OC Register. He also keeps a Real Estate blog that has some great information. Some find him too bullish on real estate and others find him to be too much of a bear. I think he does a pretty good job of staying abreast of and keeping us informed of what's going on in Orange County.
The Orange County Real Estate Forum is a group that meets on the 2nd Tuesday Thursday of every month. I've only been to one meeting and it seems geared towards the small investor. There are people pitching all kinds of investments from all over the country as well as services for the small real estate investor. One of the things I liked about the meeting I attended was that they had some great speakers who give their perspective on various topics. The meetings are open to the public and the cost to attend a meeting is $25 and it takes place at the Double Tree Hotel in the Irvine Spectrum. You'll see all kinds of people (young and old, casually and formally dressed, flippers, contractors, agents, etc).
This Thursday from 7-10pm, the OC Real Estate Forum is having it's monthly meeting and one of the guest speakers is Jon Lansner. His topic is "How Far Down Will Real Estate Slide in Orange County in 2007" and that's got me interested.
Anyways, I'm considering checking the meeting out and thought some of you might be interested as well.
UPDATE #1 - January 12, 2007
Soo.. I attended the meeting and saw and heard a few interesting things. Too bad it cost me $25 and 3 hours of my time :( The first half of the meeting was led by Norm (from www.normandmike.com). Apparently they have a radio show that they've been doing for some time. Norm asked everyone what they wanted out of the monthly meetings. Many of the people that voiced their opinions said they did NOT want speakers that were there to 'educate' and sell them some sort of package. They wanted real education on a number of real estate investment topics. Norm completely agreed with them. Interesting, because one of the first things I see when I click on his site is an advertisement for a Mortgage Accelerator package that he is selling for $1295. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until I get to spend a little more time figuring out what they are all about.
In between the first and second parts of the meeting, there were about 15 minutes where people had the opportunity to network and get to meet each other. There was also some free time like this before 7pm. I heard 'the regulars' throw around names like Guy Kawasaki and Donald Trump while they were hawking their their flyers (I should have scanned them all and posted them but alas I threw them all away). I heard people talking about how they want real estate to create passive income for them (don't we all want passive income?? 
). Others were saying how they want to invest in real estate so they can retire comfortably and take care of their kids.
I'm sure there were some seasoned real estate investors there but there was definitely NO shortage of people who did not know what they were doing. Yet some of these people were buying (or had already bought) with the intent of flipping. A couple guys were talking about how they were working a couple of short sales. One of them admitted he did not know what he was doing and he wanted to sell to someone else (hopefully in the audience). Good luck!
Another guy started investing 20 years ago and paid off a condo that is now generating positive cash flow. He also went on to share that he bought a couple more properties in the last few years (one in Phoenix I think and one elsewhere) that are producing a slightly negative cashflow. He's confident those markets will pickup and so were most of the people in the room.
One gentlemen started 'investing' in 2005. He bought homes in Las Vegas and Temecula. Unable to flip either of them (even below their appraisal price - surprise, surprise), he's stuck paying the mortgages on both now. His experiences sounded like he may have been scammed. He really believed the homes were worth what they were appraised at (most likely by a scammer).
Overall though, I'd have to say the majority of the group (a few dummies disagreed) did not think it was a good idea to buy an investment property in OC at the time. They were interested in foreclosures, out of state investing, tax liens, etc. Although there was definitely some interest in buying a fixer and selling it (IMHO that's just foolish for the inexperienced in today's market).
The second half of the meeting was Jon Lansner speaking about where real estate is headed in 2007. He showed chart after chart of various OC trends (real estate price change, population, etc). It would be nice if he puts them up somewhere. At the end, he had a little survey where he asked everyone what they predict the market will do in 2007. Most believed the market would slide between 0-10% in 2007. When asked what he though, Lansner said when he did the survey himself, his prediction was a 3-4% slide. He felt that the OC economy was very strong. But he was definitely worried about how little the absolute population growth in OC has been lately.
Lansner was definitely trying to stay on the fence in regards to being bullish or bearish in Orange County. He thought the high rises were not a good idea for an investment property but that there are people who enjoy that lifestyle and will pay for that. He joked about how bad the traffic would be over there once they build it all out and that a bridge that Lennar is planning to build (any details anyone?) will probably not do much to alleviate the future traffic there.
All in all, it was a good talk. I'd much rather have preferred to watch a webcast of it from the comfort of my own home. Would I go back? Maybe.. if they had some real educational topics.
Anyone else attend and have comments?
The past few months have been great for the blog. We've been able to post many articles that have generated even more comments. From reading all the comments, it's obvious that there are a lot of Irvine residents that are interested in various topics and communities within the city. We've got a very well informed group here and it would be nice to have a place to discuss all kinds of Irvine Housing related topics. And so the Irvine Housing Blog Forums have been created: http://forums.irvinehousingblog.com/
Check it out and post whatever you want related to Irvine Housing (ie your own reports on visits to Models, updates on pricing at various tracts, questions regarding various tracts and villages, the future Irvine villages, etc.). If things pick up there, we can add categories later. Right now, this should suffice as far as facilitating communication between all of us.
Ultimately, we'd like to have comments from Blog posts integrated into the forum discussions. If anyone is experienced in PHP, Wordpress, and Vanilla and wants to take this on, let me know!
Discuss here
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Castellina is a condo development built by Centex Homes in the gated village of Covenant Hills in Ladera Ranch. Those that can't stand the sight of some of the homes in Ladera (funky colors, packed housing, unattractive architecture) may be pleasantly surprised with some of the tracts in Covenant Hills. Covenant Hills is the only gated village in Ladera and is also the only village to have custom home sites. It's positioned to be the nicest part of Ladera and along with custom home sites there are also many luxury tracts here as well. I believe Castellina is the only condo tract in Covenant Hills as the others are all SFR. For more info, check here and here.
The Castellina tract caught my attention back in 2004. At the time, there was a lot of hype around Covenant Hills and Castellina was the most affordable product in the village. Centex had a Priority List and invited those on it to a very nice luncheon at the Dove Canyon Country Club. Models weren't ready so they had virtual tour videos. Everything about Castellina appealed to me - beautiful Tuscan architecture, spacious and well designed floor plans, outdoor loggias, great upscale location, garages with driveways (although some shared), and even some small private yards.
So, what was the problem? Why am I not living there right now? It's because there was no way I could justify the absolutely ridiculous HOA fees of $750/month! From what I understood, every home in Covenant Hills had a Ladera HOA of $400/month. On top of that, Castellina had it's own HOA of $350/month. When I specifically asked what that $350/month got me, I was pretty much lied to and told that it included the pools, blah, blah in Covenant Hills. That's BS because all of that is covered by the $400 Covenant Hills HOA. I was able to justify the $400/month Covenant Hills HOA fee(after all, Turtle Ridge Summit is about the same and Shady Canyon is even more). But how does an EXTRA $350/month for an attached product with NO additional amenities make ANY sense?
In the end we decided to pass on Castellina (just as we would on an Irvine high rise - hopefully another post for me). Although I kept abreast of the prices for a little while, I soon lost interest. Lately, while researching homes to blog about, I became curious and decided to look into what's happening with Castellina. Surprise, surprise.. Castellina has it's fair share of flippage. Out of the 82 homes in the tract, there are 9 Active and Pending on the market today:
- 18 Salvatore - MLS S465146 - 3bd/2ba - 2179 sq ft - Plan 1 (Villa Antica) Listed 11/02/2006 (32 DOM) at $829,000
NOW $729,000
- 25 Tuscany - MLS S444917 - 2bd/2ba - 2075 sq ft - Plan 2 (Villa Casali)Listed 6/11/2006 (172 DOM) at $823,521 by Centex
NOW Pending at $660,000
- 1 Tuscany - MLS S444916 - 2bd/2ba - 2339 sq ft - Plan 2X (Villa Casello) Listed 6/11/2006 (176 DOM) at $844,796 by CENTEX
NOW $685,650 and offering 3% broker co-op
- 25 Chianti - MLS S463737 - 3bd/2.5ba - 2084 sq ft - Plan 3 (Villa Frosino) Listed 10/23/2006 (25 DOM) at $755,832 by CENTEX
NOW Pending at $695,832
- 7 Salvatore - MLS S450335 - 3bd/2.5ba - 2200 sq ft - Plan 3 (Villa Frosino) Listed 7/18/2006 (133 DOM) at $850,876
NOW Pending at $875,000
- 21 Tuscany - MLS S439546 - 3bd/3.5ba - 2250 sq ft - Plan 4 (Villa Lucia) Listed 5/9/2006 (209 DOM) at $969,000
NOW $899,900
Purchased 3/23/2006 for $889,557
- 34 Tuscany - MLS S465237 - 3bd/3.5ba - 2246 sq ft - Plan 4 (Villa Lucia) Listed 11/6/2006 (28 DOM) at $955,000
NOW $919,000
- 10 Salvatore - MLS S450382 - 3/3.5ba - 2246 sq ft - Plan 4 (Villa Lucia)First Listing at $1,050,000, then reduced to $949,000 and then taken off the market after 175 days. Currently Listed on 7/19/2006 (138 DOM) at $918,900
NOW $899,890
Purchased for ~$850,000
Also available for lease - $3500/month
- 6 Salvatore - MLS S423559 - 4bd/3ba - 2600 sq ft - Plan 5 (Villa Spada) Listed 1/14/2006 (324 DOM) at $1,100,000
NOW $949,900
Purchased 9/26/2005 for $945,000
What I found really exciting was the drastic price reductions from the builder. 1 Tuscany and 25 Tuscany had price reductions of $100,000+ on 11/17/2006!
Here's what ZipRealty shows for 1 Tuscany right now:
Price Reduced: 09/12/06 -- $844,796 to $818,444
Price Reduced: 09/18/06 -- $818,444 to $806,455
Price Reduced: 09/25/06 -- $806,455 to $796,905
Price Reduced: 11/17/06 -- $796,905 to $685,650
Apparently getting rid of the inventory is more important to Centex than upsetting their customers who paid much more for the same product. Can you really blame Centex though? They are hurting as well.
Another item to note is the description for 21 Tuscany (possibly the same building at 25 Tuscany) says "Motivated seller will pay 5 yrs castellini hoa dues".
Obviously the builder has a lot more negotiating room than an unlucky flipper. I'm tempted to put an offer in to the builder for 1 Tuscany: $599,000 and credit for 10 years of HOA (Covenant Hills+Castellina). My goal would be to get on the Castellina HOA board and cut the HOA down to $150/month.
Hi Fellow Bubbleheads,
No, I didn't disappear into the void, just been busy with, like, life and stuff. Been watching the housing market of course, but mostly via trolling on my fave blogs and not by doing my out and about stuff. Some of my previous out and about visits to open houses and model homes were on my lunch hour...I'm happy to report that my job, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE, has been keeping me pretty busy for the most part so this hasn't been as feasible. 'sokay, tho'. When you really enjoy what you do, and like your coworkers, working hard isn't such a bad thing. (Especially when you make $120k a year!!!)
So I just had to check in to let you know that I got an email from my good friends over at Paloma at Portola Springs today. They wanted me to take an online survey, and if I was one of the first 100 respondents, I'd get a $5 Starbucks gift card.
Well, since I didn't open up this email til after dinner (7pm), I figured there'd be no way I'd get that gift card. However, I just LOVE giving people my opinion (imagine that?) so I dove into the survey nonetheless.
They wanted to know why I hadn't bought yet ("priced out" was my pick), how much I liked the different pictured floor plans and pictures, among other things like my annual income and number of adults and kids in my family. What I interpreted from the survey was a suspicion that they're planning on redesigning their models based on survey feedback (...did you like the furnishings in this picture?)
Uh, guys, your models are just lovely. I told you this already! Listen to mama!
It's the prices, stupid. Three quarters of a million dollars for a two-bedroom condo that also comes with bitingly high mello roos and HOAs? Come on! I'm too damn smart to do that to myself!
I'll try to do another out and about really soon, I swear!
Have a great day and BE PATIENT! Springtime is going to bring us a FASCINATING economic story to watch and talk about.
Update 12/01/06: I forgot to mention that I, in fact, was awarded one of the 100 Starbucks gift cards! I was surprised; but then, maybe not so surprised given the crash we are experiencing.
Spotting flips has become a little more difficult lately. Many of the flips featured on this blog have been taken off the market. If they come back, we'll definitely post about them. A few of the featured flips are accepting backup offers so hopefully we'll find out soon if they sell. In the meanwhile, we'll keep searching for flips and blogging about them.
Take a look at how fast inventory has been coming off the market:
Anyone here have a Data Quick subscription that you wouldn't mind sharing with me? Until then, I'll have to rely on what I can find from MLS. I've gone through and performed counts of the number of closed sales in Irvine (SFR, condo, and total) for each month since September 1998.
A few notes about the data. The data is from the MLS Alliance database which aggregates listings from the 8 various MLS systems in Southern California. Because of the multiple MLS systems (go figure!), sometimes properties are entered in more than one MLS system and it appears twice in MLS Alliance. But this doesn't happen too often with listings in Irvine. Also, for the most part, these numbers do not contain new home sales since builders in Irvine do not usually put their homes into MLS.
Yes, I know these charts are fugly as hell. Does anyone have any tips on making better charts?
I've also made the raw data available in case anyone is interested:Irvine Sales Trends.xls
I went ahead and used moving averages to smooth out the monthly changes. The actual monthly data is in the XLS file.
