Irvine Housing Blog

“custom distressed cabinetry”??? Wtf? I mean, ok, the cabinets may not be too happy being so close to those goddamn awful green tiles, but still, isn’t this a quite surprising choice of words for an ad allegedly designed to praise the property?
:D
——-

IR,

I’m thankful for:

1.  My family and friends.
2.  My exciting, fulfilling career
3.  Selling my house in Turtle Rock for a killing before the party stopped

I’m still working on the inner-peace thing.

IrvineRenter,  thank you sincerely for all your contributions to this blog.  It is an informative and enjoyable start to my workday.  I’ve received quite an education over the last 9 months or so, and I am grateful.  I intend to return to Orange County in a few years, and having dodged a bullet once, I will not buy a house that requires a mortgage of over 3X my income.  My sense is that will be possible in Irvine in 2010.

Carl

The Sales History looks like a data base error. Very strange!

Note to sellers: When you put your place on the market and it does not sell in 90+ days, it might be time do some thinking. Use “drama pricing” as a starting point.

I am sure there is someone who will like this condo, but it is too small for me. I live in a similar arrangement - 2/3 townhome, but I have 1800 sq ft. 1155 sq ft is kinda tight.

Thankful for:

My wife, who puts up with this introvert.
Early retirement.
No debt.

To Irvine Renter

You asked “what other kind of wallpaper is there?”

Actually, there are many other kinds, like the certificates for stocks and notes and bonds on dozens of defunct lenders and builders, and failing hedgefunds. Millions of mortgages that are also now “wallpaper”.

The library in this place would look cute papered with this stuff.

“My G-d, what an ugly kitchen!” was my first thought upon seeing this listing.  I think “distressed cabinetry” sounds better than “distressing tile.”

NO GRANITE
NO GOURMET KITCHEN

My God… this place belongs in Costa Mesa!

Excuse my ignorance, but what make a place where you cook a gourmet kitchen?

Tiles in the kitchen is bad idea unless you eat out 95% of the time.

The sale history looks like it is for the entire complex or something.

The definition of “gourmet kitchen” used to mean that you had “professional quality” appliances and a large enough workspace to handle constant and heavy duty cooking plus the ability to cook complicated recipes ( high quality ovens, simmer control, etc…)

Nowadays it has become meaningless because of the clueless RE marketing crap and the advent of stainless steel clad consumer grade appliances.  I mean, when you can go to Sears and buy a consumer grade range with 10K BTU burners and a stainless steel skin, or a standard fridge with a larger than usual stainless steel handle and call it “gourmet” the whole notion goes out the window.

In SoCal gourmet today typically means stainless clad appliances and a granite cover for the counters.

Now, in Seattle, that’s even more of joke.  A gourmet kitchen up there seems to be a kitchen with a roof that doesn’t leak.  Every time I go there I peruse their RE listings and it seems like an apartment kitchen with Ikea door knobs qualifies as “gourmet”.

Nowadays, because of the meaningless of the term “gourmet kitchen” the RE industry will call out the appliances: Viking, KitchenAid, Thermador, Bosch, and so on.  Don’t look down at GE because they make some good quality ovens too.

Be aware that there are over the top appliances that cost more than a Honda Civic that are more for looks than use.  Usually a six burner range top should run you no more than 3K.  Anything over that and it becomes too fancy -and not necessarily reliable- for heavy duty usage.  Think Alfa Romeo.

I am grateful for having my family safe and sound and a small rental roof over our heads.

You house feature critics really need to lighten up a bit - my father’s favorite home feature is the sound of rain on his childhood family’s new corugated tin roof - which replaced the leaf and stick roof that used to leak rain on them in the tropics….

I like Turtle Ridge but this place is also too small.  1100 sq. ft with 3 stories means NO SPACE!  The stairs probably take up 200 sq ft on all three levels!!!

Another example of what is happening. Ok.
Whatever the redfin description, key question is: how much this property as well as all the other example gonna sale for ?
This one is still priced for almost 500$/sf, which is interesting at best.
Referring to all previous data from IrvineRenter, what is going to happen?
- knowing that a rent for such condo should be around 2k/month max (hopefully), even with a x20 ratio, price should be 480k$
So a ~17% decrease compared to asking price. And still x20 is a high factor.
- other way to approach it would be 300$/sf… 346k$.  Brrrrr!

So my take is that none of this is going to happen, and property will likely be sold after many months at -10%.

Market is going down, but slowly.  And sellers outsite foreclosure are not accpeting offer proposing -20%. Even after 90+ days.

Now, to prove me wrong, would be great to see real data on how much houses have really been sold compared to asking prices…

Thankful for:

Great wife
Healthy, smart and beautiful daughter
Great job - nice pay with relatively low stress
Live in Irvine, a great city in which to raise a family
No WaMu or Countrywide in my portfolio
Irvine Renter to keep us informed and entertained

With regards to the size of this property, since when did we need all that space.  We grew up in a middle-class neighborhood with three bedrooms and 1,200 sf and it never felt small.  So we’re in a 4-bd, 2-bath in the old Willows section of Irvine.  Small, cozy with a nice front and back yard and we don’t feel cramped at all.  Another plus—you simply can’t have a bunch of useless crap lying around because there’s no room.  Keeps things simple.

Buster,
Kids never think about the size of the house they live in…....it is not until we get older that we see the size of a home as important. I remember asking my kids if they could tell the difference between a 5,000 sq foot house and a 1,300 sq. foot house…...they never could.

Thankful my wife married beneath her.
Thankful my kids take after their mother in both looks and brains.
Thankful I don’t have a payment on a depreciating asset.

I’ll second that, Nano.  A friend of our 4 year old daughter just moved into a brand new Laing Luxury Residence 3 at SeaCrest in Crystal Cove. Beautiful place. 7,500 sq ft!  We live in a 1,303 sq ft IAC townhouse.  After spending the day there recently, I asked my little girl if she liked her friends house….Her reply?  “Too big, we got lost and could not find her mommy and daddy, I like my house better because I always know where you and mama are”.  Boy did I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

This layout is somewhat confusing. The listing says three levels, but from the picture it looks like the front entrance opens right to the stairway. Is there a downstairs bedroom and bath, what’s on level one?
Very thankful for IR and the entire IHB community, I’ve learned a ton and it’s helped make me a well-rounded guy.

So looking at the bathroom photo, do you hit your head on the vaulted ceiling when you go to pee? What a luxurious plastic shower insert and curtain. You learn to spot apartment-quality fixtures when you have lived in them as long as I have, which is another reason why I’d never buy a home like this, especially for $575k.

I am extremely fortunate and thankful for:

-My lovely girlfriend
-My family
-My health
-My jobs and ability to work from home
-Living in a beautiful area like SoCal
-Having all of the opportunities that living in the 21st century provides
-Being an American citizen

This is a friendly place, so please take my comment in similiar light….

Why would you be thankful for your kids taking after their mother in brains if your wife married beneath her?

It means someone went through the kitchen individually distressing each of the cabinets.  “You, utensil drawer!  You’re worthless.”  “What are you snickering about, pots and pans drawer?  You are a lazy good for nothing…”  Come to think of it, that reminds me of Thanksgiving as a child.  I must be custom distressed myself!

Happy Turkey Day, everyone.

Don’t stop there, tonye.  Every kitchen is “gourmet.”  Every SFR is an “estate.”  Every condo is a “home.”  If you can see anything out the window, there is a “view.”  If you can fit more than one guest through the front door, it is an “entertainer’s delight.”  I’m thankful I’m not a realtor.

It really is amazing what kids really want…...not toys, not big houses, not big yards…......they want to spend time with their moms and dads. Its pretty simple.

“designer wall paper? Is there another kind?”

LOLOL - sigh. Thanks ocrenter, for some short-day Wednesday levity.

And Happy Thanksgiving all.

oops - Irvinerenter (but thanks ocrenter too!)

Yep, real simple.  Article today on babies ability to make social judgements.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071121/ap_on_he_me/infant_judging_2;_ylt=Au1VXby2VvwnFoIh7L1suF8E1vAI

I’ve been enjoying the blog fora few months, but am posting for the first time after reading this:

op-ed in todays Wisc S-J

it’s just too funny.  It’s an op-ed that was printed in my paper this morning.  To sum it up, it’s basically a plea to not thank God this thanksgiving, because all of our fortune and wealth is due to hard work, perseverance, and ingenuity (gosh, it sure was clever of me to decide to be born in the U.S).  Instead to thank the people that have produced all of the wonderous services we enjoy.  Among the services?

“financiers who developed revolutionary investment strategies”

The punchline?  It’s written by the VP of the Ayn Rand Institute, headquartered in Irvine, CA.  I for one am giving thanks that I stuck with old fashioned investment strategies this Thanksgiving.

I know I shouldn’t reply to myself, but the other awesome thing about that article is that she specifically calls out:

stockbrokers
hairdressers
doctors
researchers
gourmet chefs
authors
financiers

Isn’t it odd that it doesn’t occur to the VP of the Ayn Rand fan club to thank anybody that actually manufactures goods or farms our food?  I’m guessing she doesn’t know anyone like that.

As with any time you make a list that can’t possibly be exhaustive, you’re going to miss someone.  I think the point was still made and that farmers and anyone else contributing value to the economy are included.  E.g., she didn’t thank lawyers either.

Wall Street Lawyers Being Laid Off as Deals Drop

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E7D61638F93AA35752C1A9679C8B63

“custom distressed cabinetry”

Perhaps the cabinet maker was the lender too.

Another “apartment” priced like it was a large house.  I need to earn 150kyr in order to own my 1100 sqft Apt? Huh? As our friend Susan Powter would say “Stop the insanity!!!”

The bottom line here folks is that buyers are the ones who ultimately determine what a property is worth, not the sellers and certainly not “realtors.” Once buyers decide that they will not purchase today’s property for more than say 230k then that is when we will start seeing properties like this one priced at around 230k As a group, potential buyers can forced some sanity back into asking prices by simply not making any offers that exceed perceived value. As much as sellers wish to deny it, I don’t see how this dynamic can be ignored.

Well, at least Ayn Rand would not support any type of bailout from the government, being a laissez-faire when it comes to economic and political philosophy.

She is intelligent, but has even more compassion than brains.  She is constantly trying to bring home stray, mangy mutts.

I guess the writer did not consider that the qualities of “hard work, perseverance, and ingenuity” may be blessings from God.

No kidding, it’s like they try to use all the tricky wording they can to shove property down your throat. I bought my home in Westpark in the spring of 2000 went you got what you paid for (2500 sq feet). I just got the deed last month. I feels good being debt free. I’ve been studying the market because I’d like to buy a larger home (4000-4500 sq feet), maybe in Northwood or in Westpark 2. I also like Newport coast, but the prices are still crazy.
I’m thankful for:
1. My health
2. My friends and family
3. Remembering #1 and #2 are the the most important.

Unfortunately, collusion amongst buyers works just as poorly as collusion amongst sellers. Cartel arrangements are inherently unstable as each individual has an incentive to cheat.

Ultimately, it is the lenders who will determine where the bottom is with their underwriting standards. With all the money they are about to lose, I believe underwriting standards will become very, very tight making for a very low bottom.

You’re right! This is all out psychological warfare! I say we all start going to these places and offer up rediculously low-ball offers (say $150/sqft). The first few times, the sellers will laugh, but if everyone they meet gives them the same low-ball offers they will have to conclude that the market has really tanked! It’s a percentages game, eventually someone will crack and actually sell it at that price, which then becomes concrete evidence of a tanking market. For even more fun, use FUD ( fear, uncertainty, and doubt) tactics to increase your schadenfreude. “Sell now before you lose any more money!”

how do you get the info on 1st loan, 2nd loan, etc ...  Could you please show me how to research on the web.

Thanks

Someone took game theory in college

I looked at the Laing Luxury Residence 3 at Sea-Crest in Crystal Cove. Beautiful homes, it would be a dream to comfortably get into one of those. I remember they were asking 7+ million dollars. I don’t want to feel warm and fuzzy, I want to see the sun dip into the sea, I want to be in a 24 hour guard gated community, I want to be able to invite 50-60 friends over for a get together and feel the house will hold more. I don’t want to settle for less, just going to have to make more money.

You need access to title company info to obtain this information. It is public record, but the keepers of the data demand a fee.

IR,

I wasn’t talking about collusion, which of course would be next to impossible. I was speaking to a collective belief on the part of prospective buyers that current prices are at least 50% higher than what they should be.

When I’m asked to pay 600k for a property that based on the historical relationship between incomes, prices and historical rates of appreciation for the area in question should really be priced at 240k I start to feel like a sucker and decline to play. Granted there are a lot of factors that play a role in setting home prices for a given area in addition to incomes and historical rates of appreciation but to me they should be the primary factors.

It seems to me that one of the primary drivers of the housing bubble was that buyers suddenly decided that 2 bedroom condos were in fact “worth” 700k. When buyers as a group come to the belief that asking prices are twice what they should be then many of them, like me will decline to play and this alone should help push prices down. Emotions played a role in the rise of home prices and I would expect emotions and subjective factors to also play a role in the lowering of home prices.

During the bubble it seems many of the buyers purchased with money that in many ways felt like money they found in suitcase on the side of road that they never had to pay back. Now that buyers are again being subject to traditional lending standards and can no longer count on paying the teaser rate forever by refing every 2 years they will start evaluating asking prices from a different prospective.

To some degree I think this process is already occurring now that there are blogs like this one where a reality-based truth about the housing market can be told. Many potential buyers have come through here and found solid reasons why waiting may be the best course of action.

We won’t have an impact on market pricing, but the more widely this information is distributed, it may have an impact on the rate of decline. Each knife-catcher we save from bankruptcy takes one sale out of the market and causes sellers to reduce their prices that much quicker to find the remaining buyers.

When the time is right to buy, you will see us change our bearish outlook to a bullish one, and just as we are contrarians now, we will be contrarians then as well. We will become bullish when most have capitulated and gone bearish.

IR,
you are right, but I think everyone will become bullish all at once. The question is indeed when, and after how much decline.
Somewhere else you wrote that noone has 20% downpayment ready to by a >600k$ house.  I don’t agree with that statement at all, for Irvine at least. In fact, there are many immigrant, from Asia especially, coming with lot of cash. I saw some buying 850k$ house last year without morgage.
Growth overthere have enable people to come to CA and act as such. Much less important in volume, but immigrant from europe, with a 1.48 euro/$ are soon going to find houses cheap in US !
It appears to me that a LOT of people arround are getting ready to buy. Renters, but also people owning and willing to get bigger house. In some areas, their morgage is paidoff, and some are waiting overall prices to go down to avoid a big jump in the tax, rather than being afraid of the theorical loss of waiting to sale their property (will not be a loss if they bought it 25y ago at 120k$ ...)

Looking at this 04 sales price, you begin to understand how much money these builders made durring the bubble.  This place sold brand new for over $500 per sq ft.  How much did it cost per sq ft to build?

What is a reasonable profit to make on building?  If the construction costs were about 250 per sq foot that means the builder made 100% profit.

As a current renter in Costa Mesa, I resemble that remark.

IR, good choice on George Winston.  My personal fav is Autumn though… here is a sampler : http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/radio/B00005NBR9/ref=pd_krex_listen_dp_img/105-6030605-3127665?ie=UTF8&refTagSuffix=dp_img

I’ve seen him twice in concert.  On stage is this beautiful Baby Grand Piano with a lit candelabra….and out comes this barefoot hippy in jeans and a flannel.  Yes, he plays barefoot.

Interesting tidbit:

“In the early 1950s, (Alan) Greenspan began an association with famed novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand that would last until her death in 1982.[5] He wrote for Rand’s newsletters and authored several essays in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.[6] Rand stood beside him at his 1974 swearing-in as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.[5]”

The article is from 2001.

Oops, sorry, wrong link. Meant to post this one

Credit Market Collapse Claims Victims as Lawyers Exit (Update2)
Last Updated: November 20, 2007 16:12 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a6Ghxzh498Ik

I don’t think everyone will become bullish all at once.  I think the housing mkt will bounce along the bottom for quite a while.
I think there will be plenty of time to pick and choose before the herd followers decide that NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY!!!!!

IR,

“you will see us change our bearish outlook to a bullish one”

Thanks for reminding me on Thanksgiving that someday we will be able to afford buying a house again, not as an investment but as a home to enjoy.

I hope you never tire of posting your thoughtful blogs, at least until then.

You’re right! This is all out psychological warfare! I say we all start going to these places and offer up rediculously low-ball offers (say $150/sqft). The first few times, the sellers will laugh, but if everyone they meet gives them the same low-ball offers they will have to conclude that the market has really tanked! It’s a percentages game, eventually someone will crack and actually sell it at that price, which then becomes concrete evidence of a tanking market. For even more fun, use FUD ( fear, uncertainty, and doubt) tactics to increase your schadenfreude. “Sell now before you lose any more money!”
_________

Dude, you are seriously wicked!
I love it.  count me in

IR, it’s interesting you think the buying will start “all at once”.  Not that I disagree with you.  I sense a lot of people are watching the market very closely, waiting for a time to get back in.

That said, I also think what happens when the bottom is finally reached is going to be determined by the general state of the economy.  We have a lot of problems to address to before a large group of people can once again buy a house.

And with that said, I wonder how long the speculators, the ones that weren’t busted in the burst, will hang on the sidelines?

I don’t know any of the answers.  I’m just watching, waiting and learning.

ice weasel,

I don’t think the buying will start “all at once.” I think the bottom will be a protracted period of zero to slightly negative appreciation followed by gradual appreciation. There will be a 3 to 5 year window where prices will be at or below rental equivalent value.

“I wonder how long the speculators, the ones that weren’t busted in the burst, will hang on the sidelines?”

Until this group capitulates and sells at a loss, the market will not bottom. That is just the nature of financial markets.

Thanks IrvineRenter. 
I think it is all come down to, is the bank willing to accept a offer that is 40-50% off the peak when those people with bad credit brought the house.  I think the bank will not accept this offer and right now still hanging on that’s all.  Then again, who has 20% down payment and can get a jumbo loan that they can pay during this time is beyond me.  It is interesting that I found there are a lot of houses right now still selling.  I just wonder who has that kind of money that’s all.

Very Nice Blog!