Irvine Housing Blog

Check out 8 Sangallo Irvine, CA 92614.  Looks like the real esate market isn’t going so well for this agent.  She’s trying to get rid of her place before it gets too lazy.  My guess is that her business isn’t going well, she just added 100K to her equity line.
——-

The median is appreicating at a 28% annual rate compared to last week.  This is clearly a strongly rebounding market as sales are improving at a 48% rate from last week. 

Obviously, you doomsayers are grasping at minor pullback from the robust peak of last year as proof of what you’ve been predicting by year.  The sad part is, you’re about to miss your last chance to grab the American dream before you’re forever priced out again as the market storms back to new highs.

It’s plain as day, right there.  Prices are increasing 2-3% on a weekly basis.  They did last week.  they did the week before.

(You’ll excuse me now, I’m going to go vomit in the restroom)

Well hold on to your vomit, you have a lot of throwing up to do in the coming months. I hope to get an update from you at the end of summer!

Wow.  Such anger.  Who knew that enslaving yourself to a crippling mortgage on a declining asset was the American dream?  Doesn’t sound fun to me.

BTW, I’m already priced out of the market so now I get to just kick back and watch the show.  I have accepted the fact that I was born priced out of the OC market.

Anger is stage 2 in the Kübler-Ross model of grief.

HA HA - You are going to lose money on a weekly basis. Realty is a losing proposition in the OC Now. And it will be for the next 5 years. Hope you have a big bag to hold all the vomit.

That is really well done, No_Such_Reality. Have you thought about applying for David Lereah’s old job?

I get a little confused when someone says that others will be priced out of the market forever.  Who would sellers sell to if everyone else is priced out of the market forever?  Can prices really rise in the long term above people’s ability to pay?

About time for some panic selling of the high rise condos, like to see the prices go down by 30% at least.  No value added at all, no renovation (they’re new units of course) absolutely nothing added to the transaction other than just flipping, and just amazing to see flippers that don’t add value, asking more for condos than they paid for from the developer in the headwind of declining YOY values.  Wonder how long before prices decline substantially below the developer pricing?

The whole concept of being priced out forever is utter nonsense perpetuated by realtors to frighten people into buying homes: nothing more.

In financial markets—any financial market including housing—when prices begin to rally, greed compels people to buy in order to get rich, and fear compels them to buy in order not to miss out on the rally (two sides of the same coin). Fear is stronger than greed, which is why stock prices drop faster than they rise. Realtors play on the fear aspect of the greed equation to compel people to buy.

The reason it is utter nonsense is because prices get detached from their fundamental valuations to the point it no longer makes sense to buy. When the buying finally stops—generally due to buyer exhaustion (there are no more buyers left)—prices stop going up, and the main motivation for buying disappears. That is where we are right now. Once people realize it no longer makes sense to buy, they no longer stretch to make that purchase, and prices come back down to fundamental valuations.

It happens over and over again in financial markets. It has been throughout recorded history, and it will again in the future. It is just the way of things.

Pardon the diatribe, but people are never “priced out forever;” in fact, prices decline all the way to fundamental valuations where buyers do not need to stretch to enter the transaction.

No_Such_Reality,
  So if there’s a 3% increase every week, my house’s value (currently $500K) will more than quadruple to $2.2M a year from now?  Let’s do the math:

Week 1: $500K
Week 2: $515K (add 3%)
Week 3: $530.45K (add 3% to week 2’s price)
.
.
Week 25:  $1M
.
.
Week 52: $2.2M

Wow!  I love America!!!

Well, you only have 500 years of financial markets to draw your reversion to the mean conclusion.

This time it might really be different.  (sarcasm off)

Irvine Renter:

I would agree with your assessment that higher sales coupled with declining prices indicates panic selling.  However, the problem with the data is that we only have information when the bilateral contract is executed (when one of the buyers swimming around actually successfully links with a seller swimming around).  At that point the property, terms and pricing were acceptable to both parties. 

We get no information on the rest of the buyers and sellers that haven’t found a mate yet.

For all we know EVERYONE is panic selling right now, but the sellers in certain ZIP codes have simply been more successful than the others.  Hard to tell.

However, the data does not look very good for Irvine.

It certainly is less conclusive in real estate markets than with more liquid markets like stocks or bonds. Many of the people selling right now are probably not those who are near breakeven. As I look around Irvine for flips to profile, I see a great many sellers holding out for breakeven prices. When they start selling at a loss, panic will be undeniable. Right now it is probably just smart sellers cashing in on the few greater fools available to them.

I want Gary Watts back!

http://www.pwaor.com/_DOD/EventsPDF/GaryWatts_RealEstateOutlook.pdf

Haha, at first, I thought No Such Reality’s comment was a joke. My take: He’s a noobie realtor with poor math ability.

Jerry,

I love America too!  In 1998, I was making 30% on stocks…. now I have 1000 million bucks!  um… wait a minute.

No it was definitely a joke.  I’ve seen some really insightful posts by him (I’m a longtime lurker).

92612 is the UCI area zip code.  There are a ton of condos in that area.  Possibly well-to-do Asian Americans purchasing properties for their kids???