Irvine Housing Blog

The pace of foreclosures depends on geographic area and the banks that are prevalent.  Because I was looking at newer construction, I saw a lot of builders who went under.  It has taken a while but nearly all of that inventory is being cleared.  Some took longer because the builder must have been hanging on and some also developed small cluster neighborhoods (8 lots of infill in a 75+ year old neighborhood).  To some degree, the builder has a relationship banker, and there had probably been a lot of back and forth.  I saw a few short-sales resulting from peak refinances, but those got resolved nearly a year ago.

The continued refrain that foreclosures are the problem hides two truths.  Foreclosure is not the end of the world for a family or an individual.  It is a forced move, but as long as there is somewhere else to go, the stress of not being able to afford their home will be gone.  Then foreclosure resales offer properties at affordable prices for the next buyer.

Perhaps John Walsh is only part of the problem.  He also produces economic reports for builders to use with their lenders.  So, in that respect, he is much like CAR, NAR.  But, isn’t it really Alejandro who is acting the part of analyst by picking and choosing which quotes to put in his article?  It’s immediately obvious when none of his articles make sense, have no point, come to no conclusion.

It seems that the system will keep doing what they are doing till they get burned. It’s just a matter of time till the RE market implodes and a flood of inventory will hit the market at once.

Given the current situation of the nations debt ceiling, I feel that day may just be around the corner.

What advertiser do you think are keeping the OCR in business?

The real estate industry is typically the largest advertiser in local and regional newspapers.

Lasner is merely a schill doing his job, confusing him with a journalist is plain naive.

I stopped reading Lansner’s blog a year or so ago…he apparently doesn’t understand statistics, because the reporting was consistently like this:  housing is up, now housing is down, now housing is up, now housing is down - measuring often from the last month’s data point.  That’s almost completely useless.  Same thing with housing sales.  He reminds me of a day trader trying to chase the market around…futile.

Talk about space efficiency, if that’s in the Willows, that floorplan is actually 780sft on a single floor. TIC can barely fit a 3/2 into 1700sft on two floors nowadays.

At least it’s on a huge lot compared to the home size (4800sft). In 1999, homes like these were running less than $150k, comps today are still running mid $300k.

Who thinks these will eventually get back down below $200k?

From OCRegister:
Some market details from the Thomas report, listings and deals in escrow last 30 days; share of distressed homes of all listings; market time in months for various periods; and average listing price …

Slice Listings % Distress Deals Time (month) 2 week ago 1 yr. ago 2 yr. ago Avg. list$
Irvine 839 25% 203 4.13 4.14 4.04 2.64 $849k
? Tustin 359 33% 93 3.86 3.72 3.39 3.04 $724k
? Lake Forest 207 53% 65 3.18 2.65 2.82 1.72 $428k
? O.C. ($750k-$1m) 1,051 15% 215 4.89 4.74 4.81 4.43 $873k
All O.C.  11,320 34%  2,894 3.91 3.96 3.91 2.69 $885k

Coverage of other data reports from Thomas ARE HERE!

50+% Distress sales in Lake Forest.  Only 25% in Irvine.  Data need to address detached SFU and aggregate housing units and especially not homes.  I’ve never seen a family or home sold in America. Just houses, condo, timeshares, etc.

Tom,
Markets are always going up or down.  It is rarely ever perfectly flat over a short time.  It’s the game to promote urgency to buy or sale and thereby generating a commis or fee.  Wall Street lives on bubble creation and can benefit on improved Main Street.  Main Street lives on a good economy and indirectly MIGHT benefit from a excellent WS.  America needs to wake up and know the difference between the two streets.

Going back to yesterday’s discussion, it made me think of a saying my HS history teacher used to say: if its equally unfair, then its fair.  I think that really applies to incomes and taxes.  People look at how much they are taxed and freak out but at the end of the day, its all relative to what others are getting or doing.  Your spending power and cost of goods is in part based on what people can support so its all relative.  My wife and I only look at our take home and that number isn’t bad at all.  We made $280K last year and after 401Ks and taxes, we brought home over $160K.  If I am taxed more on the top part of my earnings and I end up with $150K next year so be it.  As long as it is equally applied across the board than I don’t really care.  I realize the tax code has major flaws and loopholes but this isnt about that.  Its about looking at pay differently and not staring at what you theoretically could have gotten had you not paid taxes but realizing that we are all being taxed so look at the numbers after the taxes.

And all this talk about working hard and taking on extra degrees is only meaningful if everyone starts at the same part of the ladder.  I work hard and have busted my tail to grow at my company and earn a higher income than my peers at the same company but lets not kid ourselves, I started higher on that ladder by no choice of my own.  I am not excusing laziness or saying that one cannot break from their current situation and earn more but we also should have some understanding of how we ended up where we did.

IrvineRenter,
The “Lovely” dog picture really took your blog over the top today.  Really funny. :-}