Irvine Housing Blog

On friday there was a realtor(tm) at the corner of the 405 and Culver with a sign that said…......will sell for commissions, need work.

Just kidding.
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I just got the funniest e-mail from Taylor Woodrow for their two Portola Springs projects.  It’s opens with “How Badly Do We Want Friends? We’ll pay $5,000 for yours.”

Damn, PS must be a freaking ghost town.

Finished pads are becoming weed lots.  My favorite ghost town is Shady Canyon; all those finished pads and empty spec homes.

I currently rent in 92603 in the condos that look out at Shady Canyon. Just on my street there are two for sale and one for rent (not to mention the other half dozen for sale in the complex which are just sitting there) and none of them are having any success. One 2BR/2.5BA is listed for $669K. The owner told my boyfriend that he had received only one offer thus far - for $500K -and the prospective buyers couldn’t even qualify for that!

Based on neighborhood gossip, the only two condos that have sold since last fall in this complex were purchased by real estate agents as investments and then immediately rented out.

What amazes me is the relistings. I have had my eye on one house in 92614 that is now on its THIRD listing. It has been on the market since Sept. 2005. But of course the most recent listing is dated 3/22/07 so its current time on market is only 96 days - rather than the 650 days it should be. So if you are planning on buying ask the neighbors how long the property has really been on the market.

I think a return to 04 with a short revisit into 03 is what will happen.

Pendulums always overreact, hence the 03 prices.

In two years we’ll be back to 04 and then you will see reasonable, but slow, growth.

Also, I got the gut feeling that the more overpriced the area, the more it will drop percentage wise below the “norm”.

So, in TR this means that SFH will run around $300 to $500 per sq foot.  I think most homeowners will be fine.

TRidge will definitely hurt. 

Now, when I think about it, I could sell my house for 300 bucks per square foot and move up to TRidge at 400.  Now, I think I’d be willing to pay the added RE just for the view.

Of course I’m sitting on a very,VERY nice fixed 30 year mortgage from 03!

My wife thinks we ought to invest in a condo or house next year instead.  I don’t think she learnt from our previousr landlord experience.

Would people ever move up to Irvine highrises at $600 to $700 and even $900/sf that they are asking for these days?

There are a bunch of finished pad in Yorba Linda.  I flew over them on the approach to John Wayne Airport.

They were pretty weedy and the other passengers on the flight might have wondered what I was laughing about, but it warmed my heart to see nearly abandoned pads.

I would guess that there were near 100 pads with streets & utilities but no houses.

Yaaaaah!

Funny - you know it’s a slow market when agents realize they actually have to work for their money ....

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/money/article_1741719.php

Those are interesting eh?  I think that was a huge miscalculation.  If they had like 25 of them in a “high rise” village with their own elementary school, it would make sense. 

But as they are they are more like the Chicago Projects. 

Funny thing though, I think that in 30 years most of Irvine by TR will be mid to high rises.  But that’s a looong way coming.

Prices and interest rates are irrelevant.  The norm is for a median income family from any particular neighborhood, being able to purchase with 20% down, a 15 year fixed, at 28% DTI.  But the re market may very well overshoot the norm.

I don’t know what to make of this:

http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/070621/062107_housing_perception_gap.html?.v=1&.pf=real-estate

You are not in denial if we don’t even know what is happening.

Ahem, nobody is going to point out the big owie on that report?  92614 punched through the $500K barrier.  Granted, the completely anemic 16 sales makes it pointless, sales can’t get much lower.

Looks like 92620 is poised to follow pushing $505…

How did you discover that it was on its third listing?  Have you actually been watching it since 2005 as it went on and off list, or do you know where the listing history is available?  (And is it possible that it has been sold once or twice since Sept 2005?)

tonye,

Your plan sounds very good.  I sold my Turtle Rock house in 2006 and moved to a new job in North Carolina.  My wife misses Orange County and wants to move back.  When do you think prices will be good again?  We bought in 2003 and got a good profit.  Now our house in North Carolina is going up, while our old house in the Broadmoor is going down!  Maybe we could get another house in TR for less than we paid?

It will be sad to leave NC… I’ve got a 4000 sq ft house on almost one acre, 10 min from work, and my 30yr-fixed mortgage every month is less than my rent on a 2bd apt in Tustin in early 2000s!

Sorry man…  the median is what’s irrelevant.  These are move up markets so people have higher incomes.  Hence, you can safely go higher on the DTI.

I mean, someone with an income of $50K per year does need that 35K to live. 

Someone with an income of $300K can easily live with a DTI of 40% because that still leaves like $180K to buy filet mignon for the sunday BBQ.

Yes, I’ve actually been watching it since a month after its first MLS listing in Sept 05 for $879,800. 

But actually, you’re right. On Domania.com I found a sale for that property in Jan 06 for $865,000. I don’t think I went by the property at that time. I must have forgotten about it for a while.

It was then put up for sale again (with a different realty agency) in June of 06 for $114,000 more than Domania.com said it had sold for in Jan. So that was the second listing. I found that listing a few months later and added it to the ones I watch. That listing eventually got reduced $80,000.

When that second listing disappeared, I did go by the house. There was no sold sign on the for sale sign. And the house popped up in the MLS listings a couple of days later with the same realty agency, same price, and a suspiciously similar description (lots of tildes in both). So it looked like a re-listing to me. That was 3/19/07 and it’s still for sale, but now reduced by another $40,000, to $859,000. (A house literally a couple of doors down with same number of beds, baths, and square footage just went on sale for $834,900, so good luck to them.)

Is it possible it sold in Feb or March 07 and the realtor didn’t put a sold sign? I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t do that - free advertising for them. However, I don’t have any easy resources to verify that other than various websites which don’t get updated with sale information very quickly, if at all.

Sorry for the misinformation. But it does seem a little weird as the pictures on the first listing show a beautifully furnished house and the house is obviously vacant on the second and third listings. Maybe a flipper? The house didn’t really need any work but the second and third listings do mention fresh paint and new landscaping.