Irvine Housing Blog

It’s only a matter of time.  How many years have you been saying that now?  A broken watch is right twice a day.

Maybe this realtor can help get this place moving (please note the pictures)
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Riverside/10347-Pendleton-St-92505/home/4784836
props to DrHB for this find

Actually, if it weren’t for the large number spec homes that were built prior to the housing bust, I don’t think Shady would be different than any other neighborhood.

The rich do tend to move around a bit more than others - maybe it is because they can, or maybe it is because they are always a bit dissatisfied with the status quo (which is usually part of the reason they are rich in the first place).

Houses that were listed in the $7 million range have now dropped into the low and mid-$5’s. There is one a new 7,000 sf Santa Barbara just started on Boulder View which is now at $4.995m. Considering the size of the home and location, especially when you consider the alternatives in dense-pack neighborhoods like Turtle Ridge or Newport Coast at around the same price, it doesn’t seem like Shady is overpriced.

However, with regard to the home you featured - yes $18.5 million dollars is ridiculous. It was probably built for less than half that, and the owner is clearly out of touch.

Here is a house warming present.  I think it will go quite well in the fancy-pants parlor room.

I think that this is my favorite room so far of any property you have ever profiled.  Hands down hilarious to think of someone actually living in a Gulag like this.

Fantastic find.  Thanks for the laughs.

If I’m reading redfin right, these flippers paid $2.8 mil for the property in 03 and spent another $3 mil building this palace on it for a total investment of $6 mil.

If they get their asking price, it would be a profit of $13 mil.

That would be a nice payday!

I think “Dream On” would have been a better song choice for this one.

Too funny! I particularly like the “city lights view” of the Emerald City. Is that Irvine? Who is the real estate agent behind the curtain?

Can somebody explain to me why this would be a bad idea (or maybe it wouldn’t be):

Instead of readjusting the principal of mortgages to help people who paid to much for their houses, why don’t banks look at what monthly payment the owners can actually make and then re-amortize the loan over whatever period it would take to make the payments the right size.  For example, if someone signed on to pay $700,000 for a condo, but can only afford to pay $1500 a month for a mortgage, it might turn their 30 year loan into an 80 year loan.  Nobody gets kicked out of their house, and people are held accountable to what they agreed to pay.

Am I missing something?

$18 million dollar house profile is not what an average person visiting your site would care about, IR.

We’re not all Hannah Montanas, ya know

So suffice to say that my previous comment yesterday is starting to take hold. Ipoplay must be gleeful right now….

Oh well :-(

This is a celebrity owned home by a former professional baseball player.

If you don’t mind a little drive south and a “savings” of 3Mil you will find something a little more appropriate. I’m sure this is a spec home that had the average housewife of OC in mind.

http://www.paseoelegancia.com/template/site/index.php?siteno=47

I wonder who this home is being marketed to anyhow. 

IMHO, the owner of an $18M, 15K sq foot house won’t give much of a rat’s ass about visiting the kitchen ‘cause he’d better have a cook and some help.

OTOH, the underground, err… dungeon, would be very useful to whip the chef when the souffle is not puffy enough, or when the tenants in Newport Beach fall in arrears and need some re-education.

Seriously, a lot of these homes represent a “nouveau rich” attitude.  They still reflect a lower upper/high middle class lifestyle and hence are difficult to sell.  After all, for a house this large, I don’t really want to see the kitchen, the laundry room nor the “operations” parts of the house.  I just want my office, my toys and the ability to cook and BBQ if I feel like it. 

Otherwise, I would want an industrial quality kitchen and food storage so my chef can prepare “tournados de beauf au cognac et champignons” whenever I feel like it.

Also, I don’t see a proper library/smoking room…  nouveau rich indeed.

Nice video clip.

If you like it, watch this 3-part one by Alan Watts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aufuwMiKmE

Is there much shade in shady canyon?  LOoks kinda bleak; the deal on the other hand certainly conforms to the definition.

Is that Amish recycled barn siding on the interior?  Nice touch.

I’m not sure why anyone would blow this much cash in Shady. I’d rather get an oceanfront home on the coast or a spectacular view in a private community in Laguna or Newport. More temperate weather and your changes of getting on MTV are much much higher.

The video is a bit weird, but I like that Loanzen site.  At least if they start to get a lot of users.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/12/60minutes/main4666112.shtml

60 minutes tonight

I’m curious about the “the surrounding vineyard provides two barrels of wine at harvest”.  Where can I sample some of this wine?  Do you think they will offer weekend wine-tasting events?

I never knew that Irvine was a prime grape growing region.  The Irvine Company really missed out on this.  They could have turned the hills of Shady Canyon into the next Napa.

The Loanzen site looks kind of cool. I see how this could be super helpful if more people used it.

The Shady house is a joke. Never, ever, will it see anything close to that LP. Then again in the future bubble of 2067 maybe.

“Nearby Similar Sales
No similar recent past sales could be found.”

Says it all, doesn’t it?

The decor of this place is a little over the top.