Irvine Housing Blog

No photo of the charming water fountain mentioned in the listing.
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IR:

Good morning everyone.

How wishful thinking is today’s feature list seller? I estimate it to be 20-40% over realistic market price today.

Proof?  The following 2005 built Northwood listing is over 130 days old. It is priced at $323/sf vs. $429/sf today’s seller is asking.

What a waste of time and effort it is for all involved.

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1142199

36 Secret GDN
Irvine, CA 92620
Price: $999,995
Buy with Redfin and Save $20,000*
Beds:  4
Baths:  3
Sq. Ft.:  3,100
$/Sq. Ft.: $323
Lot Size:  - 
Type: Single Family Residence
Style: Contemporary
Year Built: 2005
Stories: Two Levels
View(s): Park or Green Belt
Area: Northwood
County: Orange
MLS#: S505877
Status: Active
On Redfin: 143 days

I can’t wait to see how this one goes….

I do like the kitchen though. Best I have seen so far. IMHO.

It will be interesting to see which goes first…..

Will the increase in the Jumbo loan assist anyone in buying this home?

I saw where they prosecuted a lender for inisting a client take an ARM and they qualified for a 30 fixed.  Lender lost case and has to get this got to jail for 5 months and 5 months half way house and pay 400,000 what a slap in the face.  I think we will see some of these ARM loans were not much more then greeedy lenders and yes uninformed buyers desperate to own and investors that made a bad choice of time.

Look forward to next week update!

Just FYI it is ‘stated’ (past participle) income, not ‘state’ income.

6000 sq ft lot for 1.7 mil? LOL!

Your just getting a building here that is crowded next to other buildings. You buy this place and you will never be able to anything more than what you currently have because the lot is so small.

About 21k per year just for prop taxes.

If I was a rich business man in Irvine, I would just rent until places like this are running about 850k. I would not pay more for it.

So, $215/ft for nicer SFRs?  That’s your stabilization project?

Whoops—projection, not project.

Lender?  or Broker?  My money is on broker.

Were these really Liar Loans?

When they were stating their income they were just including all the HELOC money they would pull out of the home.

Maybe they weren’t lying when they stated 50% above their actual income….. after all it was impossible for them to afford the home without this invisible yet reliable HELOC money.

In buying a home they were getting a 50% raise….. maybe more…. their home was more like a second job; a second source of income.

The Dumb Money loved this free money orgy. 

Much easier than getting a higher degree and actually making yourself more valuable to an employer and society.

You are correct. Neither my eye nor my spell checker caught that one.

I was watching 23 Galaxy Isle 92694 (Ladera). 5887 sf, nice new house. I think it sold for about $260/sf.

There is an issue raised by this place that hasn’t come up on the blog yet—extremely water-intensive landscaping.  I think coastal OC gets about 9 inches of rain a year.  Colorado River flows are at all-time lows.  The rhododendron-azalea-banana plant combo featured here, with the lush lawn (admittedly, it’s a very small lot, but still) may not be sustainable.
At least the realtor bothered to stage this place! Complete with corny breakfast tray on bed shawl…

...and obviously, the staged pink kool-aid was more important than the water feature in the back yard (notice that you just barely see the edge of it on the left).

Just one word describes this homedebtor:

SUCKER.

Probably not…it looks like the new conforming limits would be around $700,000.

Those black granite counters over white cabinets are just too much for me to look at.  too much contrast and I cant look at it everyday I have was to buy it.

“Will the increase in the Jumbo loan assist anyone in buying this home?”

No, because even if this place was priced right, they’d have to qualifiy for real financing, something nobody has done in several years.

Highway to Hell, eh?  Awesome….......BUT I think IR missed it today by shooting his load on the AC/DC catalog.  He should of saved “Back in Black” for when the market turned around.

Although AC/DC was a little before my time, Back in Black reminds me of college.
For some reason, that song played at almost every party I attended.
It was a constant, just like loud music, cheap beer, red plastic cups, and sexy coeds.  Great Times!

“Will the increase in the Jumbo loan assist anyone in buying this home?”

Actually since the conforming loan limit is 700k, this home should be selling for 900k

I guess this goes along with the BusinessWeek article about how a 30% - 40% of people think their home is worth more now than last year.  Either this bagholder is in complete denial or this is just some kind of complete joke to make it onto the IHB.

I mean, really, if I made half a million a year and was sitting on $340,000 in cash for a down payment, does Mr. Bagholder really think I’d buy that thing?

Of course, maybe I’ll offer them full price so long as they cut me a check every month for the $14,000 negative equity burn ....

http://redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1414380

Not Irvine of course, but check out this listing for a 3/2 SFR, 7000 sf lot from South OC Tracker for 350K?

The lot is so small and the house so proportionally large, the landscaping hardly matters.  Much less water use than the evaporation from a swimming pool.

I wonder if this is greed and kool-aid or just plain old desperation.

I see these and I no longer see kool-aid drinking denial.  I see desperation.  I see a home debtor that needs $1.699M to breakeven. I suspect they can’t pony up the money to sell it if they get less.

Can anybody see if a NOD is out there already?  Did they HELOC?  Refi?  Or just option themselves to death?  Those are far more common than kool-aid at this point.

Since they haven’t been on the market, will a lender even consider a short sale if it is needed?  The loss even if they haven’t added anything to principal is probably $100K plus.  Will the lender go there?  doubtful, they’ll need 90 days on market with nothing first.

Yes, “Back and Black” was a party staple for years as was “You Shook Me All Night Long” which was the next track on the album, I believe…

Good times indeed…

I also wonder how much of all that furniture was bought since they moved in and how much is rental stage.  My gut tells me looking at the workroom/office that it is the ‘truth’ of the ‘owners’.

IR,

How about “Goodbye and Good Riddance to Bad luck” from The Razor’s edge and “Some Sin for Nothin” from Blow up your Video? I am a diehard AC/DC fan and just love today’s featured videos!!
Thank you!
PH

Nice catch, you’d make a great wingman.
Great song, can’t believe I forgot about that one.

IR, you missed the Gourmet Kitchen graphic.

IR,

It’s all coming back now.
What about “Money Talks”
That song rocks

You’ll need to make the graphic bigger too since this one has a “Large Gourmet Kitchen” and a “Huge Island”.

You mean the ‘Gourmet Kitchen’!

Talk about a whopping loss…

Last sale June 06 for $630K offered Jan 08 for $350K

Must be a really motivated sellar (lender-short) as it looks like it is priced $60k (15%) below the next lowest comp ($415K)

Hey, if we are going way back for music, how about some Jethro Tull:

Skating Away On Thin Ice

or

Living In The Past

By the time people are back in the black with their home purchases, everyone will have long ago forgotten today’s post…

My gut tells me looking at the workroom/office that it is the ‘truth’ of the ‘owners’.

I thought the same thing!

It seems like a steal and should get multiple offers immediately. Right?

Credit-Card Pinch Leads Consumers To Rein In Spending
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120243324726552445.html
Sinking home prices have made it much harder to convert home equity into cash for living expenses. At the same time, plastic has pushed into every corner of American life, making new inroads that worry some economists and card issuers.

In past economic downturns, Americans used credit cards mainly for discretionary purchases, such as furniture, appliances and jewelry. Now, however, many of them regularly whip out plastic to pay for groceries, gasoline and other everyday necessities.

Oh, and the Wall Street Journal is horning in on Irvine Renter’s song schtick:

Once Bitten, Twice Bitten? Banks Return to Subprime
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/02/08/once-bitten-twice-bitten-banks-return-to-subprime/
The big-haired hard-rock band Motley Crue once sang of a toxic relationship, “Girl, don’t go away mad; girl, just go away.”
You would think Wall Street would take the same approach to its own failed relationship with subprime mortgage lending. The investment banks have taken $100 billion in writedowns – and nearly as much in emergency capital infusions from foreign funds.

But Wall Street seems to still believe there’s money in them thar failed mortgages.

It is very difficult to get a short sale approved.  You can’t just look at your coming option arm recast in June and call the bank and request a short sale. 

You generally need to be 60-90 days late at least.  Secondly, the bank is going to request you send in financial information like your 1040 tax returns and statements of all of your assets.  They want to make sure you are really unable to pay the mortgage.  You will also need proof that the property has been listed with no offers.

After the bank (or servicing company) determines that you are in a genuine financial hardship they have to number crunch on the sales price of the home.  Like anyone, they will be hesitant to take a loss.

If all the stars align, and you are approved for a short sale, you will have to keep the buyers on the hook.  The process can take an agonizing 3-5 months.  This is not good when foreclosures and price drops are happening everywhere and everyday.  Chances are after the 3 month approval process the buyers will have found another property.

AC/DC songs written after 1980 don’t exist to me.

Not like they have anything to lose.  The government just proved once again that they’ll step in and bail them out at the expense of the taxpayer.

Poor Brian Johnson! Just kidding. I love Bon Scott’s vocals but Brian does kick some serious butt.

I would believe anything over 90 days on the market is over priced.  By this measure we have a long way to go.  Remember median household income (2 wage earners) in Irvine is about $106K (census data).  Assuming they have little other debt they could typically afford 3 to 3.5 times their annual income.  This should put median housing in the

“In a related study by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute, 60% of stated-income borrowers had exaggerated their incomes by more than 50%.”

“The remaining 40% had exaggerated their incomes by 49%.  However, the researchers are not entirely sure of their research because those polled are…liars!”

Besides at that time, the driving back beat of “It’s a long way to the top”  will make much more sense to anybody that caught a knife.

I was 3 years old when he died so I never got a chance to see him in concert, but the music they put out when he was alive has no equal.

in a free falling market like this, talking about “steal” is subject to time

Sex Pistols and The Talking Heads in my time.

I’m old, but punk clubs in Hollywood and Costa Meas were really fun then if you just got plastered and stayed away from the slam bangers.

Oh.. the ladies wore real short skirts too, a great improvement over the 70s.

For those of you that don’t visit the forums and were curious about the amount of your tax rebate, here’s a calculator:

http://www.ipoplaya.com/rebate.htm

Yeah, it’s beautiful, but a little too beautiful for anyone to actually be living there…

If I recall from a previous post of yours, didn’t you say you voted for Reagan?  Twice?  And who the hell refers to “the ladies” in short skirts?  You’re hardly punk, gramps.  You’d barely qualify as rock-n-roll.  Lawrence Welk sounds about right for your type, though.

1.7 M and you don’t even get a sexy washer and dryer?

Wow. I sold my condo in DC area for more than that last March. Oh the times they are a-changing.

Ay caramba… I suppose you think that Michael Jackson was always “white”....

You obviously are a product of the fake post rock period, with all of its rap and grunge that is really nothing more than a mixture of bullying bravado juxtaposed with Starbucks, various types of mineral waters, strong misogynistic tendencies, fake drugs, small speakers and the ownership of several tapped out VISA cards.

In the days of punk we broke the law by driving at 65mph, had real drugs, did have to deal with AIDS, used cash and drove Vegas/Pintos/Datsuns and had real turntables with really large speakers that put out gobs of very loud music filling the entire audible spectrum.

And we called them ladies, so what?  Do you think a little respect is above your head?  What that song by Rick James

She’s a very kinky girl
The kind you don’t take home to mother
She will never let your spirits down
Once you get her off the street, ow girl
She likes the boys in the band
She says that I’m her all-time favorite
When I make my move to her room it’s the right time
She’s never hard to please
{Refrain}
That girl is pretty wild now
The girl’s a super freak
The kind of girl you read about
In new-wave magazine
That girl is pretty kinky
The girl’s a super freak
I really love to taste her
Every time we meet
She’s all right, she’s all right
That girl’s all right with me, yeah
She’s a super freak, super freak
She’s super-freaky, yow
Super freak, super freak
She’s a very special girl
The kind of girl you want to know
From her head down to her toenails
Down to her feet, yeah
And she’ll wait for me at backstage with her girlfriends
In a limousine
Going back in Chinatown
Three’s not a crowd to her, she says
“Room 714, I’ll be waiting”
When I get there she’s got incense, wine and candles
It’s such a freaky scene
{Refrain}
{Bridge}
Temptations sing!
Ohhhhh
Super freak, super freak
That girl’s a super freak
Ohhhhh
She’s a very kinky girl
The kind you don’t take home to mother
She will never let your spirits down
Once you get her off the street, ow girl
Blow, Danny!

Nothing wrong with calling her a lady when she goes….At least I didn’t vote for Carter or Clinton.

Hey, it doesn’t work.  I get ZERO $$$$ back…..

Hey, it isn’t working for me either!!!!11!!  omgwtf

Would you guys feel better if I tweaked the code and remove the income phase out?

You could at least dream that way…

That makes Ford, Reagan, Bush, Dole and probably W. to all you little “gangsta” hoodlums out there. Now, that is a voting record to be proud of. All these men had “fly” policies. Personally, I wish these heros weren’t as intellectual as they were, but that’s what they had to be in order to get in “on the down low” “G”. “Represent” “yo”!

I could go out and get pretty smashed one weekend for $600, but I think I’ll make due without it.

You are embarrassing yourself by posting such ignorance. I used to believe the same propaganda before I read the economics book “The Secret”.

You forgot Perot.  I voted for him in the Primary.

Perkins Palace in Pasadena late 70s/early 80s was the spot. Fear, Black Flag, Wasted Youth - those were the days. Punk hasn’t existed since then.