I am a fan of the single-story homes built in the 70s. When I am ready to buy, I will take a good look at properties like this one.

Asking Price: $659,000

Address: 29 Morning Dove Irvine, CA 92604

{book4}

Adventure seeker on an empty street,

I want it all, and I want it now,

I Want It All — Queen

As I have stated before, I do not plan on buying in this market environment, but I see properties I would like to own all the time. Today's featured property has many of the characteristics I want in a home in Irvine.

I like Woodbridge, particularly the north side inside the loop near the lake. This property is outside the loop, but it is in one of the few areas outside the loop built out as single-family detached homes. The walk to a really nice park with a large pool is less than 100 yards (there is a path between two houses).

The house is on a corner lot, and although it is near enough to get road noise from the arterial streets, it does not back onto them (Woodbridge has more road noise from the arterials than other Villages because there is no wall. The hedge is useless.) I give it a "B" for location within Irvine.

I like this single-story floorplan. At a little over 1,500 SF, it isn't huge, but it is large enough to comfortably accommodate a family. This floorplan and the many variations of it have been built in Woodbridge and the communities to the north that were constructed in the 70s.

I am not sure when the plan was last built, but it isn't likely to ever be built again because it probably does not meet current fire codes. The exit from the master bedroom is a window onto an atrium space. These spaces are often enclosed by later construction leaving no secondary point of egress from the master bedroom. I doubt this is still allowed.

Single-story homes become more desirable with age. There are not many retired people living in the three-story condos popping up in the new Villages. A smaller home like this one can accommodate a young family as well as a retired couple. If you go through your life cycle without buying the McMansion, you could live in a house like this for life.

One of my favorite features in the house is this seating area off the main living room. I would use this space. I don't watch much TV, but I do read many books and work on the computer. In the evenings, I would hang out in here with a book or a laptop and be very comfortable. Late night, when the house is quiet, this would be a great place to unwind and enjoy the fire.

I must be a throwback to the 70s. I find utility in this space that disappeared from home design 30 years ago. Perhaps if I get one of these houses, we can have an IHB fondue party on my new whisky barrel table.

After dining, we can kick back in the groovy living room.

We can play some albums or spin a few 45s…

Then play video games…

Asking Price: $659,000

Income Requirement: $164,750

Downpayment Needed: $131,800

Purchase Price: unknown

Purchase Date: 8/21/1984

Address: 29 Morning Dove Irvine, CA 92604

Beds: 3

Baths: 2

Sq. Ft.: 1,538

$/Sq. Ft.: $428

Lot Size: 5,452 Sq. Ft.

Property Type: Single Family Residence

Style: Contemporary, Ranch

Stories: 1

Year Built: 1977

Community: Woodbridge

County: Orange

MLS#: S587361

Source: SoCalMLS

Status: Active

On Redfin: 7 day

This is the home you have been waiting for . Beautiful single level home in a fabulous corner location with upgrades galore…new paint, carpet, scraped ceilings, wide crown mouldings, recessed lights, new steel roof and the list goes on. The kitchen has been totally remodeled with white cabinets, granite counters, stainless steel sink and added pantry with pull out shelves. The family room is adjoining the kitchen and has wall of glass and built-in entertainment center with frosted glass fronts. The back yard is very private and features flagstone laced patio with patio cover and built-in BBQ. Run, dont walk… this home wont last long!!!

Run, dont walk… this home wont last long!!! Silly me, I was going to drive, but if running is better…

These homeowners have been in this house for 25 years. Do you think they paid off their mortgage? The property records show $544,000 worth of first and second mortgages — no HELOCs. They already spent their house.

I want that one — Little Britain

I want that one — Little Britain

It was a big week here at the Irvine Housing Blog. The post on Shadow Inventory in Orange County received a great deal of attention.

Asking Price: $345,000

Address: 40 BRIARWOOD #81 Irvine, CA 92604

That’s what you get for pretending the danger’s not real.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes.
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is not a bad dream.

Sheep — Pink Floyd

{book3}

Asking Price: $345,000
Income Requirement: $86,250
Downpayment Needed: $69,000
Purchase Price: $282,500
Purchase Date: 4/16/2003
Address: 40 BRIARWOOD #81 Irvine, CA 92604
Beds: 2
Baths: 2
Sq. Ft.: 1,125
$/Sq. Ft.: $307
Lot Size: –
Property Type: Condominium
Style: Other
Stories: 2
Floor: 1
Year Built: 1978
Community: Woodbridge
County: Orange
MLS#: S587624
Source: SoCalMLS
Status: Active
On Redfin: 4 days
2BD, 1.5 TOWNHOUSE IN WOODBRIDGE. INSIDE THE LOOP LOCATION. FIREPLACE IN NICE SIZE LIVING ROOM. KITCHEN INCLUDES WOOD FLOORS, INSIDE LAUNDRY ROOM. TWO LARGE BEDROOMS, ONE WITH A WALK IN CLOSET AND THE OTHER WITH MIRRORED DOORS. GREAT PATIO FOR ENTERTAINING. TWO CARPORTS DIRECTLY BEHIND UNIT. WALKING TRAIL TO NORTH LAKE. CLOSE TO EASTSHORE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND FIRWOOD PARK AND POOL.

{Adsense-ir}

I wonder how the Emperor is doing?

Good morning, The Worm, Your Honour,
The Crown will plainly show,
The prisoner who now stands before you,
Was caught red-handed showing feelings.
Showing feelings of an almost human nature.
This will not do.
Call the schoolmaster!
I always said he’d come to no good,
In the end, Your Honour.
If they’d let me have my way,
I could have flayed him into shape.
But my hands were tied.The bleeding hearts and artists,
Let him get away with murder.
Let me hammer him today.
Crazy.

The Trial — Pink Floyd

Breathe In The Air

Long you live and
high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you
touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.

Breathe In The Air — Pink Floyd

The properties in Rosegate are beautiful, but the prices are still borderline WTF.

Asking Price: $1,849,900

Address: 35 New Dawn Irvine, CA 92620

Another sunny day in Californ-i-a
I’m sure back home they’d love to see it
But they don’t know that what you love is ripped away
Before you get a chance, before you get a chance to feel it

Another sunny day beneath this cloudless sky
Sometimes I wish that it would rain here
And wash away the west coast dreaming from my eyes
There’s nothing real for them to see here

Back Home — Yellowcard (thank you, badcandy, for the song suggestion)

Prices like this tell me we are NOT at the bottom.

Asking Price: $1,849,900

Income Requirement: $462,475

Downpayment Needed: $369,980

Purchase Price: $1,360,000

Purchase Date: 10/30/2003

Address: 35 New Dawn Irvine, CA 92620

bthroom? Why would someone consistently misspell a word by omitting a vowel? It isn’t any shorter, so it doesn’t function as an abbreviation. Does a realtor description require random, senseless misspellings?

italy Rossaila marble… Crema Marfil marble… Somebody knows way too much about marble.

Eliminating equity requirements and encouraging cash-out refinancing shifted all financial risk from borrowers to lenders. For borrowers it became a wise method of risk mitigation — much to the dismay or our bankrupt banks.

Asking Price: $419,999

Address: 12 MISTY SHADOW #1 IRVINE, CA 92603

We’ve been here for too long, please let me out
You’ve caused me so much trouble and you’ve really let me down,
You’ve broken all your promises,
all that’s left are broken feelings, I’m still healing

I can’t believe that you deceived me for so long
I fought for us but I can’t trust you anymore
It won’t be easy to make up for what you’ve done
I see a chance in all of this, but do I dare to take the risk?

The Risk — Lovehatehero

Do I dare take the risk? It was easy during the late stages of the housing bubble because all you were risking was a credit score; the lenders assumed the real risk. They didn’t know that, of course, but they also believed they had no risk because real estate prices always go up.

The way our residential real estate finance system worked during the Great Housing Bubble, it was financially prudent for borrowers to max out their borrowing and transfer their market risk to a lender. Nothing has changed.

I am starting to have my doubts that the Government is going to do anything on the regulatory front to make sure we never inflate another damaging housing and credit bubble. If left to it’s own devices, the free market will inflate another bubble once the institutional memory of the losses from our recent credit bubble fades. Monopolies and Ponzi Schemes are the seedy underside of unfettered capitalism.

I studied the S&L disaster during the aftermath while living in College Station, Texas. The commercial overbuilding in Texas during the 1980s was truly astonishing; it was so bad the expression “see through building” came from the overbuilt glass office buildings in Houston. Glass skyscrapers were the Pergraniteel of the age.

The biggest similarity between the Great Housing Bubble and the S&L Crisis is the shifting of risk and the subsequent underpricing of it that lead to lowering of equity requirements to the point where you could cash-out refinance with nothing but a proforma. In the Great Housing Bubble, the cash-out refinancing caused a shifting of risk away from the borrower onto a lender. As lenders and investors encouraged more and more cash-out refinances, they created a system that encouraged predatory borrowing. Financially, it was more prudent to borrow and shift risk than it was to be conservative and manage cashflow.

IMO, this is bad. If these incentives do not change, we certainly will inflate another housing bubble; we just need to wait for lenders and investors to get stupid again. I give it 20 years.

Asking Price: $419,999

Income Requirement: $105,000

Downpayment Needed: $84,000

Purchase Price: $535,000

Purchase Date: 12/15/2004

Address: 12 MISTY SHADOW #1 IRVINE, CA 92603

mantainedc?

This property was purchased for $535,000 on 12/15/2004. The owner used a $428,000 first mortgage, a $107,000 second mortgage, and a $0 downpayment. On 11/1/2006 he refinanced with a $549,000 first mortgage, took out all his equity plus $14,000, and shifted all the risk to the lender.

It isn’t a paragon of personal ethics, but this behavior makes complete sense financially.

If this house sells for its current asking price, and if a 6% commission is paid, the lender stands to lose $140,201. The borrower took no financial risk, and he has already made off with $14,000. Given the system, is this behavior surprising?

What has changed that will prevent this behavior from recurring? Other than the lenders current state of fear, I see nothing stopping this from happening again. Do you?

Overpaying for real estate is a tradition in California. It is falling out of favor now, but it will probably make a comeback.

Asking Price: $819,000

Address: 10 E Yale Loop #1 Irvine, CA 92604

{book}

Saving nickles saving dimes
Working til the sun don’t shine
Looking forward to happier times
On Blue Bayou

Blue Bayou — Linda Ronstadt

It is a long-standing tradition in California for people to grossly overpay for housing and spend all their time and money trying to support their homes. In the past, this foolishness was actually rewarded by all the greater fools that did the same and bid prices up to the stratosphere. Of course, this is a Ponzi Scheme that eventually collapses like we are seeing now.

How much income should people put toward housing? (see Debt-To-Income Ratios: The Forgotten Variable) Lenders traditionally limited a mortgage debt payment to 28% and a total debt service to 36% of a borrower’s gross income — at least before they lost their minds in The Great Housing Bubble. The FHA and the GSEs will allow higher ratios, but not much higher.

The only way debt-to-income ratios higher than 33% make any sense at all is when people are profiting from appreciation. If the overpayment is an “investment” that people can convert to cash through HELOCs, then the housing Ponzi Scheme can really take off.

So far, it doesn’t look like our government is going to do anything to change the system that inflated house prices; in fact, it looks like they are working to re-inflate the housing bubble to the degree they can. If nothing is done to prevent this from occurring again, it certainly will.

I think today’s featured property is very attractive and desirable — except for the price tag. I would be delighted to live here.

Asking Price: $819,000

Income Requirement: $204,750

Downpayment Needed: $163,800

Purchase Price: $167,500

Purchase Date: 8/24/1978

Address: 10 E Yale Loop #1 Irvine, CA 92604

This is your once in a lifetime chance, better hurry! Does bullshit like this really create a sense of urgency in people?

Today’s featured property was purchased on 8/24/1978 for $167,500. I don’t know what their original financing was. After 31 years of ownership, the property should be paid off. It’s not, of course, but I doubt any of you are surprised at this point. There were a few HELOCs in the 90s, but it wasn’t until 5/31/2001 when the owners refinanced with a $468,500 first mortgage that things get interesting. There is another mortgage recorded on 5/30/2003 for $322,000. It is unclear whether or not this is a refinance of the first — which would require them to pay back almost $150,000 — or if this was a stand alone second. Even if this final mortgage was their only debt, they now owe more than double what they paid 31 years ago. If both mortgages still exist, this might be a short sale.