I saw an advertisement in the OC Register for the grand opening of 17 new luxury homes in Santa Ana. I decided to go and take a look.

They do indeed have 17 new houses in various stages of construction. There are three models:

Plan 1 - 3,372 Square Feet
Plan 2 - 3,515 Square Feet
Plan 3 - 3,483 Square Feet

Each of the 17 houses seem to have a different price. Prices range from a low of $649,000.00 to a high of $1,099,000.00. The more expensive homes include views of the Willowick golf course. The lower cost homes include a view of the drug dealers, roosters and broken down vehicles parked in front of houses built in the late 1950’s painted bright blue and yellow.

The sales person told me that this was not exactly a grand opening… These homes have been on the market for about 3 months. They have not yet sold a single unit. They decided to finally reduce prices and have another grand opening.

The three model homes were nicely appointed with spacious floor plans and many upgrades. Most houses offer large front and back yards.  All of that being said, what was this developer thinking? This must be a government funded study of what NOT to build in a bad part of town.

We drove by there cause my fiance wanted to take a look. I told her that I’ve played at the golf course before
and that it was a really bad part of town. She had to see it for herself…

Needless to say, we drove by the neighborhood and didn’t even stopped inside!

Try to leave via Harbor north after 3:30 PM.  It’ll take you 20 minutes to clear the intersection at Harbor and 17th.

fyi
http://www.movoto.com/real-estate/homes-for-sale/CA/Santa-Ana/1119-N-Jackson-St-203_P619487.htm

I’ve played willowwick before.  One hole there were some random guys hanging out on the left side of the fairway.  Not sure what they were doing.  Of course, I aimed way right and yet it went straight at them and landed about 10 ft in front of them.  I didnt feel too comfortable so I just picked up and moved on   Didn’t wanna both them while I tried to hit my second shot.

On a positive note, you’ve got a Gentleman’s Club walking distance from your front door.

Califonia Girls - The Art of Topless Entertainment

http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1109+N.+Harbor+Blvd.+Santa+Ana,+CA+92703

Check the street view!

The strip club hidden between the bottom dragger tire store and the used car lot.

If you frequent this neighborhood after 3pm, good luck parking.  That means these ‘neighbors’ are going to be parking in your world.

Here’s my crystal ball on the subject:

The developer goes busto, the bank gets it back, they sit on it for a year or so because their basis is so big against it’s appraised value they can’t believe it, and then in 2011 or so they clear them out at $300K, or about a hundred dollars a foot.  The new owners find out the never lived in homes have been both squatted in and stripped bare.  The homes are painted bright blue and yellow and green, and several multigenerational families move in so they can live next to their cousin two blocks away.

See you in 2011 and we’ll see how close I got.

So lets say they end up selling a few of these houses, but the bulk of them remain unsold. The bank comes in and takes back the project from the developer…

What happens to the home owners that decided to purchase? Will their warranties be voided? What about mortgages when homeowners find the value of the house they purchased has dropped below their purchase price.

Crazy…

Traffic is horrible there all day. Drivers drive extremely slow during the evenings since 1975. Harbor Blvd natives are similar to the San Juan Capistrano natives. The swallows return to the mission every years. The Harbor Blvd natives also has a mission, they also do fly and different kind of swallow.

With that being said the access is at a horrible location. Not a place for families to witness the natives on their way home. May be the target buyers should be a single bachelor like Ten but do you think he will need 3,000 sf of house. The program is badly conceived obviously without consulting a reserach expert. This is what happen when a developer lacks wisdom and experience.

no_vaseline - 02 June 2008 05:12 PM

Try to leave via Harbor north after 3:30 PM.  It’ll take you 20 minutes to clear the intersection at Harbor and 17th.

freedomCM - 02 June 2008 06:25 PM

fyi
http://www.movoto.com/real-estate/homes-for-sale/CA/Santa-Ana/1119-N-Jackson-St-203_P619487.htm

The front and side views of this house are so ugly. What’s with the narrow patch of grass separating the plain square concrete driveway from the plain square concrete walkway? A 3,500 sq/ft home with an entry as narrow as a 987 Sq/ft built in ‘55? It just seems like a monster trying to imitate a McMansion. I’m not a fan of the latter, but have seen some that are at least attractive.

I’d love to know who the idiot buyer was that came up with this project and better yet what super idiot bank decided to lend them the money to overpriced ugly homes???  Someone forgot to do a feasability study and decided to take on this pioneering project, did no one run the comps of the local ghetto???  Builder should go BK and the Bank should shut their doors!

This project should rank the most stupid project of all time. One million dollar homes with access through the ghetto neighborhood. What could be worse than a ghetto entry? Prostitutes that work at the corner of Washington and Harbor Blvd will personally greet all the homeowners and their male guests heading home.

several short blocks away a 15 year old prostitute the grand daughter of the famous Montessori education founder was murdered. Her name was Hanna Montessori.http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:jz3qrWSwU7AJ:www.ocweekly.com/news/news/i-want-the-white-girl/26823/+Hanna+Montessori&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

Many neighbors and children often found used condoms disposed on the sidewalk and front lawn of homes.
OC just like Hollywood has been trying really hard to chase out the working girls but they seem to return to OC. Although many have gone into cyberspace but the oldest profession is still relying the the oldest method of meeting clienteles.

Over the years prostitution has affected RE prices greatly. Hollywood for instance is a much more desirable neighborhood for resales and new developments when the girls are being chased out. The political power of retailers like Target and Ikea pressured the Costa Mesa police in doing a much better job in cleaning up the 405 end of Harbor as well. Car Max will be moving and the former seedy place is transformed to a vibrant retail core.

The Disneyland end of Harbor Blvd used to be the Mecca for hookers but the City of Anaheim in working with Police and good planning in dealing with environment to eliminate prostitution. The solution was to add a center median that divided the north and south bound of Harbor Blvd to block the illegal U-turns a common maneuvers for “Johns” to pick up prostitutes. Tall shrubs and multiple layered rows palm trees planted on sidewalks and median also eliminate drivers seeing hookers walking on sidewalk as well as for hookers in spotting the headlights of on coming police cars. Open settings and visual contact are two important components for the girls marketing and defense. Bus shelters are designed with solid panels at both ends to discourage the customers from seeing the goods and vice versa. The open bench type were all eliminated from the vicinity surrounding Disneyland. SWA a landscape architectural firm from Laguna Beach designed the urban streetscape in promoting an enhanced pedestrian linkage to Disneyland thus giving birth to once considered bad lands surrounding Disneyland a new life for new hotels and resorts.

DR Horton and other builders have built podium type of condos along Chapman Ave. The area along Chapman and south bound on Harbor did not receive the revitalization landscape treatment and considered the outside scope of work. This is an area known to have the problem. The City does not really care because it is beyond the location of most hotels and visitors.

usctrojanman29 - 04 June 2008 05:32 AM

I’d love to know who the idiot buyer was that came up with this project and better yet what super idiot bank decided to lend them the money to overpriced ugly homes??? Someone forgot to do a feasability study and decided to take on this pioneering project, did no one run the comps of the local ghetto??? Builder should go BK and the Bank should shut their doors!

bkshopr - 04 June 2008 06:10 PM

This project should rank the most stupid project of all time. One million dollar homes with access through the ghetto neighborhood. What could be worse than a ghetto entry? Prostitutes that work at the corner of Washington and Harbor Blvd will personally greet all the homeowners and their male guests heading home.

several short blocks away a 15 year old prostitute   the grand daughter of the famous montessori education founder was murdered. Her name was Hanna Montessori.http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:jz3qrWSwU7AJ:www.ocweekly.com/news/news/i-want-the-white-girl/26823/+Hanna+Montessori&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

Many neighbors and children often found used condoms disposed on the sidewalk and front lawn of homes.

usctrojanman29 - 04 June 2008 05:32 AM

I’d love to know who the idiot buyer was that came up with this project and better yet what super idiot bank decided to lend them the money to overpriced ugly homes???  Someone forgot to do a feasability study and decided to take on this pioneering project, did no one run the comps of the local ghetto???  Builder should go BK and the Bank should shut their doors!

I hope everyone that was involved with this approval was fired.

I thought the Retreat by Shea was bad, but this one beats it.  At least the shea homes are half way selling.

The city’s interest is revitalization and not marketable economic. Reserve is located is in a very nice part of town but this Willow project is buried in a sh*t hole. Many homes around the area of Reserve are all owner occupied over $1m. The homes around this project are mostly transient rentals. Shea could have done a better job on the Reserve and that would have changed the project’s destiny. This Willowick project location is a death sentence to begin with. Planning is not all about the end product. It is about the viability of economic and the condition of social issues surrounding the community.

Award winning projects in affluent community often are disasterous setting for crime in the ghettos.

PadreBrian - 04 June 2008 06:53 PM

bkshopr - 04 June 2008 06:10 PM

This project should rank the most stupid project of all time. One million dollar homes with access through the ghetto neighborhood. What could be worse than a ghetto entry? Prostitutes that work at the corner of Washington and Harbor Blvd will personally greet all the homeowners and their male guests heading home.

several short blocks away a 15 year old prostitute   the grand daughter of the famous montessori education founder was murdered. Her name was Hanna Montessori.http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:jz3qrWSwU7AJ:www.ocweekly.com/news/news/i-want-the-white-girl/26823/+Hanna+Montessori&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

Many neighbors and children often found used condoms disposed on the sidewalk and front lawn of homes.

usctrojanman29 - 04 June 2008 05:32 AM

I’d love to know who the idiot buyer was that came up with this project and better yet what super idiot bank decided to lend them the money to overpriced ugly homes???  Someone forgot to do a feasability study and decided to take on this pioneering project, did no one run the comps of the local ghetto???  Builder should go BK and the Bank should shut their doors!

I hope everyone that was involved with this approval was fired.

I thought the Retreat by Shea was bad, but this one beats it.  At least the shea homes are half way selling.

With my old vendor, I started my Friday in Floral Park, and ended about 200 feet from this disaster.  Literally from the penthouse to the outhouse.

When people start talking about Santa Ana being a scary ghetto, this is what they are talking about.  I’d tell folks they need to see it to believe it, but I don’t want anyone to put thier life in jepordy.  Literally inner city Compton/Watts/Inglewood/Bell Gardens type of scary.

I hadn’t thought about it untill Blk brought it up, but moving into these homes would be putting your life into MORE jepordy than just living in this neighborhood.  Now you’re really a target because the locals will think you’re of means.  Short of fortifiying your home al la Will Smith in “I am Legend”, it won’t be enough.  3800 square feet on 6000 foot lots is just fine.  You won’t want to be out after dark anyway.

So true! the bright paints are the left over paints just enough for one room from cousin Pedro’s auto shop, Taqueria and used car dealers on Harbor Blvd. The multigeneration families of Uncle Coyote have just arrived yesterday. Santa Ana was once the Newport Beach of OC. The white folks moved to the coast and I magnin, Barker Brothers, Saks Fifth Ave and Bullucks in Santa Ana were memories from the distant past.

My crystal ball I see Vaseline and I bought the 2 largest houses. The money we saved we pledged all to the community center (California Girls) and our concierge service on Washington and Harbor.

no_vaseline - 02 June 2008 08:41 PM

The strip club hidden between the bottom dragger tire store and the used car lot.

If you frequent this neighborhood after 3pm, good luck parking.  That means these ‘neighbors’ are going to be parking in your world.

Here’s my crystal ball on the subject:

The developer goes busto, the bank gets it back, they sit on it for a year or so because their basis is so big against it’s appraised value they can’t believe it, and then in 2011 or so they clear them out at $300K, or about a hundred dollars a foot.  The new owners find out the never lived in homes have been both squatted in and stripped bare.  The homes are painted bright blue and yellow and green, and several multigenerational families move in so they can live next to their cousin two blocks away.

See you in 2011 and we’ll see how close I got.

You and I are having way too much fun on this thread.

Even when the builder throws in unlimited access to the community center and concierge service Vas and I would still need to think real hard and that might shatter his crystal ball.

no_vaseline - 04 June 2008 11:50 PM

You and I are having way too much fun on this thread.

I visited this dump. The boys in the hood are across the street. I grew up in the hood and I was still scared. I kept wondering how much ammo I would have to stock.

I overheard one of the realtors say that the target market was multi-generation asian families (most likely vietnamese) who would not mind living in those homes given the proximity to little Saigon.

For nine hundred dimes I can buy a shitbox in the Villages of Columbus ghetto or Coto and not worry about my neighbors shooting it up in celebration of every annual holiday and quincena.

I can’t, however, park in the lawn in those neighborhoods, so that’s a plus.

Vas, the lawn is already taken by the “customers” so go park somewhere else. Be careful on your way back not to step on DNA.

no_vaseline - 06 June 2008 06:49 AM

For nine hundred dimes I can buy a shitbox in the Villages of Columbus ghetto or Coto and not worry about my neighbors shooting it up in celebration of every annual holiday and quincena.

I can’t, however, park in the lawn in those neighborhoods, so that’s a plus.

Do they throw in a free roll of police tape with every sale?

On a serious note. Can someone here look up and find out who the developer is?  Who owns this craptastic property and what they paid for it?  Who would spend close to 6 Million to make this happen?

This website is good for keeping track of Santa Ana.  Dirty politics, drugs, gangs, Craptastic! school system, murder, unconscious voters, excessive fees/bonds/taxation, etc…

http://orangejuiceblog.com/

“For nine hundred dimes I can buy a shitbox in the Villages of Columbus ghetto or Coto and not worry about my neighbors shooting it up in celebration of every annual holiday and quincenera”.

I dunno No Vas…...awgee lives in Coto and he’s Mexican ! 

Some recent developments regarding Willowick in Santa Ana:

http://orangejuiceblog.com/2008/06/whats-up-with-willowick/#comments