They probably have HELOC that they are feeling entitled to transfer and have someone else pay off for them.

I also like the “low HOA fee” sales pitch.  If you are spending 1.4 million on a house - who gives an F about the HOA fee.  Compared to your mortgage payment any HOA dues are going to be chump change on that sucker

These sellers are going to chase the market back into 2002 shortly.  Be sure to do a follow up on this property at the end of the year.
——-

AZ,,,,,,
You comment about theHOA is too funny.

I lived in Northwood for about 5 years and I saw something that sort of made me laugh. They had a guard gate, but decided to install automated gates that require a scanner sticker for extra security. Each home got two free stickers and had to pay about 50 dollars for extras. There was this guy at the table where they were giving the scanner stickers out….....driving a $100,000 car. He was upset that he had to pay the extra 50 dollars for his third car…....clueless.

Can you believe that on a $1.4 Million house, one of the first comments made is that it has a low HOA fee? Give me a break. Do any of these realtors have half a brain? Like anyone coming up with the scratch for a house at this price would care about that. No wonder this market has gotten to be such a mess with these idiots at the helm.

I like how the polls with questions about price levels show a nice bell curve. This really tells where the perception of market value is at.

The owners are not as greedy as you accused them to be. Instead of asking appreciation of 15% a year, they are only asking 13% increase compounded a year since 2004.

This beautiful house may be going down in value for now, but by 2028, it will be worth several millions….when medium household income in Irvine will be over one million.

Exactly.

You can tell who the posers are when they drive 100K vehicles and complain about spending 50.00 on something like that. 

They are stretched a little thin on the finances and turn into a foaming at the mouth penny pincher when the little odds and ends come up that need to be paid for.

Maybe he needs to get rid of the car so he can afford the little things like security stickers.

It’s just a lame Jedi mind trick. 

Attempt to set up a mirror and blow some smoke at you.

Just like how the description is filled with the word “granite” over and over again.

There is nothing that logically makes this house worth 1.4 million dollars so they have to fill the description with a bunch of fluff to make your subconscious think “upgrades” and “discounts” while your active subconscious tries to parse the unreasonable sticker price.

Like the “low” HOA fee is going to distract you from the outrageously “high” fee of paying the mortgage on this house.  You would have to be quite the weak minded fool.

I guess when you are desperate to sell something, you just throw a bunch of S at the wall and hope something sticks.

I’d probably put a little more effort in describing the non-granite related features of this property.  I’m guessing there are none.

They forgot to mention a the lifetime supply of baseballs/softballs included courtesy of the field next door.

This house has a great lot. It makes a great left field ball stop.

I’m with the majority placing this puppy back down in the 600K range.

Even at 600K - that’s a pretty expensive house!

I’m not going to comment on this until Ipop makes a case for the house being a steal for just a few hundred grand less…

Sorry Ipop, I had to.

Did I read correctly?  The interior description says 1 common wall.  For a anything over $1 million, I refuse to share a wall with my next-door neighbor, no matter how nicely their kids play the piano.

I think it mostly depends on where you feel the fair price is and how that relates to the bottom.

I think 2003 prices are fair and should be the bottom.  However we could easily over shoot that and get to 2002 or 2001 prices….. and when you start playing that game who knows…. it’s starts to be speculation just like speculating the peak.

Other potential snark….

“Does it come with all this beautifully matched furniture?“

“Hey, someone splattered paint all over the walls in a few places.“

“Is that an oversized outdoor grille/kitchen/granite/bar in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?“

“Does the miniature backyard come with a miniature dog?“

“Nothing says ‘million-dollar-estate’ more than sliding, mirrored closet doors.“

“Oh I see you scored a bunch of those big tacky, gold leafed mirrors when they were on sale at Costco too!“

“I’ll give you five hundred bucks cash money right now for whatever is under that blue tarp.“

“Was Home Depot out of big chandeliers when you bought yours?“

“This built-in desk here in the hallway sure is useful.  I mean, how many times have you said, ‘I can’t wait to write this down until I get to the office four steps away. Thank god there’s a desk right here where I need it!‘“

“You know, I actually think the tacky, white wire shower storage thingie says a lot about the design of this bath.“

“Water Feature!“

I noticed at Costco in Tustin Field that they have on display a big bin of Travertine Tiles!!!!!  for sale. 

I hope I got that right in real-a-speak  

Travertine just went costco status.

Well, market value perception of the generally bearish readers of this blog, anyway.  I should think it isn’t a very representative sample of the population.

Let’s see… $133.11 a square foot makes $346,219.11. Still listed for less than $500,000 in 1998.

Carl -

Tell that to the people trying to sell houses right now. 

They need all the support they can get!

Yup.  When a burger, fries, and coke at ‘N and Out costs 50.00.

Damn! 

Just when I sank my life savings into Travertine research and development!

Travertine living rooms freak me out.

Am I supposed to put patio furniture in my living room or something?

When I clean do I just hose everything down?

Forgive me for reposting this from yesterday, but IMHO it warrants discussion. Here’s what I said:

Comment by zoiks
2008-02-28 21:27:36

IrvineRenter, can you explain something to me?

You often hear about people who buy an entry-level home or condo for the purpose of supporting a future move-up. I think this is what people refer to as the “property ladder” or the “housing ladder”. But it makes no sense to me. Here’s why:

Let’s say we are in a real estate market which appreciates about X% per year. If I purchase a condo at a price A, and it appreciates at X% per year, then after N years (at time t’), the equity is

A’ - A = A*[(1+X/100)^N - 1]

=~ A*N*X/100 (by the binomial theroem)

(For the sake of argument we will simplify with the binomial theroem.) So if they now put this equity into a second, move-up home, with original price B and later price B’ (at time t’), then the percentage equity they’ll have in the new home by putting their equity into the down payment is

A*N*X/100/(B + B*N*X/100)

(note, B was assumed to appreciate at the same rate as A, and the binomial approximation was used for B’ as well.)

On the other hand, had they just bought the B house first, their new equity portion after the same number of years would then be

B*N*X/100/(B + B*N*X/100)

If we assume the move-up house B costs twice A, then we can conclude that the buyer would have been better off buying B right away. In that case, they’d end up with twice the home equity in the same period of N years.

So the person who bought A first sacrifices half their future equity in this case by choosing to buy an “entry-level” condo in anticipation of a future purchase of a “move-up” home. (Maybe this is called “chasing the market up”?)

Doesn’t this blow the whole “property ladder” idea out of the water? This analysis indicates it’s smarter to just buy the house you want rather than waste your time with “move-up” condos. What do you think?

And djd responded with

Comment by djd
2008-02-29 04:29:38

I’m not sure how IR would answer this, however I see the main problem being: all of the money amounts in the model scale linearly with the purchase price of the property. These include the downpayment required and the carrying costs.

So, the move up theory is in my view predicated on: people’s real salaries increase over time (carrying cost) and they have larger amounts of available real capital (downpayment). Equity from the previous residence can help provide the latter. (Note that when I say that real salaries increase over time, I mean for individuals over the course of a career.)

Also, please recall from the “What is Equity?” post that equity comes from multiple sources and is only partly represented by the single “appreciation” measure.

I understand that the equity transferred could come from multiple sources, but in the modern usage, the way it’s relayed in media (quoting homebuyers in a bind, for example) there is very often a reference to sitting on a cheaper property like a condo long enough for it to appreciate (like a couple of years) so they can have a downpayment on a larger property.

Typically, there is little or no downpayment, and very little (if any, or gasp even negative) payment of principle. In fact, from what I’ve seen, the plan is usually to only own the cheaper condo for a couple of years, so even their salaries are in general not going to be that much higher. (The buyer will have the idea that their home will appreciate faster than their salary anyway, so the salary thing is kind of moot.) Therefore my scenario represents the plans of many recent homebuyers.

You see it in the quotes of articles on THBB all the time: “I bought this condo so I could work up to a SFH in a couple of years, now I can’t sell, boo hoo.“

Because of this, I think it’s a modern myth, this idea that what you do is buy a cheaper property (like a condo), let it appreciate, and then use the equity to put a DP on a more expensive property. My example above shows that this acts more as a property “anchor” than a property “ladder”. I’m quite convinced there are a great deal of people that think that way, and I haven’t seen this thinking addressed.

Are you talking about that SWEET paintball target practice artwork in the office?

They must have spent at least couple grand on that masterpiece.

“Hmmm! Splotchy paint everywhere!!  Marvelous!“

Why pay for a real painting when you can pay for someone’s bad acid trip.

It sold for 540k in 2000. That is what I would pay for it.

AZ, many sellers in Irvine aren’t having a problem selling their places.  Lots of escrows I see are on places on the market for less than a month…  One that I was going to go check-out this weekend got into escrow in five days.  I thought I would end up throwing them a 15-20% below list offer if I liked the place but poof, it’s gone before I could even tour it.

If a seller has a decent place and they are embracing the pricing reality of this market, they are moving property.  More and more recognition of this is leading to an increase in sales.  Things will only sell at 2004 prices if sellers are willing to go that low.

If the property featured today was listed at $899, it would be in escrow in less than a week…

Sorry weaz, this one is stupid crazy WTF.  No argument from me there…  I hate corner locations.  The lot is big, but this is over-valued by $500K.

This place has either been for sale or sold at least 5 times in the last ten years. I wonder what is wrong with this house.

Maybe Ipop is on his way to check out the house right now.

Yeah, I am not big on corner lots either. I feel like the hosue is too exposed and lacks privacy.

I try to stay out of old Westpark I Mr. Vincent.  It’s too Don Johnson for me…  I lived the 80’s and don’t need any daily reminders of it.

Your analysis is flawed.

The equity used to be built up by paying the principal, sort of a forced savings program, with +- contribution from price apprecation.  If your paying $400/month in principal then after 5 years you have another $20k you can you add to your original down on your trade up.  When houses were $300k 10 years ago that’s nearly another 10%.

If the current price represents a peak, and we are expecting up to 50% reductions from the peak at the bottom in say 2012 that puts it right where most people seem to guessing.  So there is some logic here.

As long as you have enough equity in the house, owning a house is a hedge against housing bubbles. Basically if you have a house with at least 20% (and now 25%) equity, you can move anytime you want without worrying about whether houses are more or less expensive. Basically, if the housing is overpriced, you end up paying too much for the transaction, but the rest is a wash. This hedging made a lot more sense when you needed to roll over the sell of one house to a purchase of another within a year.

But now with the 500K capital gains loop hole for couples there is going to be a stronger incentive to cash out gains and wait for the next bottom. So we should see housing become more like a tax preferred investment. Speaking of which, if housing becomes more volatile because of the changes in the tax laws, that would mean that down payment requirements will have to go up. So instead of making housing more affordable, the government tax treatment might actually make it less affordable.

Yeah, I’m sure my analysis is flawed, but is so because it reflects the thinking of many homebuyers today. That’s kinda my point. People routinely talk about “moving up” after a couple of years, this at a time when few put much of a down payment and most opt for interest-only. Very little chance of payment equity existing on their “starter condo”, and little chance their income will have gone up enough.

I literally think people have come to depend on appreciation equity to fund their “move-up” purchases, and my whole point is that’s flawed thinking.

Nothing like owning OC Mediterranean (yes this is actually a style) to make you feel like you’re at the strip mall everyday

My thought about this latest gem is to do with the realtor.  How does this listing benefit the realtor?  How does either the owner or the realtor rationalize the comparables in the neighbourhood?
Picture the listing sales person approaching the owner with a plan to lower the price; owner asks, Well how much do you think we should lower the price? Realtor responds, Lets start at say a 650k drop.  What happens next would be a classic IHB moment starting with the now famous three letters…....WTF.

We are still at a point in this lousy economy where there is demand for housing at the right price. People who are sellers should get real about pricing before its too late.

In the 1990s housing bust, it reached a point where there was simply no-one there to buy a house at almost any price. That point has yet to be reached now, but it is on its way.

I think what your example is missing is the gain from leverage and the differential appreciation rates during a rally.

http://piggington.com/another_bad_month_for_the_case_shiller_hpi

At the bottom of the link above, Rich Toscano has constructed a graph of the rally and fall of three different price strata. The low end appreciates at a faster rate than the high end in a rally—or at least it did in the last one. This would allow equity transfer to provide a move-up without additional income.

Also, leverage makes all the appreciation profit and greatly magnifies its effect. I know a guy who bought a house in 2004 for $850,000, and he transferred $600,000 in equity from his last house keeping the $1,600 a month payment on a 30-year fixed he has had for over 20 years. His debt has increased as each move-up restarted the amortization schedule and declining interest rates allowed him to borrow more, but he still has the same housing payment he had on a starter home he bought in the early 80s.

Right now, it is clearly a property anchor, or cement shoes, buried alive, or any other image of deadly immobility you want to conjure up. In fact, the equity evaporation of this bubble will likely wipe out the accumulated equity of the working lives of most OC residents. Consider the example of the guy I mentioned above: he accumulated $600,000 in equity by conservative financing and property appreciation over 20 years; if his house drops in value $400,000—which it probably will before prices bottom, he will have lost 2/3 of his accumulated equity because the percentage drop he endured was on a more-expensive move-up home. Everyone who traded up in the late stages of the rally is going to experience this supercharged depreciation.

What if all the lenders wanted 25% down for jumbos?  That would make it a lot harder to sell…

http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/080228/1597695.html?.v=1

You can’t move up unless your income moves up.  Period.

Say you buy a house for 400k,  You put 20% down and finance 320k.  Now 4 years later you feel the itch to “move-up.“  You sell your home for 650k, and cash out on your down payment, and keep the additional 250k.

In order to “move-up” you’ll need to buy a place for say 750k.  You put down your gain on sale of 250k, original 80k DP, AND an additional 20k.  You now have a 400k mortgage instead of a 320k mortgage.  Do you see where this is going?

The 80s rule.  Why not get a nice Ferrari to park in front?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120415357135797887.html

“If the property featured today was listed at $899, it would be in escrow in less than a week…“

Yep, this the last chance for this seller to get out at breakeven or perhaps a little above, and they will blow it. In Houses Should Not Be a Commodity:

http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/2007/06/25/houses-should-not-be-a-commodity/

I wrote: “People who bought in the enthusiasm stage [1994] come up to their breakeven price and face the same decision our greed stage buyers faced earlier: sell now or hold out for a rally. Even though there is reason to fear, most will not sell here. They will regret it later, but they will hold on.“

When we moved to Irvine in late 2000 we really wanted a bigger place but couldn’t afford it at the time based on our income.  Things turned out really well for me the first few years and we considered moving up, but at that point the bubble was well under way and it made no sense financially even with our bubblicious equity.

Between the sales commission for the Realtards, closing costs, and the increased property taxes it just wasn’t logical.  We were comfortable although a bit cramped but couldn’t justify taking on an increased debt load just to have a few hundred more square feet.

So to this point about the ‘property ladder’, it may make sense when you are going from a condo to a single family home.  But once you have a place big enough to raise a family comfortable the only place to go would be unreasonable to reasonable people.  Fortunately for Realtards there are a lot of unreasonable people in Irvine.

I’m trying to understand why people hate corner lots so much.  It seems to me that in SoCal, a corner lot is the only way you do get some privacy, as in you don’t have neighbors on every side of you staring down into your yard.  Plus you get two sides of nice landscaping instead of just one small strip dominated by a garage.  I would certainly take this house over any of the boxed in neighbors (of course for 1/2 the price).

I voted a price of 700K to 799K but only if the owner did it today, right this minute. But I don’t think he’ll be drinking any of the bitter medicine soon enough.

Played tennis last night with a fellow who lamented on falling home pricing. We live in the Carlsbad/Encinitas area. He said homes in his neighborhood had been going in the $850K and up range. House nearby was foreclosed on and listed by the bank for $599K but eventually sold at $525K.

A 38% haircut. A steep drop with will be replicated many times with increasing steepness.

I find people driving expensive vehicles increasingly laughable. 90% of the time the vehicle is leased, all the way down from the ostentatious Bentley to the silver X5 to the shiny new lexus with GPS nav.

It doesn’t matter what income bracket people are in: they always want more than they can afford, and if they can’t stretch far enough to get a loan for the vehicle, they’ll rent *cough* lease it.

Unless you got a huge break on your tax return from the section 179, I can’t think of a quote-un-quote asset that depreciates faster…

“It’s just a lame Jedi mind trick.“

ROTFLMFAO!!@#$

Dude you made my day… =P

Perhaps one of the assumptions behind all our expectations of future prices for homes in OC is that apart from market correction, people will start learning from their mistakes and start living within their means. I do not think this will happen very soon here in California. The So Cal Social Pathology (as illustrated on this blog) of spending up to or above one’s means has got people habituated. Frequently, savings is not a part of the whole financial equation. This ties into people continuing to catch the falling knives in the current market. But again time will tell, just my 2 cents.

I agree with a ’04 roll back price of $850K on this one. 
This house is painfully overpriced at $1.395M especially given pricing of other homes in the surrounding area.
I know, this one is special (aren’t they all).
On the plus side, backyard looks nice and spacious.
However, the way it’s situated seems like there’s very little privacy from neighbors.

I’d rather have nice quiet walls next to my house vs. a bunch of modified exhausts cruising past my bedrooms.  Not sure how you get privacy from a corner when everyone and their mother drives and walks by…

“I agree with a ’04 roll back price of $850K on this one.“

I dunno… Do you think they put $550K worth of granite in this house? I imagine rock-climbing could be doable with that much granite.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=arFDNXdz_IKY&refer=home

``There is no growth in consumption except to keep up with price increases,‘’ said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York. ``Consumers are clearly hard-pressed to maintain their standard of living and are cutting back.‘’

and yet…

“The savings rate dropped 0.1 percent for a second month. A negative rate suggests consumers are drawing down savings to maintain spending. “

Thanks for the article link, Stupid.

I have no doubt that there are bargain-hunting shoot-yourself-in-the-foot knife catchers buying houses right now.

The seller has to price WAY low to get them to fall off the fence.

Lots of sellers are hanging on to their nonsense prices (like today’s seller) who are not going to be able to pull it off.

The bell shape will drift down as time progresses.
People perception of home value adjusts to new lower pricing.

You forgot to add that the nice corner lot gets lots of traffic on two sides.  Oh, there’s the bonus that with headlights shining across the front of your house every time someone turns down the street at night, your electricity bill will be lower.  Think of it as big disco lights dancing across your bedroom all night.  Combined with the “low HOA fees,“ this place is a bargain!

Exactly.

The term “home equity” has been redefined by bubble participants.

Home equity used to be the amount of money you paid down your mortgage by.

Nowadays - people think that it is synonomous with “home value appreciation”.

The masses think that a house creates its own equity out of a vacuum and they need not do anything other than make the monthly interest payments to the bank.

With that kind of thinking - why not take out interest only loans, variable rates for only a couple of years and then plan on the next greater fool to be dumber than you are.

No way.

By the time the correction is finished, 850K will require too much skin in the game for most people to afford this place.

It’s doable today while some pre-2002 buyers still have some bubble equity to throw in the toilet and move-up into this place.

In a couple years though all of the fake equity will be PFFF though and without creative financing this place will not find buyers at 850K.

Oh I know, I know, I know IR.  Pick me, pick me.  granite = 4

I getting to not like granite and stainless steel anymore - to me it’s becoming the harvest gold and shag carpet of its times.

Your right, too much granite is an understatement.
Don’t know how they restrained themselves from decorating every inch of the house including the walls with it.

I saw that, too. The house looks completely detached to me. Maybe the idiot Realtor meant the outdoor wall between this house and the property next door.

I’m surprised it wasn’t described as an estate.  These days, anything with over 8000 sq ft lot is an estate!

SDChad—I bought a corner lot for those vary reasons back in 01—to get a bigger lot and what I perceived was more open space and privacy.  It definitely has that, but the tradeoffs are traffic noise (being at an intersection) and the fact that you get a lot of street parking, trash, etc. along your side yard.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it again—but this time I’m looking at the pie shaped lots you typically find at the end of cul-de-sacs.  They seem to offer some of the same advantages and minimizes the problems of a corner lot.  I’m also trying to find lots on single loaded streets with no rear neighbors.

“...property anchor, or cement shoes, buried alive…“

I like the first two analogies, but not the third.  “Buried alive” assumes no out, and there’s always an out, your credit just gets killed.

I’m certainly stuck in my Irvine home for the foreseeable future, but that’s why we bought something less than 2.5x our income, and something we could live in for 10 years.

Then it would look like Magnum PI owned it.
Tom Selleck was the man, star of the show, got all the babes and an SC alum to boot.
Fortunate to have such a great role model growing up as a young boy.

Sorry, let me clarify the $850K was what I presently believe it would go for.
I voted $500K at the bottom.

I’ve given up trying to caclulate how the average consumer/American will respond to this and other crisis.  I just don’t understand anything about people who spend every dollar earned and use credit for the rest.  How can I forecast their future behavior when I don’t understand their current behavior?

Yesterday Wells Fargo issued classifications for more than 200 housing markets. LA/OC was classified as “severely distressed” and therefore the ltv limit was reduced to 75%.

My question is, do you think the fact that a large bank, Wells Fargo, calls your Irvine market “severely distressed” will affect the psychology of the market?  It’s one thing to hear it from some stranger on web board but when the bank tells you you are living in a “severely distressed” area that’s bound to get your attention.

Exactly what I am looking for too skek.  A nice piece of pie on the buld of a culdy.

The one in really tried to get in the summer was exactly that.  There were no neighbors directly behind.  Just parts of their yards and the street from another development beyond.  Argh I loved that yard!

Need to be able to edit these things…  bulb fumble-fingers IPoop.

Just use the in-stock

Love the action in the markets today.  My bond funds are happy…

Sure would be nice to see the S&P at 1200 soon.

Yeah, you’re always a slave to your mortgage! Just pay that $hit off and live like nobody else!

IR: thanks for this listing, I live practically next door to this one in virtually the same unit (sans granite and other upgrades) for 3K a month rent.  These homes are 1980’s time capsules with now-dated cathedral ceilings that waste a lot of upstairs space.  You come in the front door and have a 25 foot ceiling—for what, to show off all that drywall?  You could have inserted another upstairs bedroom or at least expanded on what was there because the bedrooms (other than the master) are smallish since the half the upstairs space is donated to the cathedral ceilings for the downstairs living room.  What a buffoon this seller is, there is a house a couple of blocks away listed for 800K (I note that the 800K listing has languished on the market now for months)  These westpark homes are all pretty much cookie cutter copies of each other, salmon tile country, my homeland.  This area of Irvine is very much ESL country so maybe the seller figures he can get some fool arriving from the far east with mucho cash to waste.  good luck on that one.

Thought this was funny so I thought I’d share. 

Was on RealtyTrac looking at a property in Tustin that recently received a notice of default.  Googled the owners name and found that they did a testimonial on this site:

http://www.freeby30.com/ya.php

Guess the program didn’t work out so well for them huh?!

Uhm, you said you were an IC and recieved 1099.  You can write off a good chunk of a leased vehicle.

Long time reader, first time poster…

Has anyone noticed that these are the same guys who were selling that boxy looking home AKA - the jewel of irvine at 2 Angell, Irvine
?

http://www.trackmy.com/flyer@listings.fwx?R_SRC=HS&R_MLSNO=S517790&R_PUBLICID=0000302816

Great catch greedy flipper.  I think we can consider the question IR posed to be answered:  “Do these sellers have their heads in the sand, or is it somewhere else”?  Since it is well documented (even in the OC Reg) that the braintrust behind 2 Angell had their head up their a$$—- we can understand 1 Lorenzo much better.

Wasn’t 2 Angell an aging house on a corner lot which was dressed up and listed for $1.4M?  These guys have an m.o.

Bah.  Only pay it off if it makes good financial sense to do so. 

If you can borrow for 30 years and pay an after-tax interest rate of 3.75 to 4.00, in the long run a person could very well be better served having those dollars invested in the stock market vs. paying down principal.  Historical market after-tax market returns are better than 4%...

I’d rather be a slave to my mortgage and accumulate more net worth overall vs. pay it off early.

Realtor comments to this would be the following, take your pick

1) this is irvine, people from other parts of the county are ready to buy here so prices will not fall a lot.

2) this is irvine, there are people within irvine ready to pay 50% down and buy.

3) This is irvine, there are so many people waiting on the sidelines that a 3-5% drop will prompt muiltiple offers on a house.

4) OC consists of many ‘undesireable’ parts where the price drop is larger, irvine is not “severely distressed” .

5) if you have good credit then you dont have any problems.

May be irvine is like Chuck Norris…

If the comps start falling below 2003 then then we might expect the death thores of the phrase ‘This is Irvine’ catch phrase…till then This is Irvine

You don’t have to price it “WAY low” get a buyer.

I just sold a property (not in Irvine, but an area where there has been 15% correction) and all I had to do was underprice comps by 5%.

The property was gone within 3 weeks.

If you are the lowest comp, you will sell, even in this market.

Are the 18’ x 18’ tiles featured in this home on sale?  I think 2 or 3 of those should be enough for most homes.

Just coppied from Lasner
(http://lansner.freedomblogging.com/2008/02/29/oc-real-estatefinance-jobs-off-10-from-peak/ )  Total reported OC job losses so far 46,000 or 3% of the empolyed working stiffs were let go in the last year.  How about starting a new poll on the bottom in employment?

Job slice Last mo. Vs. Peak Vs. Peak

Construction 98,700 -11,700 -10.6%
Construct buildings 23,300 -1,800 -7.2%
Heavy construction 8,100 -1,100 -12.0%
Specialty trades 67,300 -8,900 -11.7%
Lending activities 37,600 -17,500 -31.8%
Bank lending 18,500 -500 -2.6%
Non-bank lending 14,100 -10,400 -42.4%
Lending support 5,000 -8,700 -63.5%
Other finance 10,800 -1,700 -13.6%
Real estate/leasing 38,400 -1,200 -3.0%
Real estate 31,900 -1,000 -3.0%
Leasing 6,500 -2,000 -23.5%
Bldg. services 32,600 -800 -2.4%
Building supply 11,400 -1,300 -10.2%
Farm 5,100 -5,300 -51.0%
All real-estate related 234,600 -26,400 -10.1% 
All other O.C. jobs 1,262,700 -25,700 -2.0%

All O.C. jobs 1,497,300 -46,500 -3.0%

And yet the unemployment rate in OC has only gone from 4.3% in July to a whopping 4.4% in January 2008. 

A .1% climb in seven months…

Correct me if I’m wrong (just an expression, I have no doubt you will correct me no matter what I write) but unemployement only counts people who file for unemployment.  If people lose jobs and pack up and leave that wouldn’t figure in.  The total employed base will be more important in determining housing demand than the unemployment number.

“It sold for 540k in 2000” So what? It’s 2008, thats 8 years of inflation. What cost $540000 in 1999 would cost $684211.60 in 2007.  http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
Pluse the market HAS got up. Even if it goes down allot it won’t go back down to 2000 prices.

I just bought a 2008 X5 with all the extras. $80K I didn’t lease. I paid cash. Don’t hate.

There are two unemployment figures:

1) Jobless claims - people filing for benefits
2) unemployment - which is a survey that counts people out of work and that are actively looking for work. So it doesn’t count under employment and it doesn’t count those that leave the work force.

Granit and stainless is the Sh!t. If you can afford it.

That’s what I did, on a Florida scale.

I’d buy that house right now for 700K. You’ll never see it go down to 600k because of serious buyers like me.

George8 your 100% right.

These homes were going for $210K ( or so ) when new in 1986.  We toured them but there was a lottery so we bought a fixer upper in TR instead ( for 200K ).

Now, I voted for the $700K to $799K.  However this is what it will take to sell it this year.

Well maintained/rebuilt homes in TR today of the same size are selling in the mid 900K range ( selling that is ) with low ball offers in the 900K range.  So, I figure there’s no way in hell that Westpark can be priced like TR.  These people are fools or desperate.

I would expect that my chateau in TR ( bigger, rebuilt and newer than this Dan Johnson pad) will end up running $750K at the bottom… so I think this place will end up in the mid $500Ks.

You’re right about how the stats are computed Al.

Personally I think the unemployment rate and wage growth figures will be larger driver for Irvine real estate prices vs. the total employment base.

Irvine is a more premium area of OC.  As long as the more white collar people are keeping their jobs and their wages are going up, Irvine will draw buyers (relative to other areas) willing to take on real estate risk. 

The loss of $15 per hour construction jobs or loan servicer jobs doesn’t have much of a direct correlation to the Irvine median IMO. 

Or put it this way, as compared to Irvine, you will find many more homes with big pickups with shiny silver toolboxes in the bed parked in the driveways of HB, Fo V, etc. houses.  I think the job losses so far in construction and financial services have hit non-Irvine areas much harder.

Thank you for the observation on the sampling here on IHB.  While this is a fun little community, I think we need to remember that the 517 votes (as of 2:30pm) represents something like 0.3% of the Irvine population.  And we don’t know how many times AZDavid voted.  This is a bear blog, no matter what it says on the “newbies start here” disclaimer.

Even the forums are heavily weighted toward the prevailing mentaility—- Over 50% of all 38,700+ comments were made by just the Top 20 posters—- with over 25% of all comments made by just the Top 5 posters.  So yes, IHB is a fun little distraction….But I don’t know if representative of the prevailing sentiment in Irvine.

HAHAHAHA…  someone said that to me.. “i haven’t checked the prices lately, but this is Irvine…  yada yada yada… its not depreciating “

IPO—- you do realize you are about to be flogged for saying “Irvine is different”.  I’m starting to think you like the abuse…

BTW, you know I agree with you, brotha.

HAHAHAHA…  someone said that to me.. “i haven’t checked the prices lately, but this is Irvine…  yada yada yada… its not depreciating “

i think someone posted about this before.. but substitute “Irvine” for “NYC”, “London”, “Paris” etc.. then maybe that sentence will make sense to me.  Even then, those big cities had some amazing housing boom these past 10 years

Someone has to be the Bull CK.  Although I’m not a Bull, just one by relative comparison to the typical Uber Bear, the abuse helps me forget and fight the home-buying urge that is ripping through almost every fiber of my being… 

Some days, I just think we should pull the trigger and roll the dice so we can get on with our damn lives.  I know you know that frustration too.  It sucks to be patient when you can afford the unaffordable and see people still buying.

and thats where it will sell for at the bottom, did any one hear about Wells F declaring CA a F*ed up state (severly distressed) and requiring 25 (yes twenty five) percent down on Jumbo loans. and that is including OC.    :shock:  :shock:

People are still optimistic in the OC including some on this blog, 200 per SF here we Cooooooooome   :mrgreen:

Westpark mike,  watch out for that knife you’re going to catch