Irvine Housing Blog

I have a customer on that street and parking is a real problem during the day when everyone is at work, I can only imagine what it is like in the evenings and weekends. No chance of using your garage for anything but parking and don’t plan on having your friends over ever.

I was there a couple months ago and there were three or four for sales signs within 50 feet, enough that it startled me.

My customer even asked me if I wanted to buy his house (he just changed careers to be a real estate agent…oh my…) He is a really nice guy and I could not bring myself to give him my opinion about the market.
——-

It seems that if you want to sell a condo in Irvine in less than 90 days the price muse be in the $300 per square foot range. I was thinking that I might buy when it is in the $275 per square foot range…..but I like renting so much I may never buy.

I really like the Burlingame house.  But at 400/sqft, its overpriced quite a bit.  Don’t get me wrong, its a very nice place, but in the declining market i’d like to see 350/300 and maybe even less given time.  We will see.  Take it easy and don’t work too hard.

What’s with the random spaces in the middle of words?  Is that something that Redfin formatting does or do the realtors regularly type like that?

According to the public records, 17 Burlingame was scheduled to be sold in a foreclosure auction on July 25, 2007 @ 10am.

IR and the rest of the IHB crew - what do you think about featuring some actual transactions. 

Finding properties with asking prices lower than their purchase price seems to be easy now.  I think its time to feature actual transactions.  I know some properties are moving and am curious to see the details behind those.

QFT!  I’d really like to see this also.
-bix

I’ve figured out most internet acronyms by now but WTF is QFT?

sounds like we have an interesting fall ahead in housing market.
return to 2003 price looks promising

Quoted for Truth.

No pun intended?

Return to 2002 (inflation adjusted) looks locked in.

We show transactions in our updates when we find them:

http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/2007/07/21/the-sharpsburg-bloodbath/

Most of the properties we have featured have not transacted, and many have let their listings expire.

Graphix also tracks many that go up for foreclosure here:

http://forums.irvinehousingblog.com/discussion/346/1/foreclosure-and-distressed-property-topics/

If any readers call transactions to our attention, we will feature them as an update.

10 Bluejay (1500 sq ft single story) was featured as a WTF during Woodbridge week…asking price of 829K. It closed 2 weeks ago and somebody paid $795,000 for it. Do you think it was some idiot from San Francisco who doesn’t care about comps in the local area??!! IR—why do you think there are people out there still willing to pay crazy prices out there for a small 1500 sq ft box?

Even the 2 Mallard property that you profiled as the second “WTF” award winner asking 1.2 million for a 2000 sq ft house in Woodbridge is in backup offers. What’s your take on that?

Sorry, there was a mixup. I meant 30 Bluejay that closed for 795,000 in the previous post. I don’t think 10 Bluejay closed yet.

I have been following the Watermarke condos to see their depreciation.  There are at lease 4 units in the foreclosure/preforeclosure stage.  Most of the 1/1’s have been in the $400-$500k range, and have been sitting there for a long time.  There is a new 2/2 listing for $425,000.  The 1/1’s are going to have to come down to the $250k range.

Anybody have any recent information on how well or how badly the high rises are selling?  I know the Marquee has issues, but what about the other ones?

we shall follow fate of new owners here

I think buying would make sense when in the 200 per sf range, it would be closer to rent equivalents.

now, I can find transaction happening @ 2004 price for the same house.
I guess by fall, we may see lot more price falling to 2004 level and some to 2003 price

Cashback at closing scams are getting very popular.

You can attribute a good percentage of the homes selling for WTF prices to cashback fraud.

I am seeing more and more of this…

4 STARLIGHT
IRVINE, CA
bought 8/26/05 1,340,000

for sale by owner asking 1,399000
http://www.forsalebyowner.com/listing/EA044

This house was asked to be featured on the Forums sticky.

The house sold for $1.255 million

From zillow:
Sale History
06/29/2007: $1,255,000
08/26/2005: $1,340,000
09/10/1993: $540,000
No other sale data is available
2006 Property Tax   $13,960
Total assessed value: = $1,340,000
Assessed value bldgs:  $281,968
Assessed value land: + $1,058,032

JP-

The rumor I heard about Watermarke is that the HOA dues are VERY high.  Is this true?  That has an effect on sales prices.

In Pasadena Hovnanian built some VERY nice loft units but had a hard time selling them because the HOA were high - about $700-$800 per month.  They had to cap the HOA for three or four years in order to move the units.

WEJ

now just figure IDBSVNL…. pretty funny, I guess that’s what is happening to most flippers who bought in 05-07!
-bix

400-500, i used to live there and that’s what they were then.  Not exactly cheap, but it is (or at least WAS) a nice place to live….
-bix

Anonymous’s examples of actual transactions are exactly why I want you to post about them.  One of the reasons I come to IHB is to get a pulse on what sellers are thinking and though there is no way to understand why people buy in this market, we can get a pulse on the buyers if we can see some of the sold transactions.

Instead of looking back at the featured properties to see which ones have sold or not, why not check the MLS to see what has been sold in the last 30 days and pic a few of them to profile.  We are only seeing 1 side of the picture and its good for all of us to see the buyers as well.

In the forums, I decribed how my friends sold their home and bought in Santa Monica.  The people who bought their previous house are 4 young guys who paid $900k with $400k down to make the math work as a rental!  By simplying see that it was sold, I would think that the market in that area might be picking up or doing ok but by looking into the actual sale, I am able to see that it is a bunch of rich morons.

The HOAs were $800/mo, and KHOV pre-paid half of them for 10 years to bring them down to approx. $400/mo.  At least that’s what the sales agent told us about 16 mos ago.

Well there are over 6 billion people on the planet and many of them are complete morons.

I’m trying to refi an existing customers HELOC but he went and bought his third house and obtained a 1.3 mil loan with a different lender.

He know has 3 houses:  A condo with 450k owed, his former primary residence with a 609k 1st and a 355k HELOC, and his new McMansion that he owes 1.3mil on.  In addition he has 3 car payments, cc, etc…His total monthly obligations reported on credit are just over 25k a month.  His adjusted gross income is only 475k year or (39.5k a month)

I requires no financial knowledge, or ability to repay, in order to purchase a home.

You gotta admit that when nice homes in TR are going for $418 per sq/foot the prices in inland prices can not exceed 400.

All it would take is for a prospective buyer to head West and realize that 400 bucks sq/foot east of University Drive is a wet dream and/or some recent buyer’s nightmare.

“His adjusted gross income is only 475k year or (39.5k a month)”

Wow!  That is a heck of an income.  What does this person do for this type of income?

Interesting comment on http://mortgage.freedomblogging.com/2007/07/26/mortgage-rates-bond-yields-drop/

Scroll down to the second comment by “OC Appraiser”

This from a note released by Merrill Lynch today:

From Merill’s David Rosenberg comes some perspective on just how bad is “bad” for housing:

“New home sales are now officially down 40% from the cycle peak reached in July 2005 - now just five percentage points away from surpassing the peak-to-trough move during the vicious cycle of the early 1990s; and seven percentage points from breaking the slide in the early 1980s downturn. This cycle has already broken the 34% aggregate decline in the early 1970s, so we are basically on the precipice of seeing the very worst housing cycle of all time.”

Well, at least the Fed has their finger on the pulse of housing, right?  Perhaps not.

“Since the Fed hinted at the start of the year that the worst of the housing downturn was over, the roof has caved in on new home sales to the tune of a 33% annual rate,” Rosenberg writes.

WEJ:

I don’t know about the Watermarke, but I do know the towers are about $1,000.  I went and took a look at a couple of the units in the Marquee.  Nice, but the HOA just killed it for me.

JP

he and his wife are both physicians

I thought that Watermarke was a roaring success.  Get in line for the next available unit from the developer?

http://www.ocrealestateblog.com/blog/_archives/2005/11/6/1351894.html

Was checking out the Catalyst foreclosure snooper.  I saw 50 Burlingame is a bank REO.  Slightly bigger, 3/3, $25,000 cheaper and still been sitting 25 days.

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1004087

Looks like they’ve got a low priced leader on the block and it’s a bank.  It’ll be interesting to see if the bank slashes the price when it hits 30 days on market.