Irvine Housing Blog

Don’t worry, Susan researched it. (My favorite video)

They are not making land anymore.

The realtor with Blue Pacific was so condescending to me and my wife as he said this that it made us angry.

Prices aren’t really going down much here in _________.

This property is still about $150K to $200K overpriced. It takes a large down payment, salary and commitment to take on this sort of financial burden. These people are still living in the past. I do believe that this housing market will take 3 to 4 years to recover because that’s how long it will take for people to realize that current house prices are out of touch with reality.

This area is different.  Prices won’t go down much here because ___.  (University town, near the beach, the bubble didn’t blow up much here, near tech firms, etc.)

“You can’t predict which way the market will go, so you should buy.“

I personally know three realtors. Out of the three, I’d say one is a truly honest agent. Of course, he left the business four years ago do do something else. Of the remaining two, I got:

“You better buy something now (in Irvine) because prices are just going to go up and you’ll never be able to afford anything.”

and

“You just can’t time the market.”

The one that left the business a few years ago never tried any of those tactics and was himself skeptical of the bubble pricing.

What I’ve learned in the last few years is that the real estate market can indeed be predicted. With my crystal ball I predict that next month will see another 1-2% monthly drop in the Case-Shiller national indices.

Have you done the Peter Gabriel yet, IR?

“But not me, I’m smarter than that,
I worked it out
I’ll be stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out” [ like assciototaoci ]

Of course, after the pergraniteel, we can add

“when I show them ‘round my house to my bed
I had it made like a mountain rage with a snow white pillow for my big fat head”

“And my [foreclosure] will be a big [foreclosure], and I will walk through the front door”

BIG TIME!

Your investment truism is great, but remember that houses aren’t merely potential investments.  Is my house down from when I bought it a year ago?  Yes.  Do I care? No.  Why?  I needed a bigger house so the kid could have some space.  I’m not planning on selling until she’s out of high school in 20 years, so by then the property will either be at or above what I paid for it.  Sure, maybe I could have better invested my money elsewhere (mattress, hole in ground, shorting stocks…), but we all need places to live. 

But as for realtor lies, my favorite is from the Simpsons.

Lionel Hutz:  You know our slogan “The right house for the right person.”  Well, the right house is the one for sale.  The right person is anyone…

Ahh… Realtors. I could write a book. I’ve been a real estate attorney for 17 years. In that time I’ve met/“worked” with (they avoid actual work like the Plague) hundreds of realtors. With the exception of a handful (that’s right, 5) - they are the most willfully stupid, crass, selfish, deceitful group of people I’ve ever known.
They lie all the time. I can’t tell you how many times I’d get a frantic or angry call from someone on a transaction (commercial or residential) - saying - “so and so Realtor said you wouldn’t let them buy/sell/close/sign/give me their first born”. They would literally make up lies to get to the only point in the transaction they cared about-  cashing their check.
They would actively avoid any actual assistance in this endeavor and always impeded the process by, you guessed it, lying.
Maybe I should write a book.
My favorite example is a broker who was “selling” 5 luxury condo units in Boston. They were priced between 1.9 and 5 million. You do the math on her commission.
She started making promises to the buyers about a radon report. It was not in the agreement and I told her so. She said “don’t worry, I’m just smoothing them over”. The client (seller/developer) and I agreed I’d stay out of it.
Guess what the buyer asked for at the closing table? (Radon report)
Guess where the broker was? (not there, had promised to be there, not reachable at any number).
Guess who dealt with it? (that’s right, the lawyers)
Guess who got paid $100,000 at that closing? (here’s a hint- it wasn’t the lawyers).

/Rant off.

This house is still overpriced. It’s a box. $750K for a box.

Sure, there are honest Realtards out there. Honest mortgage lenders (I’d like to think I’m one…) and if you look hard enough, honest used car salesment.

First the pet peeve vent: when a Realtard says “I looked at the closing statement and your fees are too high”....Most LO’s make $1000 per deal or so and the Realtard makes $25,000. Pot, met kettle.

If a strict flat commission fee of X (1 to 2%)on all sales were enforced, we’d get rid of the bad actors and retain those Realtors who want to make this profession a career. Trust me, Agents can survive on 1-2% max. Anyone who says otherwise is simply confused about their importance in the marketplace. Two homes a month at an average of price of $400k means a $16kpm income at a 2% cap. Is that kind of income going to lead to food stamp assistance? Hardly.

“But i’ve got marketing expenses….” Who cares? You can have all the marketing in the world but if you still can’t spell granite in your listing and take crappy photos on top of mispricing properties then marketing ain’t your biggest problem.

“But I’ve got assistants to pay…” perhaps fewer people in the “biz” will streamline the process. At an assumed $16kpm income level, you can do some of the work yourself, can’t you?

I could rant on, but I’ve burped up enough bile about Realtards for the day.

My .02

SGIP

Does anyone know if there is a way to list your home on the MLS without using a realtor?  I’ve see a link on this blog for this type of service but it seems to just be for the state of Florida.  Part of the probelm doing a for sale by owner is getting enough exposure, but if there is a cheap way to get on the MLS then I’m sure I could write a better description and take better photos than most realtors….

Remember that BOTH the seller and buyer realtors’ commissions are being paid by the seller. I thought “my” realtor’s focus on the house I bought was because it was a great deal for me. But in the final papers I saw that he received 5 percent commission on that house instead of the standard even split of 3 percent. A great deal indeed!

Great post on the Realtor. Everybody I know who was unemployable during the last 8 years became a RE agent. As first I wondered how someone that was not qualified to be a waiter or busboy could assist in the largest purchase of a lifetime. They truly do not care about buyer, seller, lender, families, etc. They only care about 1 thing…the commission check. RE agent is the most un-needed person on earth, a worthless 6% line item on closing contract.

The list is very true.  I was once asked by a agent to get in now because once the rates go up I will be only able to borrow 350K instead of 400K.  I told him that I would be happy with 350K.  He did not like my answer. 

Also I would like to add another item to the list that was quoted by one of the agent during bubble.  “Prices in orange county is never going down”.  Oh well, I guess she is shopping at dollar store for Christmas this year.

I wont’ be very surprised that this house was purchased by IAC executive on phase one from builders on 2003 and sold on 2005.
It’s a secret and a lot of lies on how phase one and two were determined during 2003-2004 period, especially this community.
IAC itself is OC biggest flipper of this housing bubble.

57 Bombay is also listed, slightly less sqft for 790K.  It also looks vacant.  Original price was 915K.

I just got my new property tax assessment, and it’s down 10%. That should save me about $1,000 next year! We bought this house new in ‘04, so conventional wisdom would say that I’m probably screwed. But we bought it for shelter, not investment. My mortgage is fixed at $1,340/month, which is less than my weekly paycheck. Back in ’04, I was so sickened by the 6% commissions, that we bought this house planning to live in it for 15 years or more. Other people I knew were bouncing around from one house to another back then, and all I could think of was 6%, 6%, 6%. Cha-ching, Cha-ching, Cha-ching! That seemed like a waste to me, so I wanted to make sure we’d be happy with this house for a long time. We got into the good school district, so my kids get that benefit for the next 9 and 12 years. We got 4,100sqft on 1/3 acre, so we won’t be hurting for space. The property taxes are stupid high, but now that’s dropping too. I honestly can’t believe they lowered my assessment. I didn’t ask for it or anything. This is like a form of stimulus. Now I could make improvements to my home, and the taxes would stay level. I sure would like some Pergranit in my kitchen. No stainless ‘teel appliances though. I like my white GE stuff. You’d think the countertop and flooring places would be having 1/2 off sales right now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Actually realtors need to be more clever and subtle by saying things like
“prices like these won’t last”

which is certainly true but perhaps not so clear???

Why wouldnt a buyers agent go on a flat fee? Wouldnt that prove that they actually can give proper feedback and it not be biased?

I think someone who did that would actually do quite well with the informed buyers (maybe there just arent many of those).

Realtors would go far if they could just be honest.
One said to me OH I hate Zillo—I said it’s great for consumers, the same one that said oh I didn’t see missing tiles on that roof, make a offer and we can get them to fix anything you want. REALLY they will do that if I make a offer. They are scum—all of them. I doubt I’ll buy a house here in CA. The majority of CA is fed from the fraudulent CA market.What will Arnold do? LOL

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Treasury Department is developing a plan to try to reduce mortgage rates on home loans to 4.5 percent on a 30-year mortgage by making fresh investments in those assets, sources familiar with the plan said on Wednesday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081203/bs_nm/us_financial_mortgages_treasury_1

“Assciatio”?  IR, you misspelled the word wrong in your spelling flame. 

With regards to “They are not making land anymore”, I thought the traditional form of that was “They are not making any more land”.  That wording can account for the fact that “they” were never making land in the first place.  Either way, though, I don’t think it’s fair to call that statement a lie, when it comes to Irvine and most central O.C. cities, where there isn’t *that* much land left not designated to open space or other uses where new housing development can be done.

Not to say there’s no developable land left, of course—just that all things considered, dwindling remaining areas for development do favor buying sooner rather than later.  Of course shrinking lot sizes may be a larger effect than rising prices, when it comes to that.

Re the commenter whose real estate agent didn’t want to make a lowball offer for fear of “insulting” the seller…

I had this experience, with amusing results. In 2004, I was set to make an offer on a condo here in Chicago, a rehabbed 4-room one-bed in my Rogers Park neighborhood. It was asking $139K. Well, just 2 years previous, a substantially similar but much more attractive place sold for $110K.

When I told my agent to offer $110K, she looked at me aghast. I mean, but the poor woman just went to pieces! Her lips began to quiver and her eyes appeared to be tearing. With a trembling voice, she said, “oh,honey, I just CAN’T make an offer like that. That is ridiculous. It would offend the agent and she might not work with me again, “and on and on, until she finally said, “Honey, I just can’t work with you anymore.” She turned me over to another agent rather than submit my offer.

Now, I’m not sure it was legal of her to refuse to submit my offer, for my understanding is that ALL offers must be presented to the seller. However, I’m glad she did, for the VERY SAME UNIT is languishing on the market at $85K… and I don’t want it anymore. It never was my first choice, and now I’m going for my first choice, for the price I think it’s really worth. So she saved me from making a bad choice.

How did you KNOW I was unemployable?!!!!!!!

Dick and Jill went up the hill to catch a little nap…umm, I took a dump on all your mortgages and the entire economy, my balls have decreased in value by 22%, so kiss my gay daughters ass….

I find that you have to go through several realtors before you can find someone that you can trust.  My last realtor actually did a lot of the work.  He showed up at the house several times to let people in.  He even offered to pay for the house to get cleaned b/c he didn’t want the buyer to start off with a dirty house.

With that being said, I went through three other realtors before I found him.  I generally despise the entire industry b/c they do lie.  In fact, it almost seems that the more successful you are, the more you have to lie.