Irvine Housing Blog

Maybe he is doing a stupid realtor trick.  He will later advertise “price reduced $300k”

$624 a square foot??!?

Considering a buyer will (probably) have to pay all cash to pay that price in this market, here’s an alternative living arrangement…

Find a $600 a night hotel room, and reserve it for six and a half years. 

I’m guessing you’ll be able to get a damn nice hotel for that price, even in Irvine.

Wow, I’ve never seen someone double their asking price after not being able to sell their house!  You’re right, they need help -no interior pictures, no description highlighting relevant data, etc.  I’ve seen many WTF priced listings but this one takes the cake (Dr. Housing Bubble provides many laughs with Real Homes of Genius awards).  I assume that some people try to sell at high prices b/c of MEW, and they have to try to sell so they can go back to their lender and try to work things out (or justify short sale, etc.).  But this one - unless he has that much debt - truly defies logic.

For 1.5M, I’d like a place to stash my trash cans away from my patio furniture. Hell, I have that for 1/10th the cost in my current home.

This pricing is the same as me saying I’ll sell you some Goldman Sachs stock for $240/share, and is even worse, because GS could get back up there, but I doubt this home will double in value again anytime soon.

This is a spot where Shiller’s real estate options market would make sense, and why the stock market can make more sense than real estate.  If you saw people trading options on your home valuing it at $800k, it would not make sense to try selling options at $1.5M.

When you read stories like this, you realize just how unhealthy The Great Real Estate Bubble is/was.  Has this bubble been a wealth builder, or a debt builder & economic destroyer?

Time to rant a moment ...

Is there anyone who finds it ironic that the current administration is planning on expanding the Fed’s responsibilities to include more oversight over the banks, and the “too big to fail” problem.

HELLO???????

Is this not the same Federal Reserve who more than any other entity is responsible for this massive Ponzi scheme!  Is this the same Federal Reserve that denied for a very long time that there was a real estate bubble!  Is this the same Federal Reserve that dropped rates to 1% in order to defer an economic recession (needed-reset) after 9/11, kicking the can down the road, causing and then denying economic imbalances, ultimately creating the largest economic collapse since The Great Depression.  Giving the politically charged Fed more responsibility is about the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard!

Rant~

If the FDIC, The Fed and the Treasury are so concerned with “too big to fail” firms, why would they assist JP Morgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo to gobble up more financial firms, and actually become much bigger.  I don’t really have an answer on what should have happened to Countrywide, WaMu, Wachovia and Merrill Lynch, but to hand’em over to larger firms, seems irrational ... aren’t we making these banks bigger casinos?  Yes, yes we are!

Rant~

I have NO patience for economic ideologues!  Especially right-wing, “free marketeers” like Larry Kudlow, who insist that this collapse was a result of too much regulation.  Larry Kudlow is a true political animal ... someone who is capable of captaining the Titanic, and setting sail straight for the Arctic, just to prove the point that big chunks of ice are incapable of sinking a ship that not even the almighty could sink!  WTF?  Now because the nations free market banking system was left to irrational, irresponsible morons, who were all suppose to self regulate, we’re watching free market sectors being gobbled up, and bailed out by the state.

The “free market”, no regulation, uncompromising, ideologues should have NO seat around any economic policy table.  Their idiocy more than anything encouraged this leveraged and then hedged, pile of shit that we’re dealing with.

“Markets are not self regulating, and people are not rational.” ~ Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture Blog

BTW, make no mistake, I’m a free market capitalist, just a reasonable one.

I feel better now. 

On second thought, maybe this is at the urging of the neighbors?  Maybe this is somehow being used to help other WTF prices appear more reasonable?

I remember way back in 2007 when asking prices were sometimes used as a reference for market values for cashout refis and helocs. 

Wow.  It seems like I was watching science fiction on tv, rather than seeing this in real life.

The absence of indoor photos is a huge problem for me.  Old, old neighborhood.  a zillion dollar price tag on this home and no photos of the interior.

These folks are clueless beyond belief.

Now, if we could somehow get the 12 Lorenzo owner to comment on this blog as Property Owner did for the crooked house,,,!

Culverdale Elementary is about 200 yards….
Now that’s a strange way to describe a school:P
Or, maybe he means there are 200 houses with yards between his house and the school. Or maybe the school size is 200 yards.

I’m guessing you’ll be able to get a damn nice hotel for that price, even in Irvine.

Not only that, but if you put all but a year’s worth
of the hotel rent into a 1 yr CD @ 2% APR, you’ll come out 25K ahead as well for the year, there no appreciation that’ll make this a worthy investment unless you’re planning on selling it when the grandkids need to go to college.

When we go through open houses, we see a lot of crap.  I usually just want to politely say “thank you” to the realtor and leave.  But my wife is great.  She usually wants to tell them how overpriced the house is.

Last weekend we looked at a 4/2 1400sqft house that was trashed.  There was mold on the ceilings in the bathroom.  In order to move into the house, it would absolutely need: new kitchen (the cabinets were falling apart), new carpet, paint (many walls were partially painted in random colors), new bathrooms.  The owner was still living there, so there was still tons of junk piled up all over the place.  The listing price was $397,000.  My wife was like “this house would be overpriced at $275!”  “This place is disgusting.”

If more people act like this in open houses (for all I know EVERYBODY told the realtor the same thing), will it help realtors to see that asking prices are still insane?

Of course after we left, my wife was trying to get me to make an offer on the house for $225,000.  lol

Just when you think it isn’t possible for NAR to stoop any lower or get more desparate, check out this para from today’s NAR release on existing home sales:

Yun said the appraisal problem is serious. “Lenders are using appraisers who may not be familiar with a neighborhood, or who compare traditional homes with distressed and discounted sales,” he said. “In the past month, stories of appraisal problems have been snowballing from across the country with many contracts falling through at the last moment. There is danger of a delayed housing market recovery and a further rise in foreclosures if the appraisal problems are not quickly corrected.”

So, we basically need to get back to the local appraisor - which I assume means the brother in law of the real estate broker?  We should exclude the foreclosures eminating from the bogus appraisals of the mid 2000’s?

IR: I suggested this a bit earlier but it was at 5pm so no one read it.  A some days back someone said that they are now numb to a $250k loss on a 1/1.  Would it be possible to start a debt clock type of idea that counts up the losses of each profiled property that you have done thus far? I am sure we are well into the $350,000,000 range. ($250k minimal loss/profile * 350 posts per year * 4 years—I know these numbers are not correct but they are a guess).  Maybe folks won’t be as numb to it that way and it is really interesting.

What’s with the clock? It is an hour off again.

An alternative story can be the owners are lonely and want company.

At another open house in TR, a neighbor mentioned that seller has not accepted any offers in 2 years, was lonely and just wanted visitors.  She does the open house herself and enjoyed compliments on her remodeling.

I’ve never visit an open house with a RE that didn’t say that this is the best time to be buying.  I did have some RE’s that hinted should look elsewhere.

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies released a study yesterday. An excerpt reads as follows:

“So-called “echo boomers will help keep (housing) demand strong for the next 10 years and beyond” as they turn 25-44 years old, according to the report.
“Even under the low immigration assumptions, minorities will fuel 73 percent of household growth in 2010-20, with Hispanics leading the way at 36 percent,” researchers found.”

I’m guessing that very few, if any, will be buying starter homes in Irvine at current prices.

At this price one would expect a pool, newer roof or at least steamed clean, new paint, a view, three car garage, a thousand sq. feet more interior—and all fixed up inside—plus larger yard—that might approach 1.5 in Newport as well.

Extreme overpriced—it’s worth $700k since nothing is new—

Maybe the owner owns the house next door and is selling both for one price.  It would explain why the price is twice as high as it should be.

I wouldn’t advertise “Culverdale Elementary school” proximity as a “benefit.”  Culverdale is one of the lowest scoring (API=848) or rated schools in Irvine and has one of the highest population of low income earners (apparent from the percentage of children getting free/discounted lunch).

Here’s the top schools in Irvine:

http://school-ratings.com/schoolRatings.php?zipOrCity=Irvine

You notice that the better the school rankings and scores, generally, the more pricy the homes.

A check of IPOPlaya’s site reveals a similar house at 11 Capobella (2,372 square feet, built in 1988)sold last month for $799K. Since it appears the market has doubled since then, pardon me while I write my FSBO listing.

My guess is the owner is listing the property with no intentions of selling it while not making payments. He probably has informed the bank he needs time to sell the property and the bank will let him stay in the property with hopes he will sell it. Nobody will pay over 750K for this property.