Today, I am going to tell you a story that makes me thankful for Irvine and all it has to offer.
Irvine Home Address … 127 GREENMOOR 53 Irvine, CA 92614
Resale Home Price …… $299,900
{book1}
I don’t want to rent a house from you
I don’t know how you can expect me to
I ain’t moving ’cause I know my rights
Too many homeless on the streets at night
You own a street and a block of flats
You earn your living like the other rats
You’ve no morality, what do you care
You deal in poverty, you buy despair
I ain’t moving ’till the baliff comes
Landlord — The Police
Back in 2004, I was working as a Senior Planner for Danielian Associates. We were working with URBI, a large Mexican homebuilding company, to plan about 40,000 acres of land they had purchased east of Tijuana. Part of the process was a site visit and tour of their other projects to fully understand the product that we were planning for. I was unprepared for what I saw that day.
To the good, my perception of the URBI organization is that they genuinely wanted to improve the quality of life for the average Mexican family. The houses they were building were entry level in the Tijuana market, so you can imagine the level of opulence. This new home represented a big move up for a typical family.
We started at one of their “cookie cutter” developments. Let’s just say they bring repetition of form to a new level in residential architecture. After seeing one of their neighborhoods, you never complain about Westpark again.
Do you think that grass was Photoshopped in? I can’t imagine it living long with your car parked there… there is no garage in these units.
We went to one of URBI’s subdivisions, and it was well kept and looked much nicer than the old run-down houses we passed driving there. In many ways it was like a drive through the old suburbs of Los Angeles, but one or two notches down.
We toured the model homes, and I was intrigued by a 288 SF detached home they were selling. Imagine a small garage 18′ by 16′. Inside that garage cut out a small bathroom, shower and closet. The smaller area left over is for a bed, and the larger space contains a kitchen wall and a small nook-like space that functioned as your living room, kitchen, dining room, basically every other function of the house occurs there. If you put a chair or a TV in this space, you are done; space filled.
The tiny house I just described… it sells for a premium! Remember, it is detached. Some of their attached product — the very bottom of the entry level — was very tiny and cramped. I remember feeling like a gerbil bedding in a shoebox.
It is easy to be elitist when living in Irvine, but this kind of housing represents a big step of the shanty where these people are moving in from. The pictures below are from Peru, but these shantytowns look like the ones in Tijuana.
I can remember vividly seeing the water trucks delivering fresh water to these stone huts. It was the only drinking or bathing water they were going to get, they had to pay for it in cash to get any, and they had to be there when the truck happened by. At the time, my son had just been in the hospital for dehydration with an illness. He would have died in the Tijuana slums. Realizing that, I became overwhelmed by the death and misery these people endure. I still tear up thinking about it.
I am thankful every day for my life in Irvine, and although I may slam today’s crappy condo like an elitist pig, I know somewhere there is a nice family for whom this property is “arriving” at some magical destination: Irvine.
Irvine Home Address … 127 GREENMOOR 53 Irvine, CA 92614
Resale Home Price … $299,900
Income Requirement ……. $55,198
Downpayment Needed … $10,497
3.5% Down FHA Financing
Home Purchase Price … $460,000
Home Purchase Date …. 5/12/2006
Net Gain (Loss) ………. $(178,094)
Percent Change ………. -34.8%
Annual Appreciation … -11.2%
Mortgage Interest Rate ………. 5.00%
Monthly Mortgage Payment … $1,554
Monthly Cash Outlays ………… $2,230
Monthly Cost of Ownership … $1,810
Property Details for 127 GREENMOOR 53 Irvine, CA 92614
Beds 2
Baths 2 baths
Size 1,056 sq ft
($284 / sq ft)
Lot Size n/a
Year Built 1984
Days on Market 3
Listing Updated 11/16/2009
MLS Number L31423
Property Type Condominium, Townhouse, Residential
Community Woodbridge
Tract Lr
According to the listing agent, this listing is a bank owned (foreclosed) property.
**BANK OWNED** Charming Cape Cod style townhome. Light, bright, and airy. Great open floorplan. Large brick patio in the front yard. Fireplace in the living room. Tile counters.
Look at the financing for this property; someone making $55,198 per year with a little over $10,000 saved up could afford to buy this property. That puts a market property at about 60% of median income in the area. That is good by historical standards. The bottom of the market will stabilize if interest rates stay this low.
Let me add my voice to those that are thankful for IR, the work and analysis on this site is truly world-class.
Quick query – does the calc for downpayment include the homebuyer tax credit? If it doesn’t then the net downpayment is only about $3k for this house.
Happy Thanksgiving – and thank you for sharing your story and reminding me to be thankful for all I have!
Thank God that we live in America.
Even with all the problems, it still the best place in the world to live.
Larry, Glad your son recovered.
Along the main TJ highway 30 years ago, that shantytowns had houses dug-out of the hillside with some walls made of cardboard and discarded wood containers. Now the houses are made of cinderblock and plywood walls. I don’t know if the life has really improved in TJ for the typical resident. There were 5 heavy machine gun nests and one tank along the highway on my last visit and genral lawlessness in the city. The troop on full alert. I’ve only seen one tank along the road in the US for security, but don’t know if that tank was active. The level on peace, clean water, lots of food for the typical person in America is very good indeed.
True, there are many terrifically aweful places in the world to (attempt to) live in. It is good to know about them and know how much better much of America is, and to be thankful for that.
But if you think that America is “still the best place in the world to live” then you need to travel more, both in America and in the world. “We’re number 1!” plays well to the home audience especially if they don’t think about it. There’s serious competition out there as good or better, and for sure America isn’t in general trying harder.
What places outside the US do you like?
Most of Switzerland, enough places in Germany, France, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway … big pieces of western Europe to be brief, Canada, what I’ve seen of Australia.
You can find as high a standard of living as there is in the US, without the 100’s of millions of guns and real or threatened violence that goes with them, in many other countries. Or get ill without fear of bankruptcy. To pick two examples of quality of life. 😉
Parts of the USA for the wealthy end of the spectrum, Irvine among them, have a very high standard of living. I’d be careful about generalizing it to the country as a whole.
I agree that we have a high standard of living here in Irvine. I’ve been to only some parts of Western Europe (none of those listed except for a couple places in France). Will definitely have to explore more out there in the future…
New Zealand!
Wonderful place — probably the most beautiful place, all things considered, on earth. It is just so damn quiet and far away from anything else…living there would drive me nuts.
Sorry, your fashionable America-bashing is actually wrong. I have been all over the world and there are only a handful of places in the world where the average person has anything approaching to what the average person has in the US. What people tend to do is compare the average American life with the above-average life in XYZ country. In Switzerland or Germany only about 15% of the people go to university, and the universities they go to usually aren’t too great. So people are actually comparing what isn’t comparable. Even wealthy countries such as Switzerland (great country, by the way) or Australia, neither compare to California.
You can find parts like pictured here in Imperial County, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Chicago, St. Louis, much of the South — that I know of. You don’t really have to leave the United States to see poverty.
There is certainly plenty of poverty in the US — however, the poverty is relative, and it is not of the “thousands of people living in shacks on a hill with no running water variety.”
I don’t think so – neither that I am “America bashing”, or your average American to above-average non-American comparison idea. I’m actually comparing similar to similar, in several of those countries based on having lived there, not just visited. And it is quality of life, not percentages who have a university degree. It is true that the percentage of homeowners in for example Switzerland is less than in the US, but then again how many of those in the US actually own their homes? The construction quality of a house in Irvine does not compare that favorably to a similar level house in Switzerland either.
But if that is America bashing, then Rah, rah, cis boom bah! USA Nr.1 !!! No problem. 🙂
Actually, about half of Americans own their own homes without mortgages.
In any case, it isn’t America-bashing I mind, it is reflexive, unthinking American bashing. There is plenty to criticise about the US — but being able to criticise does not mean that every thoughtless comment is true.
Thanks for all the hard work you put in the blog over the years. Happy Thanksgiving.
I don’t go to Tijuana, period. Nor Mexico either.
We’ve been to TJ twice, once our car was towed for “non payment” at the big parking lot on the US side with the payment box (we paid… ).
To me, the squalor, racism and prejudice in Mexico is inexcusable.
Tijuana is not Mexico, far from it.
You can find very nice places to visit and live in other parts of Mexico, for many reasons border towns are ugly.
The largest community of US EX-PATs living abroad is in Mexico in this lake community of Chapala in the Jalisco state, people with a pension/401K and their SS checks can liver very well over there.
Check it out:
http://www.ajijic.com/
Happy thanksgiving all…
IR.. read Sidney Poitier’s memoir “Measure of a Man”. He talks about growing up dirt poor in the third world. He says he never knew he was poor, he just played, had fun and enjoyed life. It’s your unfulfilled expectations that cause you unhappiness. If your a hacker and expect to shoot par golf your going to be unhappy every time you play, even though you are out there on a beautiful day. If you expect your kitchen to have pergraniteel but you have formica you are unhappy. If you are thankful for what you have got, then you are truly happy.
This makes lots of sense. It’s all relative. The important thing is making progress, however small or big, relative to where one begins or where he/she lives… But remember to always be grateful for what one has, the most important of which being healthy.
Agree, Happiness as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, if you go to Tijuana and judge people around with your All-American eyes (and standards) you will conclude that everybody is miserable, certainly, there are some bad things going on over there.
There’s this other story of this African athlete, I’m not sure if it’s the guy that recently won the NYC marathon, that when he came to the US and was taken for the first time to a Kentucky fried chicken store and was given his plate full of chicken he asked who will he be sharing this with? he was waiting before he started to eat, he was told: no, it’s all yours, he couldn’t believe it.
Excellent post, and from the sound of the comments…Irvine CA is a great place!
Happy Turkey Day, IR. And the only reason that condo is crappy is the price. It’s a perfectly nice place for, say, $98K. Palacial for $60K.
This is part of an article posted on Schwab’s client only website:
” WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Question: I am a broker in Irvine, Calif. I recently sold a home which drew five offers in five days. In reviewing the buyers’ financials for all five offers, I noticed that most of their accounts showed a number of large deposits over the previous 30 days from overseas — Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Evidently, however, the buyers didn’t have to show their mortgage lenders any additional documentation as to whether these deposits were family gifts, loans or what.
In talking to other brokers here, I have learned that many of my colleagues have noticed the same pattern and believe this is a huge loophole in our financing system that is being overlooked by banks and lending institutions because [they think] large down payments, no matter where the money comes from, result in a reduced risk.
Answer: You might want to report your suspicions to law enforcement authorities. There are no hard, fast statistics as to the extent criminals are using real estate to place their illegal gains into the financial mainstream. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among other agencies, suspects that money laundering is becoming more common. ”
Irvine may want to distance itself from the WORLD’S PROBLEMS, but they may come in the door anyway.
Well, the large down payments DO reduce the risk, for the lender.
Thanks IR, for reminding us of some of the many reasons we all have to be thankful. The worst bankrupt HELOC-abuser in California is physically, educationally, and economically better off than 90% of the world’s population.
Turf driveways are beautiful, strong, and stay green. You can plant drought tolerant forms of grass, and you don’t have to water them that much. Porous driveways let the water drain to the aquifer, and not into the storm drain waste. I am surprised that you are in planning, and don’t know about this. Perhaps you should start a blog about sustainable development, and learn a few tings.