Irvine Housing Blog

I put my listing for at least 6 months and finally got a buyer, so things worked out for me after 180 days, so I would suggest you don’t negotiate your price before 180 days<a >;-)</a>

I would also not move my listing before 180 days, I would rather keep my house off the listing and will sale it some other time at the same or increased rate.

Wow, that 2004 purchase price is $184/(sq ft)
How did that happen?

The $1.59M price was $462/(sq ft).

Is it possible they just forgot about the listing? Zillow shows the asking price as roughly 2x the value of neighboring properties, which seems a bit absurd.

I think it’s a nice looking house with an ugly backyard.  If they made that space more appealing then perhaps they could sell it at the current asking price, or maybe not considering its location.

What jumped out at me was that the house was totally remodeled except for the 1970’s era bubble lights on the kitchen ceiling.  Why would anyone doing a complete remodel leave those things in place?

While this home is lovely, it is not a million dollar-plus property.  It looks like the owner went berserk on the upgrades and over-improved the home for the neighborhood.

3 years on, I wonder how well it corresponds to the photos? I guess it is either forgotten, or was done as a joke or dare (and then forgotten). They can’t be serious about the price, or even the hope that this will make knife-catchers start bidding at a 10% discount.

It does look like a nice enough house with even reasonable furniture. Maybe not in the bedrooms or bathrooms though. Interesting once it starts falling below the 2004 price.

Don’t let the “Paseo West Park” moniker fool you, this house is in Culverdale- an “early Irvine” neighborhood built alongside the 405 freeway in 1970. They didn’t even plan for the rest of Westpark until the 1980’s. This is the very definition of “overimproved for the neighborhood.” Culverdale, aka Westpark Village I, is not the place where I would shop for a million-plus home.  On the plus side, the school over there is highly regarded. 

It would be interesting to see if the agent selling this property is related to the owner in some way.  You’d think any other unrelated agent would get fed up with this after 6 months or so….

Does anyone know if the MLS charges to list a house?  Does the listing ever “expire” or can you list your house for sale for free theoretically forever?

The Purchase Price: $635,000
The Purchase Date: 2/19/2004
It’s funny because on msnbc.com this morning I was reading about how prices are now back down to the 04’ levels. I guess these guys haven’t read the article yet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28365973/

I don’t know about houses; but I have listed all my (mostly professional) books on ebay at generally a high prices. I use that as a database for my library and simultaneously a market - if you want to pay this price, you can have it (you are probably in greater need than me/you have a better use for it than me).

Man for a price like that I hope the house comes full of hot young virgins with no boundaries.

Sorry, but the only thing that could be funnier than someone asking that price for that house is someone buying it for anything more than 50% of it.

What, IR, no WTF tag on this one?

Is there any chance that he is listing his house for tax benefit reasons? Able to write off some sort of cost associated with keeping the house in “viewing condition”??

Otherwise, I see absolutely no reason to list for 1000+ days (as ya’ll have stated).

Wow, listing agent is my old boss!

You know how sometimes (at least in the past) other homes for sale were used as comps?  Maybe the local realtors are encouraging this seller to leave his price high so that appraisals and zillow will yield higher numbers for others in the area.

I don’t know the particulars for realtors in California, but in Texas, most realtors will give up after six months if an owner refuses to lower a price.  In my immediate neighborhood, I see a lot of “For Sale By Owner” signs, all from longtime residents who want to retire and demand that they get what the last value assessment stated was the house value.  Of course, most of these were done three years or so ago, so there’s no way in hell that they’re going to get what they’re expecting, but they all go to attempt to sell the places themselves once every realtor in the area realizes that the house price will have to come down, a LOT, to make a sale.

I had experience with this situation a decade ago, which should give an idea of what’s going to happen with this house.  In my case, I lived for almost five years in a house owned by a man with similar delusions of value.  He and his ex-wife co-owned the place, and they set a price that would allow them the maximum profit for their investment, whether or not the place actually sold.  They also refused to make plenty of major improvements that the house needed, such as about $50k in foundation repair, repair of extensive termite damage in the kitchen, a godawful Santa Fe color scheme, general and extensive damage due to their incessant smoking (one room literally had tar stalactites and stalagmites on the ceiling and floor from the smoking), a garage that was literally about to collapse, and a scattering of grass seed to replace that killed by their four golden retrievers in the back yard.  The house sat on the market for nearly two years, until the realtor finally convinced them to rent it out, because nobody was willing to offer what they wanted for the place.  That’s where I came in.

Well, after four years of idle threats from the realtor about how I’d either have to buy the house or move out, and quiet offers to renew the lease when he realized that I wasn’t going to buy that wreck, the owner killed himself, and his ex-wife inherited the house.  This was right at the beginning of the housing boom, and her new boyfriend fancied himself the next Bob Vila, so I was asked to leave.  The house was then gutted of any of its Fifties-era charm, fitted with the cheapest fixtures he could buy from Home Depot, and put back on the market.  Again, it was at $50k above what the market could bear, and they still didn’t fix the foundation.  Again, it sat on the market for two full years, at the first swell of the boom, before being rented out to another sucker.

Every once in a while, I go past the old place just to see what’s happened.  The “FOR SALE OR LEASE” sign tends to fall over on rainy days, and it’s in a neighborhood where most of the houses are being foreclosed upon.  I hope the owner gets what she deserves.

The hard numbers are in:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQ7HBEgYCzUE&refer=home

My fellow renters, have a Happy Holiday.

Ah, big deal. I’ll see your 1000 days and raise you 500! I have one of these on my block. It was already on the market when i was looking in Summer 2003, Now in December 2008 it is STILL on the market. Sounds like Texas Triffid story a bit. There is a divorce involved and the guy (a doc) has to move out and split the $$ when it sells, so he does not have any motivation to drop the price ($100K overpriced).

I guess she has just moved on and is not putting big pressure on, or they are both holding for a price noone will pay.

here is the listing

http://www.jenningsmill.com/?pageId=159636&action=view_listing&itemId=180437

If you miss the train Im on, you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles,
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

Lord Im one, lord Im two, lord Im three, lord Im four,
Lord Im 500 miles from my home.
500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles
Lord Im five hundred miles from my home.

Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name
Lord I cant go a-home this a-way
This a-away, this a-way, this a-way, this a-way,
Lord I cant go a-home this a-way.

If you miss the train Im on you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

IrvineRenter, you should have used the WTF picture too.

I grew up in a house almost identical to this in Culverdale, so this listing gives me goose bumps and the heebee geebees at the same time.  I’ve been watching this house for a few months, and have been asking similar questions.  So I’m grateful that you’ve listed it today.

My sense is that the house has been renovated with a foreign buyer in mind.  The high ceilings, the carpetless flooring, and the maintenance-free backyard makes me think that the owner is holding out for someone unfamiliar enough with Irvine to know better, but someone naive enough to think that the high price and the Irvine location equals prestige. But the realtor/seller make several spelling errors in the Redfin description that makes me think that they might be unfamiliar with the market too. So maybe it is the seller who is unfamiliar.  I’ve been scratching my head for days.

Personally, I absolutely hate what they’ve done to the exterior facing the street. Because my home was almost exactly the same model, the octagonal addition stands out. And somehow not enough has been done to shake the original design of the 70s, and all the mystique that goes along with it (e.g. bell-bottom jeans, lightening bolt skate boards, van halen rifts, Z-28 Camaros…).  Good times!

I suppose if you plan to spend $1 million in Culverdale, this house is my personal fav:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Irvine/17532-Wayne-Ave-92614/home/4657018

This house preserves the original home design, and updates everything inside.  They did a really nice job upgrading the interior, and I think I could really get into the 70s design with the benefit of more current amenities.  These homes have generous amounts of space, with generous lot sizes which offer even more room to build out (not like newer neighborhoods that pack homes side by side).

Getting back to the home you’ve listed here, there was a home for sale a few months back where the interior was renovated in a similar fashion… probably for newly arrived Chinese.  It was not done as well, but perhaps the home is as close a comparable as you’ll find:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3831-Cosley-St-Irvine-CA-92614/25481385_zpid/

Well, I like the neat and uncluttered look of what they have done to this home.  I like the presentation of the floor plans all the way out to the stone patio.  It reminds me of some of the homes on Balboa Island when you walk around the perimeter.  No grass, but they have lovely hardscaped patios with some planters built in and some potted flowers/trees/plants for accents.  The simplicity gives the appearance that it is easy to care for and keep clean.  It gives the appearance of an upscale summer/vacationer home that you can step in and out of easily with little fuss.

What’s with the gun turrett out in front?  Why no photos of the actual pool(pools can be extremely costly to keep up - was this one upgraded in the last 37 years?).  No photos of bathrooms and living spaces like the bedrooms. I consider those red flags for a million dollar place.

Do Culverdale residents get to go to University Park High School?  That seems to be a big draw for folks.  I agree that this appears to be targeting a market that doesn’t know the area well, except for some prominent features like schools, safety, etc…..  I think it has a decidely asian feel to it and maybe they are getting some interest on the listing someplace else, maybe in some other language….Where the misspellings would not really be noticed.

The house is located in the furthest corner of the development from Culver and the 405, but it still gets those dirty winds from the ocean passing over the 405 during most of the year for a million bucks.