Irvine Housing Blog

IR - It has a balconey relative to it’s neighbor. That must be worth $100K so I’m thinking there’s only $200K buried in the backyard.
——-

MAYBE USING ALL CAPS ALLOWS THE REALTOR TO PASS ON THE SAVINGS TO THE BUYER?

Ummm, the first has an extra 34 square feet, peopl. Surely that’s worth an extra $171,000?

No?

Yea, and it has no neighbor behind it, and it has a balcony. No spelling errors, either. It is definitely worth the extra $171,000.

Imagine that, it cost a million bucks to avoid having another house behind yours! This one is worth about $800K tops.

Foreclosure Filings Nearly Double

http://finance.myway.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?news_id=ap-d8s714t80&

Great article explaining the foreclosure filing statistics.  The doubling they are referring to is year over year - September 2007 compared to September 2006.  The unbelievers will cite the statistic that the September 2007 foreclosure number dropped some from August 2007.  But we know the truth…. It isn’t a light at the end of that tunnel - it’s actually the foreclosure train.

Amazing how “BACKS ONTO 4-LANE DIVIDED ARTERIAL ROAD” becomes “No neighbor behind!”

These houses epitomize the result of a housing boom. When the markets are slow the builders have to build product that looks reasonably good and has high quality components.

As the boom(bubble in this case) heats up, the quality goes down, down, down…....Until you end up with this sort of crap. This house is basically a box on a postage stamp. It is probably the largest box that you could build and get it approved by the city.

In most cities, this would be considered a slum.

That’s proper land planning by the Lords.  It’s been around for a while.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manors

Welcome to modern Serfdom!

well said

What a piece of crap - a builder’s dream.
Can you imagine how easy that thing was to build?

That balcony takes the cake.
I can see them now bolting that thing on, all in one piece, then stamping on the fake shutters and cheezy front patio cover.

$1M for that, plus association and mello roos?  No way.  Try $750k.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m paying over a mil for a house I’d want my front door to be more than 10 feet from the sidewalk and the lot to be at least the size of two postage stamps. No? Maybe even a pool of my own too. I guess you need to pay 2 mil for that.

I’m not a fan of the boxy look either. In fact, they kind of remind me of many of the small LA apartment buildings, just newer and nicer and with a driveway tunnel instead of covered parking spaces at the front of the building.

Why did they not list the lot size? I really do not like either of these places. There is basically no lot at all.

BTW, the 2nd prop used 100% financing and took out a huge HELOC in 2007.

The listing desc for the first prop says that there are no neighbors in the back, but what does that matter. They have a courtyard which is overlooked by the next door neighbors house, and its so fricken close.

The bank can’t seem to find a buyer for this courtyard box in Quail Hill (160 DOM), so they’re gonna screw the comps for this neighborhood.

ROLLBACK ~ Detached Box for $579,900 in Quail Hill:

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=731705

“This house is basically a box on a postage stamp. It is probably the largest box that you could build and get it approved by the city.

In most cities, this would be considered a slum.
“

But, but, but….. it has GRANITE COUNTER TOPS !!!!!!!!!

Does anyone agree that jst last two months, the house prices in north Irvine area dropped dramatically, I’ll say about 5% to 10%. I think there is somewhat different from the forecast chart IR made in a few months ago. I start believing the prices will go done much fast that the chart. Maybe at end of year we will see prices drops another 5-10%.
That say maybe I only need to wait one more year, not two years to buy a house.

In case anyone missed this, there’s a great story by Lansner in the Register today: http://www.ocregister.com/money/kleinhenz-says-sales-1886208-buyers-years

Thanks, that has the making of a Saturday update…

The scary thing about these recent price drops is that the foreclosure tsunami hasn’t hit yet. It is entirely based on a lack of available financing.

The foreclosures we are seeing today which are helping push the market lower are from people who defaulted in 2006. The major ARM resets from 2007 and 2008 haven’t entered the foreclosure pool yet. These REOs will hit the market when there is very little in the way of available financing.

This is going to get very ugly.

Quite right John. LA is filled with boxes roughly the same size, built in the 20’s and 30’s. Most of them have been converted into multi unit income properties, and we all know the results. Can you see it now, three families living a 5,000 sq ft reconfigured confinement on a 6,000 sq ft lot with no parking. They will have to demo the pool areas and construct parking structures.

I would say that this property is a sign of what’s ahead for the Irvine housing market. A home that sold for $706,000 a few years ago selling for $579,000. This is still overpriced by about $200,000.

It will be interesting to see if a knife catcher jumps at the $579,000.

Sorry, it sold for $725,000…..also, the bank knows they are going to lose money now.

not ugly….............FUGLY

Hey, and don’t forget about 57 Bamboo and 26 Teak Bridge:

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1024203

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1100347

Methinks they are the same house as these two as well…  Four of the exact same big boxes on the market at the same time.  Going to be great to see the price war that breaks out after the first one to take $975K.

Don’t think I like the room above the garage deal.  Maybe it would be cool if you had teenage kids as a game/media room, but with little ones, you’d probably never use it.  Not bad for a guest bedroom I guess.

Style is poor and the lots are small, but if they came crashing down in price, I’d buy one not on Trabuco just for the square footage.  It’d be nice to put a basketball hoop above the garage and have a nice area away from the street to play ball with the kiddies.  If only they had made the driveway two cars wide…

For $850K, I’d take one right now.

Who the hell designed these 2 story trailer homes with no depth and character?  This has to be the ugliest design I’ve seen, other than that house that looked like a 3 car garage featured a while back.

You’ve gotta hand it to the homebuilders.  In the last seven years they’ve been able to quickly erect these stucco built homes and sell them at prices far outreaching te better built brick and mortar homes in other parts of the country.

custom-built in California means cheaply-built.

Hey, ya gotta have granite counters nowadays.  As a matter of fact, there are a couple of guys demoing my lovely white tile kitchen counter right at this moment. 

You can get a bargain on granite counter upgrades right now since those guys aren’t getting much work nowadays.  When I slap my place on the market next year so I can buy up, my realtor will be able to put GRANITE COUNTERS in the MLS description too…

But Maestro, it has a studio/bonus room/mom-in-law/guest quarters above the garage. 

Doesn’t that make up for all its other shortcomings?!!

Digging for the gold under my rented Woodbridge patio!

Part of the bank’s problem is they gave the listing to a hack REO specialist.  Based on my small experience, the realtors that specialize in REOs are the bottom of barrel in terms of skill, professionalism, savvy, etc. 

Rhodes at CVC sold a place in my neighborhood a few months back, matter of fact the exact same model as my house.  Put a couple of shoddy pictures on the listing (one shot from the car with the window up - you could see the frame of the window of the car and reflection off the glass) and when they opened housed it, left trash and crap lying around in the house.  Light fixtures were hanging off the wall, placed hadn’t even been cleaned.  Unbelievable how little work that realtor does/did…

Seems like they did a little better job with the QH listing though.

anyone call the listing agent to find out the price difference?  I wanted to bug her and see her thoughts.  from redfin: Elain Nermon

Yep.  Here’s the latest PMI report

http://www.pmi-us.com/media/pdf/products_services/eret/pmi_eret07v3s.pdf

United States market Risk Index
#1 - Riverside-San Bernadino-Ontario, CA
#2 - Las Vegas-Paradise, NV
#3 - Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, CA
#3 - Phonix-Mesa_scottdale, AZ
#4 - Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA

Countrywide Says Bad Mortgages Rise, New Loans Fall (Update4)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHptyAhx_CSU&refer=home

29% of Calif. first-time homebuyers put zero down

http://lansner.freedomblogging.com/2007/10/11/29-of-calif-first-time-homebuyers-put-zero-down/

Realtors are forced to reevaluate
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-realtors11oct11,1,4548500.story

In left sidebar, click on the 15-year-low bar graph
()

Neither ugly nor fugly.

PRETTY!!!  (Insert smiley face here).

Wait a second, so what you guys are saying is that the pool is NOT in their OWN backyard??!!  Also, the shot showing the picnic tables is not part of their yard either??!!

And for over a MILLION bucks!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??

Please don’t tell me that the opposing window I see (under the hanging pot) on the balcony photo is their next door neighbor’s??!!  No way!!! Don’t tell me that…

How much would it cost me to put Granite Toilet Seats in my home?

That would really be the touch eh?  GRANITE THRONES…. ;-D

I just realized something…....those bastards at the real estate convention are saying that housing will fall only 4% next year. They know that this is complete crap…............they know that the asking prices are down 6% in the past 3 months.

They are going to start telling people that the most risk they have in purchasing a home is just a 4% reduction in value…..and that the prices will increase that much in the next few years…..not so much risk.

I don’t think they make seats, but you can get granite toilets for only $1500 a pop:

http://stores.channeladvisor.com/moderndanish/items/item.aspx?itemid=260754

At least you could then say you had a STONE THRONE!

The CAR projections forecast a 2% drop in median between this past August and the end of this year.  A paltry 6% between the credit crunch and the end of 2008?!  How the hell has my place fallen $100K since last year and the median only to move down 6%?!  Gotta be impossible.

thanks larry, I agree, most likely will shoot down to 650k if credit standards go back to normal

I notice, alot of people are pissed about designs, I’m sorry to inform you that most of Irvine is designed that way form Woodbury, Quail hill, TR, and even nicer areas.

some of the nicer designs are the older houses designed in the 70s-80s and early 90s. every thing during this boom is fugly. that’s why I recently moved out of Irvine to Laguna where it’s more family friendly and houses look like houses not boxes. just MHO

why cant it all JUST HIT AT ONCE? I’m tired of the suspense!

Let’s not get emotional about unrealistic predictions here.

Don’t waste your money, wait for $550,000.

In Sacramento, where the same speech you are giving now was given here not long ago, it is easy to find houses that have dropped 30% in value. And that is not from listing price, that is from previous sale price.

And here it is getting easy to see the higher end mansions lose value (from previous sold price) in the good areas.

We started to see the downturn in 2006.

LA area is next.

Somehow, I don’t think the -4% makes a very convincing pitch anyhow.

Ex. “This is a great sweater isn’t it?  You can buy it today and it’ll only cost you 4% more than it would if you came back next week”
-not the greatest sales pitch

Sacramento is widely reported to be one the major epicenters, along the Riverside and San Bernardino Countys, Vegas, Phoenix, etc….  For crying out loud, that’s where www.iamfacingforeclosure.com was born!

My point has never been that Irvine / the OC is immune from the impending downturn, but rather that it will not be the chicken little scenario that many proclaim it will be.

Will we see declines?  Sure.
Are foreclosures going to spike? Of course.
Are there still going to be out there looking to buy?  YES
Will life go on?  Absolutely.
Am I tired of interviewing myself? Definitely.

I think that window belongs to the bonus room above the garage.

I don’t get the Southern California attraction to ceramic tile.  Is it cheaper to install than other (better) flooring options?  It’s bad enough that everything here is built on concrete, but then to put a hard surface like ceramic tile on top of that concrete is just idiocy.

The thing that surprises me most, though, is that people put laminate flooring in homes they want to sell for a million dollars.  Actually, I guess it surprises me no matter what the selling price is.

“How much would it cost me to put Granite Toilet Seats in my home?

That would really be the touch eh? GRANITE THRONES…. ;-D
“

HAHAHAHAH ROFL !!!!

Now that’s CLASSIC !!!!

“Digging for the gold under my rented Woodbridge patio!”

I have a jack hammer, and backhoe if you need help digging
for that shiny yella.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2007/10/tracking-countr.html

Tracking Countrywide
If you haven’t noticed, we enjoy numbers and statistics on this blog. Today Countrywide reported its operational statistics for September, which we took as an opportunity to lay out some recent metrics for Countrywide—which we consider the best proxy out there for the entire mortgage industry.

Month   Mortgage fundings   Delinquencies*  Foreclosures**
March   $43.2 B               4.29%            .69%
April     $40.5 B               4.45%            .69%
May     $44.4 B               4.71%            .71%
June     $45.3 B               4.98%            .74%
July     $39.1 B               5.10%            .79%
Aug.    $34.4 B               5.05%            .89%
Sept.    $21.2 B               5.87%            .92%

Auction: Southern California - Over 600 Homes

http://www.hudsonandmarshall.com/auctionInfo.asp?auctionName=Southern+California+-+Over+600+Homes!&auctionID=379

Beazer Homes Reports Surge In Cancellations of Orders

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119210834369455953.html

Beazer reported that 68% of its prospective home buyers canceled their orders in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 30. The cancellation rate was almost double the 36% of customers who canceled orders and gave up deposits in the prior quarter.

Quite a few interesting statistics in there

The United States of Subprime

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119205925519455321.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=1

High-rate mortgages accounted for 29% of the total number of home loans originated last year, up from 16% in 2004. About 10.3 million high-rate loans were made in the past three years, out of a total of 43.6 million mortgages. High-rate lending jumped by an even larger percentage in 68 metropolitan areas, from Lewiston, Maine, to Ocala, Fla., to Tacoma, Wash.

To examine the surge in subprime lending, the Journal analyzed more than 250 million records on mortgage applications and originations filed by lenders under the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Subprime mortgages were initially aimed at lower-income consumers with spotty credit. But the data contradict the conventional wisdom that subprime borrowers are overwhelmingly low-income residents of inner cities. Although the concentration of high-rate loans is higher in poorer communities, the numbers show that high-rate lending also rose sharply in middle-class and wealthier communities.

Mortgage Turmoil Hits Renters
Tenants Face Eviction When Their Buildings Go Into Foreclosure

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119206052887155348.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=1

U.S. Investors Face An Age of Murky Pricing
Values of Securities Tougher to Pin Down; Discord at Dillon Read

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119214581308956665.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=1

Rather reminds me of the origins of the phrase “don’t let the cat out of the bag”.

Supposedly, back in the Dark Ages, when you sent to sell a pig, you put it in a bag so it couldn’t run away.

Sometimes, dishonest people put a cat rather than a pig in the bag, as pigs cost more than cats.

Humor:: Countrywide wristbad for sale on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Countrywide-PROTECT-OUR-HOUSE-Wrist-Band_W0QQitemZ220159266937QQihZ012QQcategoryZ13549QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Q:  Will you finance the purchase @ 110% of the auctioned value? Oct-11-07
A:  Hahahaha… nope sorry, this is a cash up front deal.

Because that wouldn’t be an orderly adjustment.  Fed doesn’t like disorderly adjustments.

Ah, that explains the 4 airplanes with banners I saw flying over Quail Hill today.  Saw the WaMu logo on one, assume it’s refi offers.

Guess the Fed helicopter cash drops weren’t enough, so they had to send in a few more planes ...

Housing recovery seen as far as 3 years off

http://lansner.freedomblogging.com/2007/10/11/housing-recovery-seen-as-far-as-3-years-off/

You are suprised that realtors intentionlly lie?

I actually like the design.  Some of the designs were meant to resemble the homes of “Old Hollywood,” and you see many of this type in the LA area.  Not all home designs are for everyone.  This one could use a could of small trellises in the front.

What I don’t like about it is the kitchen.  The major stations, stove/ovens, sink(s), and refigerator, are too spead out and also violate the “triangle” rule.  I would be constantly running between the three.  No thanks!  My 30-year-old house in Northwood has a smaller but well-designed kitchen.

Why bubble home values may decline for years. A mortgage perspective.
http://thegreatloanblog.blogspot.com

Ah, there’s the CAR positivity….“It’s a moderation in the pace of decline, so from that perspective I guess it is positive,”

Housing slowdown is likely to persist
Realtors predict ‘08 sales and prices will decline

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20071011-9999-1b11housing.html

Still, the association said a drop in volume of 9 percent in existing single-family homes would be an improvement over this year’s projected drop of 23 percent.

“It’s a moderation in the pace of decline, so from that perspective I guess it is positive, but we’re certainly getting to a relatively low level of sales,” said Leslie Appleton-Young, the association’s chief economist.

State’s housing market agony predicted to deepen next year
Sales and prices will plunge even further after worse-than-expected ‘07, Realtors say

http://www.sfgate.com/flat/archive/2007/10/11/chronicle/archive/2007/10/11/MN5ISN7GA.html

“This is the weirdest downturn in the history of California,” said GU Krueger, vice president at Irvine’s IHP Capital Partners, one of the largest U.S. investors in residential development. “Most previous downturns were driven by super-high interest rates or very weak economic fundamentals. This one is neither. It’s driven by prices getting ahead of incomes and by the drying up of financing that was making the run-up in pricing possible.”

Most economists agree a turnaround won’t come until the excess inventory of new homes is burned off, foreclosure sales peter out and prices decline to a level enticing to buyers.

“It’s what happens the morning after the party is over,” Krueger said. “We were overvalued, and now we’re depreciating - it will help with affordability, there’s no doubt about that.”

Humor: Read the fine print at the bottom

Lennar Guaranteed Pricing

http://www.lennar.com/promotions/saw.aspx?pid=4802&CityID=SDO&SourceID=MKT

Too bad we’ll never see Bush debate this with Cramer - that’d be some must see TV!

UPDATE 2-Bush: U.S. housing weakness not nationwide

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2007-10-11T214352Z_01_N11270790_RTRIDST_0_BUSH-ECONOMY-UPDATE-2.XML&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=InvArt-C1-ArticlePage2

Mortgage industry miseries mount
Waves of workers now are showing up at the unemployment office as the job market dries up.

http://www.ocregister.com/money/mortgage-job-says-1887300-workers-one

36 Secret Garden is now officially a roll-back.  List was dropped to $999K…