This isn’t anything. Look on reality track. Look at the bank owned house on winterbranch that just sold. I lived on the Northlake for years. This house is 5 doors down from my old home. What a comp killer.

Lee

The combo of reducing price too slow and short sell will assure the sit and rot continue.

A knife catcher may pick it up at $480-$500k within this summer season. But will the bank go with it?

This property will sell at $350-$400k in 2010.

Try 250K.

It would probably fetch 180K in Phoenix.

This was an extremely foolish purchase.  Unbelievable.

Assuming that these idiotic buyers used a fixed 30 year mortgage (highly unlikely) their monthly payment on this apartment is in the neighborhood of 3700.00 per month.  3700.00 per month?  Are you F-ing kidding me?  At this rate you would need two people earning 70,000 per year writing off half their paychecks per month just to the mortgage lender.  What on earth were these douches smoking?  And to throw away a hard-earned 60K - what a waste.

You could rent this place in Scottsdale, AZ for 1300.00 per month.

I wish you’d quit comparing Scottsdale to Irvine.

It’s about like comparing Beverly Hills to Bakersfield, BH being a wrung above Irvine, and Bakersfield being about 5 above anything in Arizona.

I’ve lived/worked in all the above mentioned places, and can’t live in Arizona because I have desert allergies that make it almost impossible to work 80-100 days a year.  Plus, Phoenix has a bunch of non native trees planted that are all males (plants have gender too), which means they produce lots and lots of polen, which makes it worse.  The city planners don’t plant females because although they don’t make pollen (they actually sweep it out of the air) they make more green waste and require more labor.

In short, I’m unemployeable for long periods of time in Phoenix.  Same for Vegas.

But, didn’t you read that the house (oops, sorry…condo)  is on premium lot? (read:  weird angles and corners) That’s totally worth 530k!

They need to fire their realtor…  I almost bought a house from their realtor once upon a time.  She drank the koolaid, bought a house in Tustin Field at peak, and loaded it with upgrades.  She ate a loss of $100-150K or so but she was at least smart enough to get out last summer.

They need to clear the crap out of their house, pay to stage it, and shoot some good pics.

“It’s about like comparing Beverly Hills to Bakersfield, BH being a wrung above Irvine, and Bakersfield being about 5 above anything in Arizona. “

I’ve lived in Irvine & AZ myself. Never lived in BH, but did party a little there.

If you actually believe Irvine is one step below BH while AZ is at least 5 steps below Irvine, you define the whole “Irvine is special. Everyone wants to be here. Space is limited. Can’t make anymore land. We’re so wealthy compared to everyone else.“

Try reading IrvineRenter’s post from 2 days ago. You might learn something from his research.

AZDavidPhx - dude, do you have an obsession with Irvine?  I’ve stayed 4 months (thank god i left in June) in Phoenix and liked it alot, especially Scottsdale and Tempe.  But as a place to live, please stop comparing Phoenix or any of its burbs with Irvine.  Try comparing AZ to the IE, it adds a tinge of rationality to your posts.

No Lube,

Bakersfield 5 above anything in AZ ?  I can appreciate that you have allergies that make AZ undesireable, but dude cmon… Bakersfield ? What an armpit.  I was raised in Fresno and we used to laugh at Bakersfield if you can imagine that.

I’d live in Flagstaff in a heartbeat if I could find work out there.

Hey IrvineRenter,

Check out the WTF price in NorthPark at 7 Willowridge. Do these losers really think someone is going to pay that much for that ???

From the description:
“One Step Inside This Home and you’ll be saying ‘THIS IS THE ONE’. “

HAHAHAHHAHAHAH ROFL !!!! But not at that price!

http://www.redfin.com/CA/Irvine/7-Willowridge-92602/home/5813252

Did they HELOC themslves to the MAX ?

here we go again with the pissing contest…

..at least our desert is next to the ocean.
and sorry…OC heat waves are nothing like Aizona’s.

Bravo!  Finally, someone mentions the fact that they are tired of these posts.  If it’s not the cut-and-paste images, it’s comments like that which discredit anything that person “adds” to this site.

Go ahead and flame me now..

This is the IHB (IRVINE HOUSING BLOG).  Don’t really care what this place would rent for in Scottsdale or any other part of that wasteland we call AZ.

Right on ipop…

The pic’s are awful, don’t make me want to buy at all.  They left half empty glasses on the tables when they took the pictures.  The walls are just bare beige.  Looks like a nice apartment I might consider renting.

To me the sad thing is that this property was bought for over 1/2 mil and the people look like they live like poor renters, minimal, cheap “walmart” furnature.  Shows that people are blew so much dough on the purchase and mortgage that they can’t afford to live decently.

Put down the Kool-Aid, and pull your head out of IRs butt.  He is happily married.

What kool-aid? How does that apply to me?

To quote the listing: “*** DID YOU SEE THE PRICE? ***“

Yes I did.  Now where’d I put my spare keyboard…

How do the wages in Arizona compare to the Irvine area?

Is the house that bad?  Oh well, I’m glad I waited!   Thank god for this blog!

Hey, ease up.  Everybody’s welcome, right?  AZDavid’s comments are as welcome as any.

This is a good example of chasing the market down. In April 07 they might have got $600k but they were asking $645k. I’d wager they had offers above $600k last year, and rejected them.

Fast forward, more than a year later, they are asking $530k, and now that’s still too much.

It’s a refusal to let the market determine the correct pricing. Some people always think they are smarter than the market.

Did you see the 2002 price in the $450’s? I’d take it for that.

I’d like my 12%/year appreciation please, thank you very much.

Um, how about no, not from me thanks.

According to Census, AZ median HHI in 2006 was $46,693. For “affordable” home mortgage: Multiplied by 3 = $140,079 - Multiplied by 4 = $186,772

According to Wikepedia, Irvine median HHI in 2006 was $84,270. For “affordable” home mortgage: Multiplied by 3 = $252,810 - Multiplied by 4 = $337,080

Exactly.

& don’t you agree that by holding out for higher prices, they are helping to actually lower prices? Think about how many people you talked to last year & early January that started looking at buying because they heard that prices were coming down, but then stopped looking once they found out that sellers weren’t negotiating. Those were at least hundreds if not thousands of comps that would have competed with the foreclosure comps.

But no. Sellers were too used to getting their list & the more potential buyers find that sellers aren’t negotiating, the more they’ll wait for lower and lower and lower prices.

Chasing the market down only makes the market fall even lower.

Personally, love most of the pics. hate the comparisons to other states/cities. sometimes it’s started by you & sometimes it’s started by Irvine-would-be-knife-catchers-if-it-were-not-for-this-site-&-others-like-it.

On average, California cost of living is higher so the wages are higher than Phoenix.

Nevertheless, our household income is higher than the Irvine median.  I suppose that puts us in the above average for Phoenix.  Nevertheless, we are able to rent in a decent area of Scottsdale for roughly 800.00 per month.  Will pay 900.00 when we move to a larger place in 2 months. 

I suppose that would put me in a better position to live in Irvine than many of the people who currently live there.  Would I? Nope.  I don’t buy into hype.

Trash Arizona all you want, I am laughing all the way to the bank.

I like to compare Irvine to Scottsdale because I encounter a lot of the same types of attitudes.

I am not going to engage in who is better.  Both are nice areas.  Many people here have the same attitude “this is the best place to live” etc etc.  I don’t think it is the best place to live any more than Irvine.  It’s all hype.  You are always going to want to believe that you choose to live in the most desirable area.

I guess I am just more open minded to other locations and tend to not thumb my nose.

I love Flagstaff.  I am with Schadendude.

To the AZ poster,
Why do you care about Irvine? You don’t live here.  Is AZ so boring you have to waste time tracking the real estate market in Irvine? Start your own Phoenix blog and move along.

Frankly, I think AZ is wrong.  This is a townhome/condo. I suspect you can rent it for less in $1300.  It’s also small, you can likely rent an SFR in AZ for $1300 at this size.

There are trade offs, but frankly, substitution effects are valid.  When renting this place is $1300 in AZ or buying it gives you a mortgage of about $1000/month.  You will start to see why California has the migration pattern that it has.

Is Irvine a little nicer than Chandler?  Scottsdale?  Not really. The weather is more pleasant, is it $4000/month more pleasant?  We have the ocean, they have resevoirs and mountains to escape too.

Arizona, Washington, Texas have all been net out migration spots for California.  Understanding their market compared to ours helps paint the ridiculous nature of our pricing bubble.  Will there be a premium?  I suspect so, will that premium be 2X, 3X?  Doubtful.  For the IE, it will actually be a negative premium.  AZ’s taxes are lower, traffic less and general hassles more minor.

Do you want to look at large scale employers?  We all think of OC as HCOL, but many employers don’t recognize it that way.  They see SF, Silicon Valley and NYC as high cost, but OC isn’t in that declaration.

Do you want to look at California’s ballot propositions for October.  Anybody see the all the wealth tax proposals? Anybody see the definition of wealth? Think that’ll make a dent in Irvine’s home prices?

If I were the proud owner an Irvine mortgage - I certainly would not want some out of state jerk telling me that I am a fool. 

I would probably try to trash their home state too in order to reinforce my own beliefs that I paid more because my location is far superior rather than I paid more because I was a sheep in the herd heading to the slaughter.

Perfectly understandable.

The pictures look like crime scene photo’s, all thats missing are the dead body’s and the blood!

It could very well rent for less.  I guessed 1300.00 because similar townhouses are renting up the street from me for around 1400.00 and I believe they have higher square footage.

Don’t get hit by a tumbleweed on the way there…  I hear they can really scratch up your paint.

Willowridge is a tad overpriced but not exorbitantly so for this market.  Someone will likely buy it for $850K.  Low $900s is not my definition of a WTF based on recent comps. 

19 Willowridge, which is also 2200sf, got into escrow after about one week, once they re-listed at $869K.

If you think $50-75K above current market value is WTF pricing, what would you call those that are hundreds of thousands over market?

Ipoplaya and his tumbleweeds, I love it.

Whenever you say that, I picture something out of the movies like a deserted old ghost town with the tumbleweed rolling past the old cow skull in the middle of the street.

I can’t say that I have seen a tumbleweed recently.  Pretty green where I am located.

I will keep watch though.

Here’s some West Side Costa Misery hilarity for you:

Last purchase price: $680k, for sale at $350k minus $1

http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/671-W-Wilson-St-92627/home/4558937

Backyard neighbors with drastically different asking prices for near-equivalent homes:

$675k: (no previous price available)
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/913-Joann-St-92627/home/4563800

$430k: (previous: $644k)
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/934-Darrell-St-92627/home/4563844

$399k: (previous: $689k)
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/894-Darrell-St-92627/home/4563820

Shortsale at $430k (condo). Previous purchase price $194k in 1997. Was asking $649k last October. Must be a serial HELOC’er:

http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/2164-Canyon-Dr-92627/unit-G/home/4556629

Don’t think that I’ve found anything special for Costa Mesa. This hilarity is abundant in West side, and Northern CM. East side is lagging a little in the hilarity.

And if you want to see recent comps, you can of course check them out here:

www.ipoplaya.com

I actually looked at these places in 2002 before I bought my place in Westpark.  They are pretty nice and were fairly new back then but were a little more than I could afford at the time.  These type of units were selling in the $300k-ish range in 2002.  The one thing I noticed about this tract is that many were close to Culver which was a big negative.

And yeah, what’s with the r/e agent’s bad english on the listing?  If I see my agent write that crap I would fire him/her on the spot…maybe she’s only getting a 2% commission since the owner is broke…lol

** Feel like detached home
** Spacious Living and Dinning w/ Recess Light,...Netural Wood Floor

Dude, I’ve seen them on the 101 between Shea and McDowell.  Our office used to be on Via De Ventura.  You must drive that stretch of freeway don’t you?

I’m just here for the bud light and music videos.

This is a great question that I am always willing to answer (and have many times when someone thinks they are clever and plays the old you read “our” blog because your own area is so boring and inferior card)

AZ experienced a significant housing bubble which was partially a byproduct of the California bubble.  Lots of out-of-state speculation as Californians decided to buy investment houses in AZ.

Phoenix real-estate is now tanking along with CA.

California led the bubble on the way up and now it leads us on the way down.  Hence my interest in your market is it brings me foresight as to future events that will be experienced in AZ.

I know - Not as sexy as your straw man, but more the truth.

Sedona! Jerome!  Not Cottonwood. A little snow but does not last. I think there are a number of places along the rim that would be great places to live.  Jobs would be a problem.  OK for retirement as my dad did back in the 70s.
Flagstaf is a bit too cool for me.  Nice in the summertime but the winter lasts a bit too long.  However, with global warming I would reconsider.

LOL

Are we calling someone out? :=}

Indeed.  You are right in my neck of the woods.  I am all too familiar with Gainey Ranch and the office areas on Via De Ventura.  We have probably crossed paths at some point in time and not even known it!

I don’t drive very much except when going out of town.  I can bicycle the greenbelt for just about everything.

I don’t see the tumbleweeds though.  Perhaps they are there and I have just stopped noticing.  I will start looking for them and report back to you so someone doesn’t make the mistake of moving here under false pretenses and discover a tumbleweed on the side of the 101.

I would think that the AZ market is leading the way down with OC lagging behind. So far Vegas, Phoenix, and San Diego have had the largest declines. San Diego county is at least a year ahead of OC in terms of affordability. The OC market is still so unaffordable that a first time buyer with a well paying salary can’t even think about buying a small SFR on a 30 year fixed. One can however, just barely justify on cost alone a small SFR in the other aforementioned cities.

I have decided that IRVINE SUCKS!!!

The location in relation to employment is nice, but I find few positives after that.

There are plenty of great high schools all over the country that can educate your children.

The polution out here has just been horrendous the last week. You can hardly even see the foothills from the freeway. That will lead to poor health and cause extra expenses down the road.

The gas prices in Irvine have to be among the top ten most expensive in the country. A 64 cent tax on gas in California and we have a state government running a 20 billion dollar deficit.

The state income tax rate is 9.3% for someone making 43K and up. And the state government is running a 20 billion dollar deficit.

Irvine and the surrounding areas have to be the largest concentration of materialistic and snobby people I have ever met. It is worse here than Dallas.

There is a drug problem in Irvine. Lots of “rich person” drugs. Just look at the execs from Broadcom.

Rampant corruption in the city leadership. Look at the “Great Park Corporation”.

Ridiculous traffic that will only get worse as more homes and apartments get built. The density of population is suffocating.

There is no diversity in population or in housing architecture. You are either white or asian. Your home is either stucco tract home or condo/townhome.

Irvine is so high and mighty that they won’t allow a Wal-mart in town.

The beach out here isn’t that great. You can’t get in the water because it is freezing cold and the wind off the water is freezing cold too.

Lastly, insane prices for homes that are ugly, have no yards, and built on top of each other. You SHOULD NOT be able to reach out of your kitchen window and grab the salt off the counter in your neighbor’s kitchen. You SHOULD be able to go in the back yard or front yard and play catch with your son or daughter.

I plan to get my MBA here while drumming up some work experience and then move to a place with lower taxes, normal housing prices, friendly people, houses with yards, a state government that is smart, quality schools, no stucco, less traffic, better air quality, and the ability to save money for retirement while raising kids in a healthy environment.

The great weather here is not worth all of the cons I just mentioned. Looks like I will be moving to the South somewhere. North Carolina and Texas are probable.

Maybe some of you Irvine folk need to get out of the bubble and see what other places have to offer.

Besides, Scottsdale is basically Irvine with straight roads and + 20degrees.

As a web designer I would immediately fire the listing agent for the cheezeball godaddy tongiht website (http://www.963somerville.info). That site makes the place look even trashier than the listing and the photos.

True, Priced_Out -

But CA has more of the creative financing going on than AZ.  Once all that has melted down, I’ll pretty much know that AZ has reached bottom.

I actually like to hear what is going on in other parts of the country. But the prices are irrelevant, I suppose.

Hey hey, you are going to upset the Irvine is special crowd.

Partypooper—>According to Census, AZ median HHI in 2006 was $46,693. For “affordable” home mortgage: Multiplied by 3 = $140,079 - Multiplied by 4 = $186,772

According to Wikepedia, Irvine median HHI in 2006 was $84,270. For “affordable” home mortgage: Multiplied by 3 = $252,810 - Multiplied by 4 = $337,080

so if you use AZDavid’s estimation of 180k for a similar POS in AZ, then that makes it about 360kish here…...Sounds about right if not even optimistic by AZDavidphx        

My only issue with the estimation is that the original poster appears to have compared the median income of the state of Arizona with the median income of Irvine which is not going to produce a very accurate result if you attempt to extrapolate from those assumptions.

I typically try to guess the bottom value of an Irvine house using the numbers from the Irvine local economy without bring AZ into the equation.  I just like to post the AZ comparison for fun.

I have lived in other parts of the country, and there are many nice places but none compares to here.  Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Sounds like moving out of state would be best for you.  Good luck.

You’re right, I just checked it out.  Pretty cheesy, especially with the broken English.

Funny thing is, she’s a fairly well-known agent in the area.  Can’t be good for the rep.

I wonder if she won that sporty award shown on her website?

Gilbert is a suburb of Phoenix out by Chandler and Scottsdale.  It’s similar socio-economically to Irvine. Median income $76K.  Median family income of $82K.

I know! And everything has cilantro on it.

So what is the mindset of this owner now?

Are they living in the house now and still paying the mortgage?  Is it rented out?  Is it empty? 

Is there any advantage to hanging on to this property and getting as much as possible, as opposed to just walking?  I guess if the owner has the cash to pay the shortfall on a sale, they can sell, pay back the back and keep credit in tact.

Wow, I wouldn’t damn her so much.  She is doing a much better job than 90% of the “real estate professionals”.

Pluses:  She actually made a site, and put up floorplans

Minuses:  marginal english, bad photos.

This is in the top 10% of the listings $300k-$700k I’ve seen.

Sorry to pile on here, but Irvine is trash compared to Beverly Hills.  I take it the majority of posters here live in Irvine, because there is quite a bias toward it being the best place on earth.  It isn’t.

Good points.

I grew up in Ventura County.  When I was a kid there would often times be tumbleweeds blowing down our street on windy days.  I don’t see many tumbleweeds around here nowadays.  I think it’s because the tumbleweed bushes don’t grow on golf courses, pavement and houses.

I miss the tumbleweeds.

Call AZ what you want, but it’s better than Texas.

Thanks for remembering us first time buyers.  I destroy the Irvine median HHI, but there is very little I can afford there.

One of the reasons I never have, and will never believe any of these houses are ‘worth’ nearly what they are sold or appraised for.  People swapped houses; equity became a new kind of currency valued differently than dollars.  Just like inflation the equity swell lead to a massive price spike.  The disconnect this caused at the lower end of the market surely suggested there was trouble down the road.  I’m probably reiterating something IR said in a previous post.

...not to mention the creative financing that others before me have mentioned.

I think in many ways Irvine is better than BH. Irvine is better isolated from the crime, and it’s easier to get to the beaches and freeways.

I used to live in Irvine, but my family cashed out a long time ago (at half of the peak, but still made more than a few bucks) so I’m not biased. I lived there, it’s nicer than Beverly Hills, but there are much nicer places to live around Southern California. If I was buying a place any time soon, it wouldn’t be in Irvine.

I kno rite.  And it gets in the way of my commute to San Diego.

lol…here for the bud light…i like that

Please hurry up and leave, and take some more people with you.  That will surely bring the housing prices down even more for me.

I like how realtards always have to put their picture on everything.

“She looks like a friendly face, so I suppose I’ll overpay by $100k from her!“

Just out of curiousity, where would you buy and for what reason(s)?

Personally I’d like a place in La Jolla, but good GAWD it’s expensive there.  It’s the nicest beach city in all of socal, IMHO.  I wouldn’t kick Irvine out of bed though.

Nobody outside the toniest precincts of London, Paris, NYC, Tokyo, or Berlin ought to have to pay this kind of money to live like this.

No matter where you live, you’d really expect a better lifestyle than this with $106K down and $132K a year income.

You do know about these things called parks, right?  Where if you have a small yard you can still do all that stuff with your kids?  Not all of these homes are near parks or open areas, but lots are by parks or schools where kids (and you) can play.  There are also lots of styles of curtains and miniblinds that offer privacy and still let in lots of light.  You can save on your energy bill too, by keeping out direct sun.

The prices are still insane, though.  And there are lots of nice places around the country.  Some of which where they have small yards and you’re close to your neighbors, but you can walk everywhere (including parks) and then you don’t have to drive!  (I’m not from Irvine and have only driven through.  Are there walkable/bikable neighborhoods?  Defined by: walk from your house to at least some kind of grocery store, some restaurants, and some entertainment/recreation?)

Sorry to be so snarky, but I’m sick and tired of people running down neighborhoods just ‘cause the houses are close together.  Houses don’t get much closer together than where I live, but the rewards are pretty great too.  Lots less time in the car with my kid and more quality time.  I’ve gotten to know my neighbors, and the staff at local shops and restaurants.  It feels more like a real community than anywhere I’ve ever lived with a yard.  We meet loads of other families at the park, and have a weekly informal neighborhood picnic at one of the parks. Elsewhere, everybody just hid in their yard, or was out driving somewhere. People with no yards may be antisocial in Irvine, I don’t know, but I love my house with no yard.

So let’s give close together houses a little break, okay?

Always cracks me up when you guys get in a pissing match over AZ vs Irvine.  I live up in Santa Cruz, and view visiting relatives in OC as a descent into a living hell.  You’re welcome to come back at me about freezing to death up here at the beach in a June fog.  I think folks like to live where the climate is what they are used to, and lots of places have wonderful cultural and recreational opportunities.
The Point is, in some places there are totally absurd home costs by any metric, and others are quite reasonable.  Oddly, some of the absurd areas are not dropping much, while some of the reasonable areas are getting hammered. 
It all makes for interesting conversation, and some perspective from outside CA doesn’t hurt.

Adios, Auf Wiedersehen, Au revoir…

I was born and raised in The South until I had the good fortune of making it to Cali.  Irvine isn’t all that amazing in particular, but I’d never want to leave the greater coastal CA area as compared to other parts of the country.  San Diego was great, the Central Coast was fabulous, Marin was cool, Westside LA was nice too.

Don’t make the false and poor assumption that people who live in Irvine grew up here and haven’t seen the rest of the country.  Many of us have and elect to reside here in spite of the higher cost of living…

Of course Santa Cruz is great if you like lesbians with hairy armpits.

La Jolla rocks.  I think Rancho PV and Malibu are equally as lovely beach cities, albeit with a different flavor.  PB/Carmel is right up there too…

I LOVE lesbians with hairy armpits!

With the agents name being Winnie Shiao, there’s a good chance English is a second language.  A good chance she has a highly educated, highly paid clientele for whom english is a second language, also.
Half the people I work with speak english as a second language, but they all speak english far better than I speak their languages so I am really grateful they are around, since we are selling all our output into countries where the buyers speak their languages.
Time to get over the english hangup folks.  But continue to FRY those agents with the !!!! bangs and ALL CAPS.  For that there is no excuse.

Is Irvine more expensive compared to other parts of the US? Yes, undoubtedly so.
However, real estate is an (almost) entirely local market. For whatever reasons people have (and they may include housing prices), people want to live where they want to live. In my circumstance (academia), I only got 2 job offers after two years on the job market (it’s a tough and very small market), and the choice between Stockton and Fullerton was a relatively easy one.
Some folks will be constrained by where their parents live, or tolerance for weather, or job prospects.
Blogs like this one help because I can hear thoughts on housing in general (and IR does good analyses). What happens in Irvine is relevant to the OC, and many other bubble markets.

The benefit to writing a bad description is that when a potential buyer contacts the agent, she will think, “*WOW*, even WITH my crappy description these people are still interested in the property!  That says something.“

Santa Barbara for me.  Montecito, especially.

“I guess I am just more open minded to other locations and tend to not thumb my nose.“

You don’t come across as more open minded.  You consistently thumb your nose at Irvine.  If you don’t mean it that way, you might want to change the words in your AZ comparisons.  It comes across as you saying AZ is better.

But when you post your AZ comparisons, you say, “This would cost $XXX in AZ.“  You don’t say, “This could cost $XXX in Scottsdale.“  So, it seems fair for them to use AZ for income comparison.

How many tens of thousands of middle class So-Cal families have moved to the Pheonix metro in the last ten years? Anyone who thinks prices in Arizona are irrelevant to prices in OC is badly mistaken.

And if I were a bitter, ex-SoCal owner that moved to AZ, a suburb of the sun, I would want to trash those who are still happily living in SoCal.

Perfectly understandable.

Although today you DID say Scottsdale, so I am WRONG!

According to the most recent Census data Scottsdale’s median HHI is 66K a year while Irvine’s is 74K a year. Moreover, Irvine has a highr unemployment rate 3.1% versus 2.2% in Scottsdale. Educational attainment in both cities is about the same and the violent crime rate is about the same. The idea of comparing the two is silly for housing costs but the idea of comparing Irvine to BH and the idea of Bakersfield to Scottsdale is even worse. Using loaded language and uninformed “information” is far worse. Furthermore, anyone trying to make a valid statistical point by comparing a relatively affluent suburb in OC to the entire state of AZ needs to take a class on data collection and dissemination.

What makes you think I am a bitter ex-SoCal owner?  I have never lived in California.  Prefer to visit.

I guess it is not perfectly understandable for Tim.

You’ve never lived here?  You are always insulting those who do.  I guess I assumed that no one would insult a place so much without having lived in it at least a little while.

I have never stated that AZ is better than anything.  I simply compare and contrast the costs of living and typically am met with a salvo of 50 reasons to hate Arizona by the Irvine mortgage owners just because I state the truth which is that there is nothing special about Irvine that makes it worth the extraordinary costs of housing.  I wouldn’t want to hear it either.  I would be pretty outraged to overpay for my house and then have some out of state jerk tell me that he’s not impressed.

I have nothing against, CA.  I have never bashed it like the AZ bashers on here.  I have only said that it is not as special as some people try to make it out to be.

Visited quite a bit.  I would not want to live there, but at the same time can see why some people would want to live there.

I just take exception with the people who make the claim that California is the golden hill that everyone desires.  That is Kool-Aid talk.

“Irvine mortgage owners”

LOL!  Love it!

Right, it’s like I have always said.  CA incomes may be higher on average BUT NOT THAT MUCH higher.  Certainly not enough to justify such ridiculous housing costs.

You may not actually come out and state it, but it comes across that way.  That is why you get that salvo.  It is generally not nice to tell people there is nothing special about where they live.  Why do you pay so much to live where you do?  Surely it is not the cheapest place on the planet.

Every place has something special about it.  I don’t live in Irvine, but it has some really wonderful things about it that you can’t get just anywhere.  How long does it take for you to get to the beach to go surfing?  Can you go to your university’s sail base and take out a sail boat for lunch?  No, you can’t.  So that is something special about Irvine over AZ.  There are many other things, of course, but, really, you will just dismiss all of them.

And who doesn’t!  Send me two, please.

Personally I prefer mine shaved.

I guess the crime statistics don’t include the HEAT.

I am really tired of the AZ’s perpetual carping.

I’m in Miami Dade.  So what have Dade prices to do with Cali? 

I post because we are similarly bubblicious.

And Cali and Fla are where people move to and have sun and surf.

But our prices never got as high because our salaries are very low compared to yours.

In the end, we and thee will probably be half off.

The blog is much more interesting on days AZ doesn’t post.

Sorry.