Irvine Housing Blog

I really find it hard to believe that people are saying, “However, all’s not dark. There are signs of gathering strength, however modest:” about the new construction market.  Housing permits and new home starts are at or near all-time recorded lows.  They are about 25% of what they were at the peak: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011/01/new-home-sales-increase-in-december.html Not 25% off, 75% off.

I don’t know why people in Seattle might have thought their market was immune.  It nearly doubled from 2000 to peak, and is only down 26% - it’s still got plenty to burn off.

Not all markets are crashing.  For the most part, the areas that are crashing all saw massive price increases.  What drove a lot of that was second home sales.  Investors/flippers/landlords who bought properties w/loans in 2005-2007 were the first to walk.  Now those homes never had a stable income backing up their price.  Add to that construction that finished after the market peaked, and the outsized unemployment in those areas and you have a major overhang of supply.  In areas where there is the most overhang, it will be many (20-30) before construction comes back to ‘normal’ levels.

New construction coming back is a strong sign that prices are stabilizing.  I’m in SoFla now and prices are pretty much where they’ve been for about a year or two.  That is crushed, but there is no active crushing still going on.  The other thing is being near the ocean is different.  It doesn’t mean constant appreciation, but tiny box condos are worth a lot more with views of the water than other parts of the country.  It might be Canadiens who only use them 4 or 6 months a year, but someone will buy them…at the right price.

Great Book.

Is it me or are open houses few and rare right now?  Spent weekend looking at open houses all over irvine and there were so few…and those that did have one seemed empty.  One house, guy showing it wasn’t agent and was helping out and he said less than 10 people came and this was at 4pm on sunday…

These properties DEEP into El Camino Real crack me up. What was the developer thinking? To get to this house from the nearest main street (Walnut), you have to drive past a minimum of 39 other houses. That’s just to get out of your own neighborhood! That’s nowhere near as bad as the properties back on Dahlquist and Yearling up against the tracks, but it’d still be annoying. On the plus side, there are no speed bumps, so you can rush through this annoying stretch of your little drive pretty quickly. On the down side, there are no speed bumps, so everyone is flying past your house pretty quickly. This neighborhood design is just all sorts of fail.

-Darth

One more reason I would not buy in a neighborhood with features like this.  You’ll have all those snooty OC residents in their trendy SUVs going 50 mph.  God forbid you have children who play in front of the house.

This is why much of Woodbridge is a sea of back-to-back cul-de-sac’s. For example, find the streets Cottoncloud and Daybreak in Woodbridge. Rather than have a single street running straight through from Blue Lake N to Earlymorn, the streets are broken up into back-to-back cul-de-sac’s, so only a small number of residents would have a reason to drive onto those streets, and they probably won’t be driving there at high speeds. This is a frequently-seen pattern throughout Woodbridge.

Conversely, no houses face onto the high-speed thoroughfares of Alton and Barranca, and the houses facing onto the relatively high-traffic Woodbridge loop are set far back from the street with common space between the houses and the private lots. These features combine speed and ease of access with relative safety and security for playing children.

But I admit that I may be biased, given that I live nearby…

-Darth
...unabashed Woodbridge fan

Yes, it’s weird reading about this featured house since there’s no aggressive put to the bank going on.

Seems like a lot of remodelling to do before a sale,
but then it is a 40 year-old house.

Gasp! Maybe they used the HELOCs for maintenance.

Makes me curious what the reason for selling is.

Haivng just moved to Austin TX from CA last summer, I feel this market is truely one of the unvulnerable examples of a housing market with prices soaring 10 and 15% still, and looking to appreciate even more going forward. We just closed on a 1300 sq ft rancher for 415K with 10K annual property taxes. It sold in ‘06 for 299! That is appreciation!