Irvine Housing Blog

Where’s Bill?

use your smaller home, custom lot, or investment properties as down payment

First time buyers need not apply.

Congrats!!!

Hilarious!

Your blog is simply one of the best on the entire web. It’s the only one that has saved me thousands of dollars by disabusing me of the dangerous and expensive notion that “home prices always go up.” I bailed on housing before the crash and I am sitting on my cash waiting for the Obama economic nightmare to end and real estate to absolutely bottom. Keep up the good work. If we can’t laugh at idiots what’s the point of it all?

Congratulations on your victory and for standing up for you rights!

Larry, congratulations on your victory.  To me it was a victory against the trolls who filed the suit against you, but more importantly a victory against realtor b.s. everywhere.  I enjoyed your childhood story and applaud you for taking the road less traveled.  - Tom in San Diego

P.S.  We could use a blog like this down here in San Dog…

I’ve been meaning to ask this but are the minor changes I’ve been noticing in the property listing section somewhat related to the dismissed grievance?

The things like:

“On Redfin”

and

“Proprietary IHB commentary and analysis”

Keep up the great work.

These kinds of sellers are my favorite.  They are basically playing the make me move game while assuming that any potential buyer will be too ignorant as to bother looking at the history of this place floundering on the market like a fish out of water.

At some point one has to ask themselves when it is time to move on with their life.  If you want to sell it then keep slashing the price until it finds a buyer and quit wasting the time of buyers who shouldn’t be siftingthrough a bunch of houses for sale by delusional sellers who cannot accept the reality of the market.

There is a seller like this in the neighborhood I am watching.  They are playing the exact same game with the listing.  Add 100K then drop 10K per month for 10 months, rinse, lather, and repeat.  Going 3 years now.  The sign in the front yard is rotting and faded and leaning hard like it is about to fall over.  I keep wondering why the HOA doesn’t make them at least straighten up the sign.  I would be pissed off if my neighbor had a for-sale sign in the yard for 3 years.  Why not add some Flamingo lawn ornaments while at it?  Or leave the over-sized candy cane’s out in the front all year round?

Clearly, the seller does not want to just “give it away” and rightfully so.  I mean they paid 120K for it in the 90’s and they are entitled to sell it for 400K after 20 years of dropping golden turds in it.  You don’t want some prick of a buyer to lowball you at 250K and net you a peasant’s 130K profit.  No sir, keep holding out.  Your fantasy buyer is on the way.

Congratulations.

I still think that the OCAR made a mistake and owes you a written apology

Peak buyer

Slow clap…

Irvine Renter

Congrats on your legal victory.

I have always found it interesting that professional groups (ie OCAR), wouldn’t in fact *embrace* blogs like yours and use it as a source of competitive, cutting edge business intelligence.

After all, the price is sure right, not to mention that your postings and follow on astute observations collectively represent thousands of hours of free market research.

so much did this principled fight cost you?

The sad part of this is that most people will never hear about this and net net, they have only cost IR money to defend. Are you going to think twice before bashing them again JIC they might bring another suit to make you defend again? Did they accomplish exactly what they wanted with this trick?

The OCRA basically had their members chip in $5 each and it costs IR thousands out of his own pocket to prepare to defend. (unless some attorney did it pro-bono on the principal of it but it still cost him time away from his business)

Congrats on the victory IR.  I am glad you stood your ground and they backed off.

One thing you wrote stuck out at me:
“But this blog is like visiting my house. If people don’t like the rules here, they don’t need to come visit.”

I love reading this blog and have been a reader before you were the main writer.  But thinking of it as your house is not correct.  The reason this blog took off and OCFlipTrack didnt was because of the community aspect this blog drove.  The comments were meaningful and added to the discussion greatly.  What many blog writers seem to forget unfortunately is that while it is *their* blog, its really the entire readership that makes it something worthwhile reading.  I appreciate your insights and posts but I also enjoy reading through the comments.  I know you encourage both sides of the discussion and are very open to keeping majority of comments so dont get me wrong, your actions have been great.  I just hope you realize its not so much your house as its your community hall or your pub. 

By the way, not to rehash this but just yesterday I was reading through some of the old forum posts on schools in various parts of Irvine and was amazed by the wealth of knowledge there.  I know you werent able to monetize or justify its existence so no comments on you closing it down.  I do appreciate that the threads are still there and if you ever decide to take them down, please do give us a heads up.

I.R. A few disconnected comments: Re: “No dark heavy feel…” They shouldn’t let us see a picture of that kitchen before saying that. It looks to me like the inside of a really big coffin. It sounds like a bit of a reaction formation, kind of like “Fair and Balanced”. If you have to say it, it probably isn’t so. Most likely the seller is describing the gradual grinding down of his optimism, as the carrying costs on this thing eat away at his imagined riches.“No dark heavy feel, nothing to see here…”

Re: The IHB as a free source of info for realtors; My next door neighbor, a realtor is working with my daughter & son in law in their home search. His advice, “don’t hurry” after all “home prices really only track wage growth over time” I think the message is there for those who will struggle a bit with their pre-conceived notions or NAR indoctrination.

SB

How do you have a $3M+ home and only 25 bottles of wine?  If I had a $3M home, I’d have a fully-stocked cellar.

How much did it cost you?

I’m am happy and relieved for you.  Keep up the great work!  Victory is yours!

Great job taking a massive crap on the faces of the scum-sucking Realtor® dogs. Keep after them. Demand they all be indicted and stuffed into wedding dresses and sent into prisons filled with psychopathic neonazi cannibal serial killers so they can enjoy the company of colleagues.

I hope it didn’t suck too much money out of you.

IR,
Good for you.
In facing bullies and the unjust, sometimes you lose, but they might think twice before doing it again.  Applies later in life too.

Your got to know when to hold them, when to fold them and when to run….  ...Tommy lock the door.
“Coward of the County” by Kenny Rogers

No, that sounds about fair to me ... no wait, make it in an ARIZONA jail, they have this warden there that makes prison life extra humiliating, plus location, location, location!—LOL

Haha, awesome, so OCAr dismissed a complaint that wasn’t even valid to begin with.

It’s like me withdrawing my claim for the throne of England.

IR, if you had to use your own money to defend, why don’t you set up a trust fund for those who would like to contribute to your cause.

I’ll personally donate $50 (it’s a token amount) via Paypal if you set one up.

Chris

Congratulation, IR.

From beautiful and sunny (yes! sunny!) Seattle, IR, my congratulations.  You did the right thing, took on the bullies, and made them eat crow.  I’m proud of you for doing so.

Now keep taking them on.  Every bit of bullshit you disinfect with sunlight is that much more information to enlighten potential buyers—not to mention fun for us snarkers.