Alright, sometimes being a pack rat isn’t so bad, well, if I could actually find something.  Look what I came upon.  These were brochures TIC handed out back when I was looking at houses in Irvine.  Too bad I didn’t buy in ‘97

IR/Zovall, if these are in violation of rules, please delete the links.

DAMN

Now you see how disgustingly inflated the high-end Newport Coast market is.  I guarantee you those homes are in excess of 2.5 million now.  That’s a 5 fold increase in value in 10 years.
Sillyness

That is some great stuff. Those condos/apartments in Orange called Canyon Hills I remember going up there and looking at the models when they almost done selling. They had some one bedrooms left around that price and I contemplated buying one as an investment. My dad said that condos always get hit the hardest when the market goes down and no one will want a one bedroom. Instead I bought into an investment property. In 2004 I thought he was nuts when they were selling for $300k but in 2007 I realized he was right. There has been two foreclosures there and now they are not selling at $275k.
I have some 90s snippets from the OCR that said the homes in NC were selling. If fact IIRC it was the only thing that was selling.

GREAT POST!!   Man, if I could have been more focused at 25 years old on investing in real estate rather than Jagermeister, I would be living a far different life at 35 years old..

In that same brochure is an article by Donald Bren.. Looking Ahead to the Year 2020.

I’ve linked the picture above as it’s a bit large to show online.

Great contribution!, thanks Bubblegum.

And this article just proves what we all know: RE is a great investment and is a very good thing to own but not this particular bubblicious OC Real Estate.

Even that I’m RE Bear now, I know how to be flexible and I will turn a RE Bull whenever I see the conditions for that.

What’s the fine print on the rent vs buy?  I’m wondering how they modeled the comparison.

eff-

* How Rent vs. Buy was figured: (1) Monthly payment assumes a starting interest rate of 5.50% for the first year of a 30 year loan (APR is 8.56%).  Purchase price of $85,900, based on a Canyon Hills Plan 1, loan amount $83,300.  Total cash to close is estimated to be $4,933.  (2) Local property taxes are estimated at an annual rate of 1.3% plus $92 per month for Community Facilities, Assessment and Landscape Districts.  (3) Tax savings reflect an approximate combination of Federal and California effective marginal tax rate of 35% considered representative for single taxpayers with taxable income of $30,000 plus annually.   Consult your personal tax advisor for details on your personal tax savings.  Amount and figures may vary according to plan purchased, down payment and other variable expenses.  $802 based on a comparably sized rental unit in Irvine Apartment Community’s portfolio in Tustin Ranch/ Irvine   Price and terms effective for date of publication and subject to change without notice.  Currently one home is available at this price.

This makes me think of this new NBC show I keep seeing promo’s for—- Journeyman.  Apparently the hero of the show gets sent back in time to 1997 to save his dead fiancee or something. 
www.nbc.com/Journeyman
Perhaps we could all write him a check for $5,000, and ask him to pick us up a Canyon Hills Plan 1 on his next trip?

* How Rent vs. Buy was figured: (1) Monthly payment assumes a starting interest rate of 5.50% for the first year of a 30 year loan (APR is 8.56%). 
Recalculating at the full APR and the out of pocket is higher and the after tax a squeak lower than the $802, however, $150 of it is "principle’.
 

Back in 1989 my parents were looking to buy a home.  We looked at Irvine but they thought it was too far from work (Cerritos/Artesia), so we ended up buying a tonwhome in Buena Park.  It was sold in 2002 for 3x the original purchase price in "as is" condition, with termites.

So, yeah, had we bought in Irvine back then, we’d have made $, but it’s not like you couldn’t have made $ buying elsewhere.  Irvine has always been more expensive from memory.  When I started looking for RE in 1998, for the price of a brand new 2 bed condo in Irvine, you could get a new 3-bed in Placentia.

Now if I can find those old Oak Creek (Irvine) and Altura (Placentia) pricing sheets…  they’d be real fun to look at.  From memory, brand new 2 bed 1025 sq ft condo at Altura in 1998 was $130k, and plan 1 at Oak Park ( 1 bed, 869 sq ft) in phase 1 was supposed to start at $110k but I’ve never seen it lower than $140k back then.

I made this sticky for a couple of days. I want everyone to see the first graphic showing the rent vs. own comparison in 1997. This is why 1997 was the bottom.

Maybe it could be run on the main blog - I think this is really powerful stuff.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but as I sigh as I flip through the pages, thought I’d share how affordable it was just 10 years ago.

Irvine Ranch 1997 new home prices

Harvard Square

Cal Pacific Homes

Civita in NC

Custom Lots in Pelican Hill

Looks like I have something similar, TIC brochure from 1999, which includes pricing for all TIC IAC apartments.  Prices from 97 to 99 have definitely begin to increase.

I would have gladly bought back then, but I didn’t have any effenmoney.
When I finally had some, home prices had ballooned like a Nebraskan waistline.  It’s like houses and myself are opposite poles of a magnet.  I get a little close and it moves further out of reach.
But hopefully not for long!

This really is amazing to look back 10 years, and see where things were.  Thanks again for the great post.
On another note, after viewing the kitchen picture in the Harvard Square ad, I think I can explain why houses are worth so much more now —- NO GRANITE COUNTERTOPS BACK THEN!!   That 1997 kitchen was anything but gourmet.  So stop all your chest pounding bears—- don’t you realize now that we have granite, there is no way we will ever return to those 1997 fundamentals.

ck - You got it all wrong.  Houses are worth so much more now because of demand.  Yup, demand.  The immigrants are creating demand, the wealthy foreigners don’t care how much money they lose, the secondary mortgage market will see the light any day now, and they aren’t making any more land, ya know.

Wow that last Ranch layout really shows it.   Very interesting to note the price premium for more "select" areas.    Most of Irvine has SFRs going for $200s, low $300 and a oddball $400s.  Pelican crest, the losts start at $1.1M.  And the Signature collection at $1.3M+ 

Bublegum,
What else have you pack rat over the years? Care to auction the issue on Ebay? Great stuff. I remember those days trying to market some of the products like the upside down house Civita. Buyers were moaning about the prices then when it actually started at $450,000 with Ocean View. All those moaners sold during the peak and moaned even more lifting the heavy bag of cash.

Watch out Bubblegum, bk wants that book !    Perhaps Bren will pay top dollar for it on eBay….  throw it on there !

I have a post coming out based on this data tomorrow.

Thank you Bubblegum

BK,

You are welcome to have the brochure if you’d like.  I have no attachment to it, I’ll take pictures of all the pages and post them so others can browse with their jaws dropped.   It has certainly  a lot of entertainment value.   Just seeing peoples expression when they open it up and start looking at the ads is priceless, more so if they just recently bought.  

Bubblegum, can you PLEASE post all past home prices and brochures you’ve collected from the 90’s and earlier 2000’s ? It would be really cool to see lol.