Flipper is a Whale ** Update 1 **

Originally posted March 22, 2007.

He’s back. The same house; the same price. Still no chance…

Mahogany Kitchen

Asking Price: $2,299,500

Purchase Price: $2,050,000
Purchase Date: 5/23/2006

Address: 29 Mahogany Drive, Irvine, CA 92620

Beds: 7IrvineRenter
Baths: 6.5
Sq. Ft.*: 4,200
Lot Sq. Ft.*: 12,000
Year Built: 1996
Stories: 2
Neighborhood: Northwood
$/Sq. Ft.*: $548
MLS: S478955
Status: Active on market
On Redfin: 6 days

Redfin, Zillow

Does anybody remember the TV show about the dolphin Flipper? In the world of sea mammals, whales are bigger than dolphins, and in the parlance of Las Vegas, Whales are the biggest of the high rollers. The flipper of this property is a whale. Who else would try to flip a $2,050,000 property? Assuming a 6% sales commission, if he gets his $2,299,500 asking price, he will make a profit of $111,530. Not bad for simply owing real estate for 10 months. Isn’t 15% “in the bag?” This guy isn’t greedy, he is only looking for 10% or about 1% a month. Unfortunately, the market seems to have moved the other direction at about the same speed.

{adsense}

Our whale may have some difficulty with this one. He bought right at the peak, and Zillow thinks his property is only worth $1,756,674. Not good if you are trying to convince someone you need to get $550,000 more than that. What does Zillow know anyway? Tract homes in Irvine should be going for over $2,000,000. It’s the new paradigm.

.Flipper

They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder,
Flying there-under, under the sea!

17 thoughts on “Flipper is a Whale ** Update 1 **

  1. zoiks

    Yes, I think our flippers are learning what it means to be “under the sea”. LOL!

    “Lives in a world full of wonder” ROTFL
    —–

  2. mah

    Smart People that have a lot of money, (1) don’t use mortgages, and (2), rarely spend it on homes without a view of the ocean, especially on tract homes in Irvine. The dumb-dumb crowd that used to facilitate multi-million dollar purchases in IRVINE have recently been cut off by the lenders. 🙂

    However, if you can document your household income at $400,000 a year and put 20% down, I think Countrywide may loan you the money to buy this bloated house. But since the average adjusted gross income per Melissa Data for this zip code is only $82,459, I’d say the bag holder with this deed may have some problems finding a qualified sucker. Welcome back to the real world!

    This seller is screwed!

  3. RogerSmith8080

    Don’t forget money isn’t free no matter what CountryWide might tell you. We don’t know how large this loan is but this guy could be looking at $10,000 + mortgage a month! Probably more. Even at a conservative 10K in ten months that $100,000 this guy is shelling out, + Taxes + Home Owners + Melrus this guy could be in the hole big time. This guy is going to take a bath on this assuming he sold it at the price he bought it for and he would be lucky to sell it for that.

  4. Mr Vincent

    2.3 mil for a 4200 sq ft tract home? BARF!!!

    With 7 bedrooms, alot of sq footage is tied up in those bedrooms. Which makes this really quite a small house.

    Who the hell needs 7 bedrooms? Is this a house or a hotel? It will take a few days just to clean all the bathrooms.

    Notice how they play up the privacy of the lot – which is a good thing, but this is an attempt to get you over how small the place is.

    The fool who buys this at that price can enjoy paying about $2400 per month just in prop taxes.

  5. David

    I am new to this, so I may be wrong, but I when clicked on the REdfin link for 29 Mahogany it says it is SOLD.

  6. Irvine_Native

    wow! that home has a driveway! That easily adds $1,000,000 to the value of an Irvine home.

  7. sarahfan

    All the comps (13 of them) within one quarter mile of 29 Mahogany are around $1 million, how can this house be asking $2 million? This area is a typical tract house development of homes right next to each other.

    1 8 Calandria Irvine $699,000 3 2.5 Active 1600
    2 14 W Delamesa Irvine $775,000 4 2.5 Active 2088
    3 17 Hidalgo Irvine $875,000 4 2.5 Active 2400
    4 10 W Fortuna Irvine $989,900 4 2.5 Active 3000
    5 20 Oakhurst Rd Irvine $1,029,900 4 3 Active 2225
    6 11 Aldea Irvine $1,068,800 4 2.5 Active 2580
    7 10 Ramada Irvine $1,149,000 4 3 Active 2794
    8 23 Oakhurst Rd Irvine $1,149,000 5 3 Active 2588
    9 11 Foxcrest Irvine $1,149,876 4 3.5 Active 2600
    10 9 Heatherwood Irvine $1,149,900 4 3 Active 2500
    11 6 STONEBROOK Irvine $1,195,000 4 3 Active 2950
    12 7 Green Hollow Irvine $1,215,000 5 4 Active 3004
    13 2 Bramblewood Irvine $1,259,000 4 4 Active 3000

  8. mah

    CNBC had a reporter down in Irvine today. They mentioned how Orange County was Bulls Eye for the mortgage industry. They reported that “1 in 5 jobs” here tied to the mortgage industry.

    I wonder what Gary Watts thinks about that. LOL

  9. somebody

    Hey, you guys scared this listing off market now. Here is the latest off market listing (S478955). It was listed as (S460596) last September for about one month with a different agent. The current price actually went up $500.

  10. IrvineRenter

    That is funny. I thought all publicity was good publicity. When they put it back on the market, I will hit them with an update. As for the $500 increase, real estate always goes up, doesn’t it?

  11. tonye

    Maybe so…. but if you look at the 405, you may notice that most Irvine residents don’t work in Irvine anyhow. All of those RE jobs don’t pay enough so they have to commute from Aliso Viejo, Huntington Beach or Corona.

  12. Joe

    I’m going to have to call you out on this one tonye, since I was in the mortgage industry until 2005 (2 different companies, both large), and knew quite a few Irvine residents. How does looking at the 405 tell you whether most Irvine residents work here or not?

    Also, I’m not sure which RE jobs you’re referring to, but it was easy to make a six figure income as a loan officer until things fell apart. You could also make good, easy money in the various support/operations of mortgage companies. I didn’t know ANYONE who commuted from Corona.

  13. arraya

    ok, according to records. That house is only 3550 sq ft. They have a 1st mtg of 1.5 mill and a second of 400K. The interest rate on the 1st is 7.87, none recorded for the second, figure around 10%. That puts his carrying costs above 15K a month (roughly)!!

    The best comp I could find was 5 mahogany @ 3000 sq ft, that sold for 1.5 million back in march. Appraisers adjust $35 per sq ft. So roughly that puts 29 Mahogany’s value just above 1.5 million. That asking price is CRAZY by any measure.

    This should be an interesting one to watch…..

  14. rkp

    Jeff – I think its great that you have your own blog but enough advertising. Share your viewpoints here and if they are interesting enough, I am sure you will get regular readers to your own blog.

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