I know what you mean about the lack of vowels… when I first read this EVERY BLDER UPGRADE IMAGINABLE I thought the Realtor (TM) meant that the blender had every imaginable upgrade.
——-

As with Incredulous I had so much fun trying to figure out those odd words.  Does “3 WALK-IN CLSTS” mean the the property is overrun with cyclists?

Thanks very much for the daily dose of sheer imbecility.  I moved far away from S. California last November but like to be reminded of the surreality of the housing market there.

cheers.

38 Silhouette is a gorgeous, gorgeous property.  Marble this, stainless that, the requisite granite, etc etc.  And it has never been lived in since it was built in 2005.  Repeat: It. has. never. been. lived. in.  Some unfortunate flipper has been carrying this property since 2005.  Zillow says the 2006 tax assessed value was $1.8 million, so it’s been costing the flipper around $12-15k/month for TWO YEARS.

That price on 38 Silhouette is a wishing price bordering on WTF. In order to recover the carrying costs, this flipper probably does not have too much wiggle room. How much longer do you think they can hold out before a complete implosion?

IR,

Great blog, informative and highly entertaining.

Flippers come in all colors and shapes, I guess.  I thought the concept of flipping was GIGO “get in, get out” and make your buck.  But GIGO is also shorthand for “garbage in, garbage out.“  And this property stinks of failure all around.

Flip property should be something that interests a sizeable group of buyers.  But this flipper seems to have walked up to the plate starting with an 0-2 count.  S/he bought a hugely expensive house, well out of the price range of all but the top 0.5% of earners and then proceeded to carry it for 18 months in hopes of achieving a wish/WTF sell price?  That’s insane.  This property, while nice, reeks of desperation and any minimally educated buyer at this point knows it. 

This property should end up at a bank auction shortly.  It won’t be alone.

What do you think of Redfin and the discount realtor model?

Great job IR.

I really like the mortgage information you are posting lately. It gives me a better understanding of how some of these deals are structured and I can gauge what the real monthly costs are.

I think Quail Hills is a 1.8% Mello Roos tax rate.

Triple Yikes!

OFF TOPIC…I know…but I hope Irvine Renter takes note of what is happening in capital markets right now, as this portends even worse news for the housing market.  Several major lenders are either eliminating or severely restricting their sub-prime and Alt-A loans.  This further reduces the pool of potential buyers, or at least diminishes what they can afford to pay for a house.

The optimists insist the jitters in the capital markets are just a “short term” thing that will all get sorted out quickly, but I am not so sure.

The Realtor spelling on these things is some kind of a joke isn’t it?  They do this to tease us.  Right??

IR,

How are you obtaining the mortgage information?

These look like nice places…...probably worth about $1 million…..not a penny more….......the owners should consider converting them to bed and breakfasts.
How did the buying public in orange county lose sight of the fact that there are very few people that can actually afford a $1 million home.  With a 10% down payment the monthly tax and mortgage at 6% would be about $6400 per month. This requires an income of 250K per year.

So now double all the numbers….....how many people make 500K per year to purchase a $2 million home…........

Title reports sometimes show the type of mortgage recorded on title.

For instance if you see: 

Rate: 1.00 Term: ADJ,  you know it’s a neg am.

I wonder if this kind of Realtor l33t speak - all in CAPS LOCK too - that the bad stuff is about to begin. Using this kind of juevenalia to describe a two and half million dollar home whilst expecting a propspective buyer to take you seriously is a bit on the strange side.

So this is back to something that you realistically have to be in the industry to access?

“ This realtor must have an issue with vowels. Why remove them? You don’t save that much space.“

I think that realtor has watched too much TV and still thinks you have to buy a vowel….Obviously money is too tight on this flip to buy a few of those vowels. HAHAHAHA

I concure with Nano west. Yes Irvine is nice to live but it is still Irvine. 2+ million for a home in Irvine. Totally unbelievable. Are there that many MDs, Ph.ds, and J.Ds in Irvine?

Or, if you add a another D, then it’s bladder upgrade imaginable.

Great Blog! Like many on this site I’m on the sidelines waiting to buy. Although the market has not dropped as rapidly as I thought, I’m still expecting a full 40% decline from the peak which I believe was Summer 05” The way I see it; housing prices are currently down 10-15% from the peak, and have another 25% to go. I think summer 09’ could be pretty close to the bottom.

I thought this correction would be similar to that of 89’, where the market dropped rapidly.

There is one particular house in my town that I would really really love to know the financing situation on.  Would I be able to get somebody to check it out?

Any one who could fog a mirror between 99’ and 04’ was making 300K annually in mortgages. These were the people buying the market up. Now they are struggling to make half that.

I would say there is a good chance that realtors or loan reps own these properties.

Yes, the cyclists were “walkin” because the hill was too steep.

At least these look like million dollar homes. Look at this million dollar dump in Turtle Rock: http://homes.realtor.com/prop/1082468033
The realtor does admit it needs work in the description: “Modernize to Your Personal Style”. Shouldn’t there be more of a discount on a property that needs so much cosmetic work?

Great link.  I just looked through the picture gallery and laughed out loud.  Nice built-in planter, my 16 month old daughter would have a field day tracking the mud all over the lovely yellow carpet.  Awesome.

The difference between now and 1989-1991 was loss of jobs.  I believe that job losses are happening and will continue, but its credit is still so much easier now and masks the problems.  Credit is tightening and will soon affect main street the ways its affecting wall street.  Does anyone know if there is a requirement for banks to clear their REO’s by the end of their fiscal year?

You can probably find out by visiting the office of the County Recorder where the house is located.  The document you are looking for is the deed of trust.

Do you have to ask a clerk about it, or is there some library that you can just browse through?

Alt-A, in particular, Stated Income is going bye bye quickly.

Maybe lendingmaestro or others can comment on how the rapid disappearance of support for stated income loans affects self-employed people and independent contractors?  Can they substitute documentation?

I like the roomy backyard.

“I would say there is a good chance that realtors or loan reps own these properties.“

That would explain why the descriptions appear to be written by imbeciles.

A rich person who knows the value of hard work would not tolerate such poor descriptions, especially when the realtard would be making 3%.

They would be saying, “You will be making over 60 grand on this transaction and you can’t even write an intellegible description?  Take a hike!!!“

Actually, the planter was what I liked about the property. But after thinking it through I realize you’re right. It would be irresistable to children and pets as well. Cats would think you were so generous to provide them with such a roomy indoor litterbox. P-U.

We are all very aware of the credit market deterioration. You guys should join the forums here and read the thread most important post ever.

Even Cramer was beyond his normal extreme level of passion about the credit market on CNBC.

Bear Stearns on their earnings conference call just said that the credit market is the worst they have seen in 22 years.

In a normal market these would all be “move up” homes.  So they buyers would be expected to come in with a very big down payment.  Hence a 1.4mil home would carry perhaps a 700K mortgage after a 700K downpayment.

What really screwed things up and overheated the market was the irresponsible lowering of lending standards and cheap money that allowed people to step in with 2/28 100LTV mortgages.  Those people should have NEVER been given such loans.

Ever been to Turtle Rock?

It depends on how it’s set up.  In OC, it’s databased on a computer, so you look it up on the computer.  It’s possible that some rural counties still do it the old fashioned way with papers in a bound book.  If you or a family member owns a home, ask the clerk to walk you through the process using that example if you’re uncomfortable talking to the clerk about what you’re really looking for.

ocbear - The loss of jobs created a situation where people could not afford to keep their homes.  It wasn’t the loss of jobs per se, but the fact that they could no longer afford their homes.  Job loss was the cause, affordability was the symptom.  Incomes dropped, bills stayed the same, net result is loss of their home.

There is a huge affordability problem now.  The causes are different but the symptom is the same.  Income stagnate, mortgate skyrocketing as rates reset, net result is loss of their home.  The increase in costs creates the affordability issue rather than the loss of their job, but the effect is the same on affordability.

I am currious how many folks there out there who fit the following profile: Purchased 2004-2006 with an ARM, 100% Financing.  The second catagory of folks I’m currious about are the homeowners who purchased prior to 2002 but who pulled all their equity out via an ARM in 2003-2006. After their ARMs have reset I don’t see how these people can keep their homes.

It’s a good start.

I think Redfin’s model is an interim step on the way to 2% realtor commissions. If you are getting a kickback at the close, you are just borrowing more money. Banks will likely put a stop to this practice as loan terms tighten. They will be very reluctant to see any cash go to the buyer at closing when that money could be used to reduce their exposure.

There are a lot of them. Many of the properties we profile have 100% financing. That is the main reason they show up because the owners are financially distressed and try to sell before foreclosure.

This blog is getting to be a daily must read. I would like to see a week on Tustin Ranch since it is really West Irvine, more or less. We share the same the same shopping, parks, schools, and bubble prices! (only one exclamation point needed)

I noticed that the $2.7m properties were former model homes, which probably means that the purchase price included all furnishings, upgrades, and landscaping.  Judging from the photos, I would value the furnishings at $100k at a minimum, landscaping at $100-150k, and upgrades (maple cabinetry, built-ins, travertine, marble, stainless steel appliances) at around $200k.

Not that this excuses the outlandish prices, but it could explain the price differential.

In their defense, at least these homes are gorgeous.  I’ve seen some $2m custom homes that were just plain fugly, which goes to show you that having lots of money won’t buy you good taste.

OK, I know that we are all way, way too hip to even consider country music a genre but since IR is using musical themes in some of his blogs now (I like it, btw, IR) here are the lyrics of a country classic duet by George Jones and Tammy Wynette (married and divorced to each other three times!) While the FBs may not be singing this song of woe just yet, I’m pretty sure they will be in a year or so:

We always wanted a big two story house
Back when we lived in that little two room shack
We wanted fame and fortune
And we’d live life the way the rich folks do
We knew some how we’d make it, together me and you

With dreams and hopes of things to come
We worked and never stopped
Not much time for you and me
We had to reach the top

We bought that big two story house
And soon became the envy of the town
With all our work behind us
We’d finally settled down

Now we live (yes we live) in a two story house
Whoa, what splendor
But there’s no love about

(her) I’ve got my story
(him) And I’ve got mine, too
How sad it is, we now live, in a two story house

The house is filled with rare antiques
There’s marble on the floor
Beauty all around us
Like we’ve never seen before

There’s chandeliers in every room
Imported silks and satin all about
We filled the house with everything
But somehow left love out

Now we live (yes we live) in a two story house
Oh what splendor
But there’s no love about

I’ve got my story
And I’ve got mine, too
How sad it is, we now live, in a two story house

How sad it is, we now live, in a two story house

Two story house
Tammy wynette & george jones
(t. wynette, g. tubb, d. lindsey)
16 biggest hits - tammy wynette and george jones

Actually, you need larger incomes than $250K and $500K respectively to comfortably pay $1MM and $2MM for a home.

Traditionally, the required downpayment was 50% for “upper bracket” homes, for two reasons:

1. Your costs don’t increase just one direction when you buy a larger, more expensive home. They increase GEOMETRICALLY, especially should you decide to locate in a “fancier” neighborhood. The taxes increase vastly, and maintenance goes up astronomically. You can easily be looking at tripling or quadrupling your monthly costs, when you double the price of your home.

2. As others have noted, only an infinistimal percentage of the population commands the incomes necessary to support such homes. We have gotten so used to hearing about houses and condos costing $1MM or more in CA, Chicago, Miami, NYC, that we tend to forget that $1MM is a lot of damn money!

Worse, people who have $500K jobs are far less likely to be able to replace them with anything paying anywhere as well should they be fired or downsized. Incomes tend to be very fragile at this level. The next career move will not likely be a leap up in salary.

From what I have seen in the past, when the upper bracket properties at last begin to slide in price, they lose a much greater percentage of their original value than moderate-to-middle range homes.

These really are absolutely beautiful houses in incredibly scenic settings.

They’re a damn sight better deals for the money than what some folks here in CHICAGO are asking $2MM for.

EVeryone talks about how stable the market is here vs. CA , but I have news: there are hundreds of cookie-cutter townhomes and condos on the market here, in distinctly sub-par though “trendy” neighborhoods, listed at $1MM, $1.5MM, $2 MM and more, that are languishing, with more coming on line that was in the permit pipeline at the peak.

There is a lot of inventory and bad paper all over the country to be flushed out yet.

In Quail Hill, on the view side of the hill
1513 TREE HOUSE Irvine, 92603
$1,399,999
Beds: 5 | Baths: 4 1/2 | Sq. Ft.: 2,900 | Lot Size: N/A
Yr. Blt: 2004 | Listing Date: 08/08/07

http://www.ziprealty.com/buy_a_home/logged_in/search/home_detail.jsp?listing_num=P593711&mls=mls_so_cal&cKey=3v2qrj5f&source=SOCALMLS

Hey Major -

Check your spelling and before disparaging others.  Your “intellegible” is actually, well, um, misspelled:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=intelligible

Over and out.

Also check for incorrect grammar.  Notice I too made a mistake by adding the extra word “and”.

19 Fresco now at $1,950,000

29 & 15 Balcony aren’t on Redfin anymore.

Price dropped on the one on Fresco to $1.95 million.  Another $950,000 to go.

Looked at redfin.com today, properties for sale between $1 million and $2.25 million.  There are 16! 
And when I ask for sold within the last 3 month stats, I only see 2 that sold in early July.

It’s going to be an interesting winter.

In South Florida, nobody, except in a high rise, has a view because most of the state is perfectly flat.  How much more are people will to pay for a view, all other things being equal?  Altho, I suppose hilltops have more expensive houses, so it may be had to say.

I love the first one, $2Mil and look at the front steps to the house. Just cheap ass concrete steps like any other track house. WTF! I’m sure it’s a nice house but it’s at least twice as much as it should be worth.

“I would like to say that anyone who pays over $2,000,000 for an Irvine tract home is crazy.“

If you’ve ever driven through Beverly Hills, you have to think some time ago those were thought to be simply large lot tract homes.  What’s special about Beverly Hills?  It’s not near the ocean.  It’s not particularly hilly.  It just happens to be an indeal LA location where high net-worth and/or high income people have chosen to live.

Nobody “needs” 4,000+ sq ft (sound like a Democrat, don’t I?), so the only reason to by homes like these is for status.  If you’re in the market for a status home in this area, you’ll need to weigh how much $2 mil will buy you in Newport, CDM, and yes, hilly areas of Irvine. 

The Irvine status home is more likely to be a shorter commute to your office - the office you’ll be spending 80 hours per week at to pay for your status home.

Okay, now I’m waiting for someone to attack my argument not on its merits, but on the fact that I don’t know the difference between “by” and “buy.“

Damn LA public & Cal state school education!!!

I guess they were planning a buy and hold, the market just went the opposite of their guess. Maybe it’s a money laundering deal?

I think that realtorspeak along with cardealerspeak is theoretically to save money on classified ads where you had to pay for each character. It also is confusing and makes you feel like an “insider” when you figure it out, just more things to keep the “fish” off balance.
The fact that this crap is still going on with the internet where space is not so important makes me think it’s more of the later.

Firefox comes with a spell-checker.

Hey, public school got me where I am today!....Um….

Why would anyone pay these prices for a tract home in Irvine? Yes, they’re nice tract homes, but they’re still tract homes. You can get a nice place in Laguna Beach for these prices. What fools!

Not to say these things are not overvalued… but in all fairness there aren’t that many of these homes around.  Most of Chicken Hill (err.. Quail Hill) is made up of smaller and cheaper (but still overpriced) homes.

The builders didn’t go too nuts building homes on 7500/10000 sq foot lots.  They built few of them.  The issue is that even small condos were priced out of sight by the cheap money.

No you can not.  Laguna is more expensive, much more crowded and the commute in and out is HELL.

TR, Tridge, Corona del Mar, Big Canyon and Newport Coast are easy to get in and out.

Re: nobody need 4000 sq. ft.

That assumes of course, you’re a typical family with

(somehow, rest of comment deleted due to the less than sign - there is some kind of HTML encode command to avoid that problem I think)

2 kids or less.  What if you’re elderly parents live with you and you have 4 or 5 kids?  Then 4000 sq. ft. starts to seem a bit small.

I’m tired of the “this is the way to live, conform or we will tax you more” laws (ex. water usage is per household with tax for excess, we need a “green” tax on homes more than 3000 sq. ft, regardless of how many people live in the house). 

It’s even more environmentally friendly to have a large number of people in one house instead of splitting them into 2 or 3 houses. 

Enough regulation already.

Agreed.  Laguna is great, but like every property in every city, you can find flaws (commenters here seem to only find flaws in EVERY property).  It is isolated.  But hey, like I said, to pay for the home, you’ll be beating the commuters ‘cause you’ll be leaving the house at 6 am and leaving the office past 7 pm.

I wouldn’t want to live anywhere near PCH in the summer.  Laguna Beach during July and August on a weekend is just hell, in my opinion.

I still agree about paying $2 million to live in Quail Hill is just ridiculous.  I visited a few open houses and they seemed dark and claustrophobic despite being over 3,000 square feet.  I’m sure there are some nice homes, but I didn’t see any.  Of course if you’re spending that much money on a home, you’re probably spending most of your free time working and little time enjoying your home.

My “need” comment was done tongue-in-cheek. Nothing angers me more, than hearing Democrats making these arguments; e.g. “Rich people don’t need the Bush tax cuts.“ I wish every journalist was required to ask for a definition of “rich” when Democrats use the term.

Who has 4 or 5 kids? I think the average is 1.5 now or something? And that goes down as household income goes up (great how this inverse works, huh?). And who has their parents living with ‘em? I guess this is much more common in more recent immigrant families (of all income levels).

In SoCal people kill each other to protect their views.

Typically, deeds with a view home has those rights indicated in the deed.  Anyone down the hill that encroaches on those rights risks a big lawsuit at the very least.

Issues occur with people that have “view homes” but have no such rights in their deeds.  When the neighbors downhill build their second stories, these folks go ballistic.

They have some reason… mostly because they were goaded by the Real Estate agents into paying more for “their” view.. when in reality they have no such right to it.

May I clarify?  In California, no owner has a “right” to a view.  Zero.  Zilch.  If you live in a home governed by an HOA - and the CC&Rs for the HOA provide that any other home in the HOA may not encroach on your view, you are protected.  Otherwise, you better have nice neighbors.  See the current dispute in San Clemente for more.

My parents in Irvine got a letter from their association to cut down their trees because a neighbors complained that they kept growing taller than the roof which was a violation of the CC&Rs.

You may notice that Irvine has very few mature trees.

Here, cutting down trees can get you in big big trouble.  And
rightfully so.

Getting them knocked down by hurricanes doesn’t count.

The space coast house we bought 10 years ago (2850 air conditioned square feet, big garage, pool, trussed roof big back porch. 2.75 acres, orange trees, horses welcome)
needed every surface repainted, rugs torn up, new kitchen, etc,etc.

This was fine with me.  I had just completely redone my previous Miami house with hurricane Andrew money, and
I saw several houses with new beige rugs that had been redone all over with neutrals, which I hated, but would have
felt guilty removing because it was brand new.  By the way,
Realtors always tell you that beige is the thing.

So I was spoiled, and happy to have a house that I could rip to shreds and re-do to my taste.

Of course, we paid only 162.  We had to borrow 95, and my hub was just dying!!  Can you believe it?

The house has a gorgeous brick fireplace, and now that our son is on his own, is rather too big for us.  I would prefer to have a house with good bones, but which needs cosmetic
surgery, than a staged one.

Now the house needs work again, of course, after 10 years, but I am not in the mood to spend money on housing.

Of course here, even the houses which are not so well built are better built than there, because even idiots care about
hurricanes.

We can’t sell it because if we did, we’d have to pay higher property taxes, even if we downsized considerably.  Also, we
can’t sell it, because nobody is buying anything, but we really don’t want to sell, for say, another 5 years.

Quail Hill meets Benny Hill.

It looks liked they put a ficus in the planter. Ficus = foundation splitting roots. I hope the planter is contained somehow. Otherwise, it looks like a nursing home.

Great blog - nice to read comments that are actually worth reading!  A few scattered thoughts in response to previous comments:

OC Bear - Banks don’t have to clear REO off books by year end, but there are restrictions as to how long they can hold REO (5 years for nationally chartered banks); banks also have to show their regulators that they are actively trying to sell REO, as banks are not supposed to be in the RE development biz.  In addition, the longer REO is on the books, the longer the asset doesn’t generate income like loans or investments, but yet its book value has to be written down if the value deteriorates…so there’s a lot that goes into banks’ REO strategies.  Banks actually don’t want to ‘dump’ properties - it hurts them in the end too when there’s a lot of foreclosures they have to deal with! but they don’t have the luxury of waiting around til the market turns around, say in a few years, to aggressively sell REO.

As for stated income loans - bank regulators (FDIC/OCC/OTS/FRB) published joint guidance at the end of last year (that had been out for comment since the end of 2005) that, in essence, was the writing on the wall for stated income loans.  They’re not coming back (unless this guidance, with which banks must comply, changes).

Last - I live in Laguna Beach (have for 15 years) - I’m amazed that people will pay $1 + million to live in Irvine! Different strokes for different folks, I guess.  I will take living in a community with a small town feel, where people are pretty darn neighborly, and i can see the ocean with every turn, over a bigger, newer house any day…even with traffic (which is largely avoided once you live here long enough and know the exact times to avoid driving on PCH, know every alternate route in town, use the tram, and walk around town instead of drive).  I prefer to live out of arms reach of box retail and chain food, so that rules out Irvine for me…no slam against Irvine, just to each his own.

Keep writing the comments and digging up the RE truths - it’s fascinating reading (maybe required reading for those in the RE industry).

They can keep REOs for 5 years?

5 years?

Well, this down cycle is gonna last a hellava long time.  Given that
the banking hierarchy is carefully set up so that admitting a mistake was made—even by somebody else long gone—is the kiss of death.

Is there some rule that says that they MUST kick renters out?  Even
good, cooperative, paying renters?

re: can keep

As the guidence councillors say, needs and wants are two different things.

Got reserves?

-Stupid

Effects of forclosures on two neighborhoods…

Manteca Sun Post
Home and guardin’

San Benito County Pinnacle
Foreclosures pepper county
http://www.pinnaclenews.com/news/contentview.asp?c=227638

“As for stated income loans - bank regulators (FDIC/OCC/OTS/FRB) published joint guidance at the end of last year (that had been out for comment since the end of 2005) that, in essence, was the writing on the wall for stated income loans. They’re not coming back (unless this guidance, with which banks must comply, changes).“

The banks will tell you they weren’t the ones making the stated-income loans. It was the non-depository institutions (e.g. New Century, Ameriquest, etc.), and these lenders are not regulated by the FDIC/OCC/OTS/FRB. But, ALL of these lenders are gone. So, these regulators are now simply tightening standards for loans that banks weren’t really making anyway, and certainly aren’t now.

Ya gotta love government regulation - it almost always is too late, ineffective, or redundant…

Off housing topic, but worth reading

Lessons from the credit crunch
Oct 18th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Central banks have worked miracles for 30 years. Don’t count on that continuing
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9988758

Caveat - Countrywide is a non-depository lender that is still alive… barely. And they’re not subject to the regulators listed above, and therefore not subject to these regulations. Countrywide must follow the regulations of the state in which they originate a loan. Again, state regulators were as asleep-at-the-wheel as the federal regulators were…

Humor: comment from http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=3602

Comment by lakewashington
2007-10-20 10:59:11
I think folks will know exactly where I stand when I show up for a couple Halloween parties this year as a dead Realtor impaled by a “For Sale” signpost.

More humor from further down in the thread

Comment by Magic Kat
2007-10-20 13:18:53
During the last bubble in CA (early 90s), a friend of mine dressed like a clean, yet undesirable homeless realtor and held a sign that said, “will sell homes for food.” He stood outside his office waving it around before heading off to the party and reported that most people driving by wouldn’t even look at him. One man stopped and gave him $10 and told him to go out and buy some dinner! LOL. He said that his costume was too close to truth, and changed his costume to a realtor mummy - as dead as the housing market.

Redfin sounded good and my dad was selling some property so I told him to give them a try. He called them a few times, but his calls were never answered. He gave up and called Help U Sell and they helped him right away.

Does anyone know someone that sold though Redfin? I like the web site, hopefully they have a profitable business and will be around.

Dear IR and anyone else…

Please be extremely cautious of the information you find on Zillow and similar forums.  The information is not 100% accurate, especially when it comes to value.  Ask any appraiser how they adjust a property when comparing it to a similar one that is remodeled or highly upgraded.  A computer model can’t do that for you.  Neither can a computer model take into consideration that the home backs a busy street or has a view.  It only takes hard facts in consideration.  In addition, many properties in OC don’t show the square footage or bedroom count on the tax roll.  So the computer has to guess.  I’ve even seen the tax roll incorrect.  Some squirrelly things happened with developers and the city permits departments in the late 80’s and 90’s.

I agree with your opinions regarding the obviously over priced homes in Shady Canyon and Quail Hill, especially those in Quail Hill.  I think it’s hilarious. WTF~....that statement should have been said and LISTENED to by 10’s of thousands of buyers over the past 4 years.  It is a little ridiculous what has been going on.

Humor: Enough gloom and doom already!  Let’s have some dancing to take our minds of our worries.

Like the pengins say in Madagascar “Just smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave. “

The housing hula
http://www.jibjab.com/starring_you/receipt/1611345

Hoe down in DC
http://www.jibjab.com/starring_you/receipt/1638756

I seem to recall there was Redfin got a newsstory in one of the major media outlets, then got swamped by people wanting to list with them.  The Redfin honcho then made an announcement that to keep quality high for the sellers, they are going to stop taking new listings for awhile rather than overbook and make it bad experience for the sellers they had already promised to work for.

Maybe that’s why you didn’t get any calls answered.

Housing Downturn Takes Toll on Cities’ Revenue

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/us/18taxes.html?ex=1193371200&en=6b03d486d2c9555b&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Want a life of leisure? Be a renter

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/20/HOCNQVDUG.DTL

Humor:  ROFL - two british guys explain the SIV and housing market
Must see this one.

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/10/sivs-explained.html

That makes sense, just seems Redfin dropped the ball by not explaining the situation on the telephone message and website.

Or maybe they don’t care about listings as much right now, unless you have someone willing drop the price, the listing will most likely be a bunch of work with no sale.

Mark - You hit it on the head - Finance companies could do pretty much whatever they wanted, being less regulated.  But that there was demand for the product from investors is what i could never understand!!  If they say they didn’t know the risk in what they were buying, i go back to my ‘greed clouds good judgment’ argument.  In addition to investors buying the packaged securities, you had investors buying the stock of Countrywide’s of the world.  Why ?  Did anyone read their public filings about the types of loans they did ? Who really thought that most people were getting loans they could afford when data was out there continuously indicating that there were problems coming (affordability index out of whack, home prices increasing ridiculously, etc.)  But investors in Countrywide weren’t complaining that the company should be more conservative, which could translate to doing fewer loans and make less $$ over the past 5 years. 

Not to defend the government, but my experience has been that the regulators have been extremely skeptical of nontraditional loans since early 2000’s…when banks are not incurring losses, however, they have no political power to push thru regulation that might hurt people’s chances at the american dream of home ownership.  Hence it’s always too little, too late.

FYI, Countrywide has a bank arm…was originally called Treasury Bank - bought some of the mortgages countrywide originated…the bank went from a less than $1 billion in 2001 to almost $100 billion at 6/30/07. Countrywide’s bank arm got lots of grief from its regulator (OCC) from day one, from what I heard..about the credit risk of the mortgages.  Heck, Countrywide’s bank changed charters last year so it’s now supervised by OTS instead of OCC, in part to get away from the OCC scrutiny, IMHO.  Still, there’s was bzillions of loans that the street would buy/easily securitized that the bank arm wouldn’t/couldn’t.

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING THAT PEOPLE WILL PAY $1 MILL PLUS TO LIVE IN IRVINE !!!!!!

***To the person who lives in LB, from another LBer

tonye?
You can’t buy in LB for $2Mil? I think you should recheck the listings.

There are plenty of listings in LB under $2 mil.  SFR’s range from $900k’s and up.  Plenty are around the $1 mil to $1.5 mil.  You should check.