Irvine Housing Blog

Your comments about making the place look decent are on target.

In every locale I view, I see listings for $800,000 to $3,000,000 with photos of the property that are very unbecoming.

To home sellers: If you really want to get $900K for the McMansion in Irvine or the squeezy condo in downtown Chicago or the Miami South Beach, please do the following:

1. Get rid of all the crap sitting around. “Crap” includes refrigerator magnets, your kids’ artwork, the boxes of cereal on top of the frig, the spice bottles on top of the backplate of the bottom-end freestanding range, the silk flowers on the counter, the 19 small appliances cluttering up the counters,the ragged, uncoordinated dishtowels hanging on the frig handle, the kids’ toys in the living room, the crappy quilt and cheap curtains in the bedroom, the 10 remote control units on the coffee table, the mingy little throw rugs, the Franklin Mint figurine collection, the sports equipment, and a pile of dirty laundry anywhere.

No kidding, I just viewed a photo of a $865,000 Miami South Beach condo that showed a pile of dirty clothes spilling out of a closet onto the marble floors.

2. Landscape- get a professional. Good landscaping can add several thousand to a few tens of thousands of dollars of value to your place, depending on its price bracket.

3. Repaint the house in soft, neutral colors.

4. After you have packed away or gotten rid of obvious garbage as detailed above, see what ELSE you can remove from the room. Most people have rooms too cluttered up with crappy small furniture like side tables just big enough to set a glass on, little 2-shelve bookcases, TV stands, coat trees, and other small pieces of furniture that make it impossible to arrange the furniture so as to flatter the room.

5. Get rid of bright colors like primary blue, red, or yellow. These colors are offensive in small spaces, especially bright yellow. Yellow signals CHEAP.

6. Get rid of brightly-patterned floor tile. Nothing says CHEAPO like fake Mexican vinyl tile in loud patterns and too many colors.

7. Cracked sidewalks and driveways signal poor maintenance. If ever there was a time to repave, this is it.

I suppose this is all moot if you are already $200K underwater and nothing is selling anyway.

SoCalJD,

You beat me to the curb comment! I picked up my daughter at her friends house 3 years ago in this neighborhood. I will never forget the claustrophobic feeling driving through this neighborhood with these big boxes so close together. And then to top it off you could drive up on the sidewalk.

The friend’s house was spacious inside though I will admit.

Bingo.

I did scratch the rims in my TL against the curb in front of my house.  Normal curbs that is.

Then I replaced the B/S Turanza EL42 for a set of B/S Potenza RE750s and not only did the handling go up a few notches but the Potenzas have a “rim protector” on them that sticks out a bit out from the rims.

Maybe they’re RE investors in China and they’re checking your website when its’ a reasonable 2 o’clock in the afternoon over there?

I wonder if you could put an IP filter that would do a reverse look up to see what the local time is for the host IP address that generated the request.  Of course, someone who just wanted to wake you up could use a proxy and you’d have not way to filter them.

Aaahh.. the problems of the Internet.  I have my two sites hosted by a Telco for that very reason. 

That looks like the hallway to the garage.

Tonye, I never disconnected my site bell. That would be going backwards. Instead, I shutdown the site past midnight so I can get some sleep. It never ceases to amaze me how rude people can be. People seem to get that going over to your neighbor’s at 2 am just for a chat is not right. Why do people think visiting a website at that hour is somehow different?

Hi Tonye -

Yup.  The builders screwed the pooch down here. I’m guessing that you were driving on the outskirts going toward Los Angeles.

If you stay on I10 about 70 miles south toward Tucson, they also put up a bunch of houses in Case Grande that look like a ghost town of homes.  Pretty creepy.

Enough supply for another 10 years!

tonye: haha, thanks for the reply. Might just be a coicindence, but your style of writing (along with your SN) reminds me of a poster on a well-known automotive forum (Temple of V?) Same guy?

Seriously though, does anyone know the deal about some of these West Irvine “curbs”? It looks terrible.

It keeps the spinners in the SUVs from scratching.  Those 22 inch spinners on Suburbans are very expensive… but since they were bought with 2nd mortgages, with deep discounts from GMAC financial, the owners may not care much for longer.

Bling, bling.... nouveau rich.  Easy come, easy go.  Now go back to renting apartments and driving Novas.

15% of very little is still very little.

I dunno… that 8MIL will do wonders.  I wonder if they meant EIGHT MILLION PESOS?

Funny thing about asbestos… people think they used it all over.  However, when we rebuilt our home, originally built in 69, we discovered we didn’t have any asbestos.

Just some (not all) aluminum wiring.  Which we pulled out....

Hey Kirk… What’s up?  Did you hook up the bell again?  Are they waking you up in the middle of the night?

BTW, I came back from Phoenix.... I did see a bunch of RE on the outskirts of the I10 that didn’t look like it will ever be built.  There was this huge area with hundreds of home pads that I don’t think will get built for 10 years.

At least it wasn’t as bad as the RE in LV last summer.  Homes built out in the middle of nowhere!!!

LOL!!!!

Hey guys, calm down.  That was satire!!!

Kirk only pretends to be a troll, and if he was a troll, you should not feed him.

He got’cha.

My wife and I drove by this neighborhood the other day to see this property and the one thing that stood out to me (in a negative way), was the fact that this whole neighborhood had no curbs. Anyone know why this is? In various West Irvine neighborhoods, we’ve noticed this. The “curbs” are more like water trenches, for lack of a better description. It really cheapens the whole feel of the neighborhood, which actually has some decent looking larger homes for the West Irvine area.

Anyhow, if anyone knows why some West Irvine communities have this strange curb design, please enlighten me!!!

You’re not joking, I have two adjoining neighbors with five people in each two bedroom apartment!  That’s two adults with three kids in each two bedroom apartment! They must hate me for taking up a whole two bed apartment by myself! LOL

KirkTroll, please go back under your rock and come out when you can be on-topic.

That’s an awful lot to read into my post there, Kirk.

Thanks for your prayers though.  That gave me an idea -

We should start a housing prayer group.  With a little help from above, we might be able to pray house prices back down into normalcy.

There is also lead that persists along heavily travelled older roads, from the decades of leaded gasoline.

Of course, the best memories of Irvine come from the Grateful Dead at Irvine Meadows. Two alien worlds collide.

Sold to IPO, $850K.  I think it is a decent buy if you can have good use of it.

Silly’s Mom: At least it has NO ASBESTOS! Wow, that’s a real selling point for me.

btw, California’s state rock is “Serpentinite”

Serpentinite can contain chrysotile, the serpentine mineral that crystallizes in long, thin fibers. This is the mineral commonly known as asbestos.

*California* contains asbestos…

It’s also brake dust and rubber dust. At least they don’t use asbestos brake linings anymore. But that rubber is no good for your lungs.

Our house is 250 feet from a 4-lane lightly-traveled expressway, and we get black dust on horizontal surfaces outside. And there isn’t nearly the traffic volume on that as you get from any of those big Irvine arterials like Barranca or Irvine Ctr Drive or whatever…

Jesus wasn’t in the toast, silly !  It was a grilled cheese sandwich. 

http://www.mrbreakfast.com/article.asp?articleid=23

Wait, the what? People put kids in separate bedrooms?

I’ve got the kids piled up in one bedroom like cordwood. Get used to it, kiddos, and college dorms will feel spacious! Bwahahahaha

...

(Don’t ask me about the Mini Cooper with two child seats in the back, either. And by the way, I’m six feet tall)

Purplehaze,

We have a word for the vitriol you have thrown my way: blasphemy.

Love comes from God’s love and if you’d ever bother to read the Bible you would know that God only loves those who worship His Son. There’s no point in you reading it now though, because Jesus teaches that once a sin has been committed there can be no forgiveness. I’m sorry you weren’t taught this early enough.

Dude, WTF, is this a joke?  That $8 mil price tag has to be a joke or misprint, It has to!

If you told me that the moon was actually a secret alien space station which has been spying on us for a few millennia, I’d believe it before that home’s price.

Why are security cameras need in Newport Beach?  Was this house used as a meth lab?

Hey Kirk,

Why the white supremacist christian dialogue? Why the claim on christians being the only religion in the world capable of love? Any exclusivist claim is pure BS. There were many religiions before christianity even came into the picture. If those religions are not claiming superiority, you should at least be humble enough and admit that there are other paths to god.

Peace out!

AZDavidPhx,

It makes sense that you would make such an ignorant comment since you are from the state with the most liberal senator in the United States. It is the Virgin Mary that chooses to signal blessings by appearing in silhouette on various food items. Not Christ. Don’t think that I didn’t pick up on the anti-Christian undertone of your statement. I think it shows cowardice when people choose to speak in code against the only people capable of love.

What exactly is it that you have against Christian Americans anyway? I mean, I could understand that every so often a person might make an off color comment or two, but ever since I’ve visited this blog I’ve noticed that you have never once mentioned how great this country is nor have you ever condemned the actions of Islamofascist terrorists.

I pray nightly for people like you. I pray that our Lord shows you that you are wrong to live such a resentful existence. I pray that He gently explains why you are going to burn for your sins just before you are licked by the flames of eternal damnation. Unlike you, I have compassion for my fellow man.

Yeah, I agree 22 Malibu is completely un-realistic, not to mention 6 Malibu has more appeal and is priced significantly lower.  Nonetheless, I wouldn’t mind seeing either of these breach the $1M mark.

To paraphrase from something you wrote the other day, the whole state should be free.  All of the transplants I know from Michigan are very happy to be out.

Well if its a short sale, there isn’t much to tip their hands.  Though I agree it would be hard to convince a seller to share anything.  There isn’t any benefit for them.

“It has been related to you previously that you cannot compare different markets.”

Because real estate is local, right?  RIGHT?

“Irvine is different.”

22 Malibu is smoking big crack:

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1476793

Trying to get $100K more than 2006 purchase?  Good luck.  Malibu could be the next big REO in NP…

Some Positive news out of Detroit (from Drudgereport).

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/BIZ/802150373

16 SV is the exact same home as 8 PG, just not as nice.  I think 16 SV is probably worth around $975Kish based on the 8 PG comp.

We made a run at 12 Sunnyvale, also this same model, but couldn’t get them to go under $1M.  It closed in December for just a smidge above $1M.

I like the interior layout of this plan.  Big great room.  Dining and small living are not contiguous.  Big loft area at the top of the stairs.  Bedrooms are decent sized as well.  Downstairs bedroom is teeny tiny though.  Can’t really double as an office and guest bedroom IMO.  Perfect for an office if your guests will pull up a floatie in the loft…

The best bet would be to follow up on closed sales.  I can’t imagine a home owner in the process of selling have much interest in tipping their hand.

Thanks for the info and the link. 8 Pacific Grove looks nice; personally I like it better than the two on Sunnyvale. 18 Sunnyvale, which is listed on your site (great site, btw) is already in escrow. It will be interesting to see where that one closes. Along with 8 Pacific Grove it will certainly impact the pricing of 16 Sunnyvale, which still remains on the market.
Are you thinking of making a run at 16 Sunnyvale?

Never moved in???

We sold our home last year after having it on the market for 13 months.  I used an older gentleman realtor who was quite high up in the NAR organization.  The main picture of our house on the MLS prominently displayed his steel yard (pounded into the front lawn).  The pictures of the backyard were taken from inside the house through a window.  Then, to further have potential buyers licking their chops he added verbage like “wall to wall” carpet, and “built in 1977” and “fresh paint”.  The house had four bedrooms, however we used the forth bedroom as an office, but I had to fight him to list as a 4 bedroom house.  He insisted it was only 3 because we had built-ins the office. He was a nice guy, and I didn’t want to dump him, so I rewrote the listing myself and took out 90% of his lines.  I actually used language that would entice a buyer to want to look at the house, which was beautifully remodeled with granite and custom travertine floors etc.  Who the hell would WANT to look at a house built in 1977???  I also had to force him to replace his pictures with better shots.  I’m still kicking myself for paying a 5% commission when I did everything but draw up the escrow papers.

Enjoyed reading your comments; you bring up some very good points.  The fact that these sellers aren’t coming down is very discouraging.  What do you think about the two on Woodhaven Lane?

http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=51633190

Hey ten, you watch Northpark too right?  Just saw the closing price on 8 Pacific Grove, which is 2830sf, just like the Sunnyvale place that closed a few months back.  Sold for $1.025M and closed yesterday.  It actually went for MORE than the previous comp of the same exact model…

Pacific Grove did have quite a bit sunk in landscaping though, so the price in real terms was probably a bit less than the recent Sunnyvale close.

People will say, “oh, with the double-paned windows closed you can barely hear the cars”.

And no one should underestimate the grime and grit from a high traffic area.  I’ve lived close to busy streets.  You can tune out the noise, but that gross air quality from traffic lands in your home and you can feel and see it when you wipe and dust.  And you’ll do that a lot more often, too

Yikes!

An acquaintance bought a similar property close to this house in fall of 2005 for $1M, this was their 3rd house in 3 years!, a serial upgrader case, their previous trades were successful because the bull market, but if they sell today (or are forced to sell) they will lose their down payment which probably included all equity gained in their previous trades, they had this big assumption about Irvine RE going up, up an up.

The lesson here is, same as stocks, you need to diversify!, it was wrong to rollover all the previous equity gained into another house.

Tenmagnet: I like Rosegate too, but I think 4200 square feet is just too much house for me to take care of.  Somerton is approx. 3300-3700 (I think) and that sounds much more reasonable for me personally.  I also think that Rosegate has dated looking exterior color schemes - lots of white and cream.  But that’s just me!  Good luck with the 1 New Dawn.  He’s probably thrilled with this new listing, because suddenly his house looks like the bargain in the tract!

For whatever the reason, this house doesn’t really give me good vibes.  It just feels “wrong” somehow.  I would not want to buy or live there, and it has nothing to do with the price per sq ft.

We always wonder what the owners were thinking.  How about if IHB adds a new feature where they actually interview the owners.  Imagine how much more interesting these posts will be if we knew what the owner was thinking!

What do you say IR?  A simple way to start would be an email based interview.

OMG! Haven’t seen this one before, probably because of the hefty $$$ price tag.
This will certainly not help me with the seller of 1 New Dawn.
I’ve been trying to talk this guy down to no avail these past few months. No wonder, the koolaide must be flowing freely over there.

I learned that lesson when I sold my first home… Or rather I should say, tried to sell my first home.  I needed to find the best deal I could since I was still in college (grad school) so I ended up buying next to a cement plant and a landfill.  Needless to say it took a while to sell the place. 

When I bought in Irvine I took my time to find a place that had a good location, location, and location.  Close to schools, easy access to major roads but not right on one, and in a cul-de-sac.  It was pretty easy to sell in Sep06 when I needed to leave.  I priced a bit below market and it was out of my hands in less than a month.

There is truly something to be said for location, location, location!

Hey IPOP - new this week 41 New Dawn, listed for a whopping $2,299,000!  Those Rosegate people must get the koolaid piped in by the IRWD.

Personally, I prefer Rosegate over Somerton but at this point agree with you about the need for substantially price declines before we can all get in either one.

You know they say “3 kids is the new 2” so if you want to have a guest room (or a room for Grandma) and a room for the 3 kids, then you need 5 bedrooms.  Of course, in a recession (oops, I used the R word) people will probably choose to have fewer children.

If this is a flip/investment property, then the loan is a recourse one, right?

Doesn’t that mean the bank can take whatever $$ this flipper has from previous flips?  Don’t they get to go after his assets in this case?

People on ebay put more effort into describing a piece of toast shaped like Jesus than these people put into describing a million dollar house.

Good call!

Somehow I didn’t see the above comment making the same point as me… sorry!

25w100k+

The ego is larger than the bank account!

Either it’s a typo because the original listing price was $780 K and they upped it to 800K and added an extra zero by accident, or it was a ploy to be featured on this blog for the free advertising. 

I agree with IPOP on the price on Arborwood - crazy!  I love Somerton and had originally hoped to get in over there, but it’ll never happen unless prices drop a LOT more.  Which of course, they may!

Yeah, I understand where you’re coming from. Since we’re both looking in to buy in the same market/area, and generally in the same price range, I pay close attention to your comments. Looking at the 46 Logan location today made me think of your location comments. Definitely a positive.

camsavem -

“It has been related to you previously that you cannot compare different markets.”

Which post of mine are you referring to?  I just said that I didn’t get what the deal was with the narrow hallway and you come at me with this “you can’t compare different markets” salvo.

What’s the three most important things in real estate?  Location, location, location.  Personally, if I am dropping big coin on a house, I don’t want to have a street that rivals highways in most states, just beyond my 6’ wall.

Think about that Valente property.  It is way nicer than Parma inside.  Same plan I believe, definitely same size.  Which one got into escrow?  People love that Valente lot, well, at least until they look over the wall…

I use Portola to get from West Irvine over to the Woodbury area more often than not.  Drive is nice, green lights all the way usually.  I fly by the backyard of Arborwood at 60-65mph.  People will say, “oh, with the double-paned windows closed you can barely hear the cars”. 

Maybe I am old school, but I want to be able to keep my windows open!  I sure as heck don’t want to have to put in a water feature in the backyard just to get some white noise… More often than not, if you see a listing with a fountain in the backyard, that probably means it’s got lots of road noise.

I think the North Torrey price of $8,000,000 must be a typo.  The original list price from the Redfin info below is $780,000.  My guess is they meant to list for $800,000. 

That in itself is an issue.  I guess if you can’t sell at the original asking price you should INCREASE the price not lower the price.  What a concept!  That should really pull those buyers in!!!!

Listing Price Information
List Price High: $8,000,000.00
List Price Low: $8,000,000.00
Original List Price: $780,000.00
Search Price High: $8,000,000.00
Search Price Low: $8,000,000.00

Regarding todays property: 5 beds and 4 baths. Would be a good home for a big or multi-gen family. Better put everyone to work to make the payment and pay the taxes etc.

I would pay 550k for it, but its really not my type of place. I like the square footage, but too many beds.

The lot size, location and curb appeal is very good.

Look at the 1998 selling price if you want to see the lunacy that has taken over in America since then.

MMG,

Yes 200 PSF will be the norm for SFR in Irvine...........condos may sink to 150 PSF.

Agreed.

Ipop,

As soon as I looked up Arborwood on the map, immediately knew you were going to mention that it backs up to Portola. Funny thing is I never cared about that before but its come up so frequently in your comments and in our discussions that I’m starting to view that as a negative as well. Looked at 46 Logan this morning in Woodbury, like the location and price but was thinking it seems awfully close to Irvine Blvd.

I drove by Legacy today on the way to work… The house next to it has a large collection of jallopy (sp?) vehicles.  IMO that neighborhood has a pretty high WT look-and-feel going on.  The backyard fence, on the frontside of the house has collapsed, i.e. you can see right into the ole backyard.  Nice.  Little bit of a fixer upper.  Appears that people are still living there and there is no realtor sign out front.

Uh, didn’t you know?  AZ lives in a really sweet apartment in the middle of the desert, duh!  He would never want to move into a big place like this when he’s living the high life!

Arborwood is an insane price.  That is more expensive than anything on New Dawn, and the New Dawn tract is in a much better location and nicer IMO.  A home not far from this Arborwood place, 5 Roselead also with 5 bedrooms and over 3000sf, went back to the bank in August for $1.15M and sold in November for $1.2M.

Arborwood does have a crazy big and cool lot though.  Sucks that it backs to Portola.

A Nissan Sentra in the driveway of a supposed million-dollar house? Great sales pitch there.

Outstanding find!  I like the fact that the home simultaneously has a long term tenant (hence why it hasn’t sold in nearly a year) but it’s available for lease.  In my industry, this type of work would get you fired—not a $30k commission.  Amazing.

to date being the key word :mrgreen:

I have to agree with AZ, this is one McPOS place that will still go down in price due to the fact that >800k is alot of money to pay for a house even in Irvine,

once the market finishs the fall off the cliff, people will think many many times about where to park 170k for down payment and pay 4-5 k per month. it’s all about psychology and mood of buyers. 

Ipo said:--->Then again, these places lease out for $3800-4000 so why buy it for $850K if one was already renting? It’s gonna fall to $700-750K…

Ipo is becoming one mean bear

as Nanowest any I have said a few months ago:

200 and below for SqFt, HERE WE COME :mrgreen:

LOL.  And the Torrey Pine property is not in West Irvine either… That’s one good realtor there.  Torrey Pine is in Northwood II, where there is much on the market and sellers will be going under.

One word - TYPO.  There are no $8 million houses for sale in West Irvine.  It must be $800,000.  The assessed value is $847,354.

sorry for the double post

I get daily update of newly listed homes from ziprealty. My observation of asking prices is that selles are still in denial. The number of unsold homes will continue to surge in a rapid pace. The market participants can not bear seller WTF price.

Trust your eyes when you see this seller asking price, does anybody suspect the owner wants a sell?

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1419020

20 North Torrey PNE
Irvine, CA 92620
Price: $8,000,000
Buy with Redfin and Save $160,000*
Beds:  3
Baths:  2
Sq. Ft.:  1,765
$/Sq. Ft.: $4,533
Lot Size:  5,000 Sq. Ft. 
Type: Single Family Residence
Style: Other
Year Built: 2006
Stories: One Level
Area: West Irvine
County: Orange
MLS#: P618797
Status: Active
On Redfin: 24 days

The next seller wants 364% appreciation in less than 9 years for an asset that barely beats inflation.

31 ARBORWOOD, Irvine, CA 92620
List Price: $2,100,000
Last Sale:  07/28/99
Sales Price:  $576,500
Bedrooms:  5
Full Baths:  5
Partial Baths:  0
Square Feet:  3,700
Lot Size:  17,000 Sq. Ft. 
Year Built:  1999
Listing Date:  02/14/08
On Market:  1 day
Type:  SFR
Status:  ACTIVE
MLS #:  S521726

The only thing I can think of is he meant to say 180 degree security cameras.  But actually wouldn’t you want 360 degree coverage for the front and the back of the house?  Who knows. 

And yes, this house is asbestos and radiation free!  Where do I sign?

The entire thing is unbelievable, but the thing that struck me the most was 180 security cameras. What the hell is that about?  Is 180 a brand or something? 

At least it has NO ASBESTOS!  Wow, that’s a real selling point for me.

Not true cams.  Shorter duration ARMs are not as tied to the 10-year.  That is why you will see that 5/1 ARM rates dropped down in January and have stayed mostly down in spite of the recent moves in the 10-year which was pushed up rates on 30-year products… 1 and 3-year ARMs are definitely much more affected by Fed drops.

Most Sellers are still in denial. the number of unsold homes will continue to surge simply because market participants can not bear sellers’ price.

does anyone think this seller really wants a sell?

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1419020

20 North Torrey PNE
Irvine, CA 92620
Price: $8,000,000
Buy with Redfin and Save $160,000*
Beds:  3
Baths:  2
Sq. Ft.:  1,765
$/Sq. Ft.: $4,533
Lot Size:  5,000 Sq. Ft. 
Type: Single Family Residence
Style: Other
Year Built: 2006
Stories: One Level
Area: West Irvine
County: Orange
MLS#: P618797
Status: Active
On Redfin: 24 days

This seller wants 364% appreciation in less than 9 years?

31 ARBORWOOD, Irvine, CA 92620

List Price: $2,100,000
Last Sale:  07/28/99
Sales Price:  $576,500

Bedrooms:  5
Full Baths:  5
Partial Baths:  0
Square Feet:  3,700
Lot Size:  17,000 Sq. Ft. 
Year Built:  1999
Listing Date:  02/14/08
On Market:  1 day
Type:  SFR
Status:  ACTIVE
MLS #:  S521726

(sorry not listed on redfin yet)

http://www.ziprealty.com/buy_a_home/logged_in/search/home_detail.jsp?listing_num=S521726&mls=mls_so_cal&cKey=nn76ptqx&source=SOCALMLS

As mentioned before, the fed funds rate is not tied with the mortgage rate.  The fed’s rate can fall to ( negative 5.0%) and the 30 yrs rate can still be 5% or higher.  The only one that helped by the fed fund rate is the adjustable rate like credit card, maybe car loan and such, I think.  No bank going to lend you hundreds of thousand dollars at a commited rate for 30 yrs. if they need to figure in the inflation and future interest rate.

The fed funds rate has NOTHING to do with morgage rates.

Equity lines - yes
Credit Cards - yes
Auto loans - yes
Mortgage - no

Mortgage rates are set off of the 10 year treasury rate.

Wishful thinking by those who don’t understand mortgage markets.  Short rates have fallen and will likely fall if the Fed keeps dropping.  Long rates seem to be doing nothing but move up… I think 30-year conforming rates have moved up almost half a point since emergency Fed drop and stimulus package announcement.

Jumbos 30-years are at a 4-month high right now.  I think many would-be buyers are counting on the conforming loan limit increase.  Another .50 to .75 move up in conforming rates, and whatever rate decrease as a result of the stimulus package for formerly jumbo borrowers that would have been will mostly be gone.

Excellent observation jhill and for those of us who have followed IR’s blog longer we have certainly seen some doozies.  I particularly liked the sideways pictures from just a few days ago - that was a classic!

We have had a good time laughing at Realtards pathetic attempts to market these ‘special’ Irvine homes.  Does anyone have some favorites they’d like to share?

I know when I purchased in 2001 near the beginning of the run up, it was amazing to me the poor quality condition of many homes I toured.  I think that many of todays newer Realtards simply don’t get it.  During the bubble they literally did nothing to stage homes and they sold.  Now it is obviously much more difficult and they either lack the skill or experience to take even the most basic steps in preparing a home.

Dude you got to calm down on the bashing.

It has been related to you previously that you cannot compare different markets. This is a nice home in a good location at a decent price per square foot. The realtor did a horrible job of displaying the home and took bad pictures.

I guess with it being a short sale and a cheap price, they are assuming it will sell regardless. We all agree, price is everything right now.

Personally my wife and I are looking for a home like this in that it is somewhat generic and can be individualized to your own personal taste with minimal investment.

This is the best “deal” I have seen in Irvine to date.....