Address: 71 Alevera, Irvine, CA 92618 (Oak Creek)
Plan: 1300 sq ft – 3/2.5
MLS: S472766 DOM: 72
Sale History: 6/10/2005: $621,000
Price Reduced: 02/15/07 — $675,000 to $655,000
Price Reduced: 03/13/07 — $655,000 to $645,000
Price Reduced: 04/01/07 — $645,000 to $635,000
Current Price: $635,000
This home is a Plan 3 detached condo in the Aldea tract built by California Pacific Homes in the village of Oak Creek. The current owners purchased the home in June 2005 for $621,000 and listed it on the market about 18 months later for $675,000. After the reducing the price 3 times, the new asking price is $635,000. Assuming 6% in selling costs, they are looking at a $24,000 loss if they get their asking price.
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Let’s see how much this exact plan (Plan 3) is listing for around Irvine:
- TURTLE RIDGE : 109 Canyon Crest (MLS U6604026) – $875,000
- TURTLE RIDGE: 137 Canyon Crest (MLS S470431) – $760,000
- QUAIL HILL: 54 Reunion (MLS S481048) – $688,000
- QUAIL HILL: 110 Reunion (MLS S474429) – $689,900
- QUAIL HILL: 116 Reunion (MLS S480722) – $689,000
- QUAIL HILL: 79 Windchime (MLS S479912) – $685,000
- WOODBURY: 110 Great Lawn (MLS P566703) – $668,000
- WOODBURY: Brand NEW Plan 3 at Cortile – From $587,000
And a Brand NEW Plan 1 at Decada (similar but with more sq ft) in Portola Springs starts at $580,000!
1300 square feet…….worth about $300K max.
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I have a question: when I look at the floor plan for the new homes they have a room with the designation “great room”. Do these home builders think that their customers are stupid…….great room ??????? It looks to me like a cramped little space for a TV and couch.
great room = dining, living and family room all in one. I like great rooms. Who uses formal dining rooms and living rooms these days anyways?
I like great rooms too, but they need to be big if they want the title “great.”
This post really shows how the builders are leading the market down. Why would anyone pay more money to a private seller for the same product when you could buy it new directly from the builder for less? These people are dreaming.
In a market built on conventional mortgages, these sellers could probably ride out the storm; however, since our market is built on exotic financing terms, these people will probably be forced to sell at a loss when they can no longer afford their payments.
Welcome back, Zovall.
Irvine Builders are very precised with their pricing. I have to do cost comparision between new and resales home all day long. And you know what, the true cost always matchs exact. In fact I use the pricing that new homes are going for to price my resale accordingly. The builders spends millions in their marketing research to get the price at the move point.
Three bedrooms in a 1300 ft condo. Hmmm, the headline title should read – “Midget friendly!”
Good points – It is detached and has a garage.
If it was a two bedroom with a nicer exterior look then this place would be a good retirement home at 300k. As it is now, I would buy it as an investment prop at 200k.
nirvinerealtor:
I don’t understand your post. Do you set prices for resale homes by looking at the builder’s prices? And you think the “true cost” somehow is the same when the builder’s selling price is higher than comparable asking prices for resale homes? Could you please clarify your post?
For the cheap seats I will try to explain for poster.
Why would some idiot realtor list a used house for more than a brand spanking new house of equal quality and location.
Answer…because the idiot realtor advised the previous idiot buyer to overpay for the now resale wishing price house. And the greedy incompetent loan broker put the idiot resale home buyer into a crappy loan that the idiot FB can no longer afford.
SO…. The idiot realtor list the house for more than the cost of a new house so the idiot buyer can wish for selling it for enough to pay the realtor over bloated commision.
True cost is what the buyer can afford, not the price you overpaid morons can stuff down a persons mouth while claiming you know something about finances.
Now if you can’t understand that..GO BACK TO SELLING USED CARS!!!!!!!!!!
Extra ! is because that is all realtors understand
joe:
Thanks for the post… I think I can understand that. And please don’t get me started in Realtors. When my Irvine house finally sold in November 2006 (I left Irvine in May 2006), I came back to close the deal and the damn realtor hadn’t even kept the bathrooms clean, there was trash and old flyers all over my driveway, etc. This is AFTER he gave me all this lip service about how he would work my property and how great it looked every time I called him. It was with great pain that I gave him his damn 5%.
When I come back to OC in a couple of years, I’m buying with redfin
To be fair, don’t forget other factors, like upgrades and landscaping, that may make a similarly situated 2-3 year old home more valuable than a new house. Upgrades can easily add 10-20% to a new home’s price.
ripcord, what makes redfin better?
Melissa,
At least with redfin you don’t need to pay 2.5% to a spineless buyer’s agent who doesn’t know dick about the neighborhood, negotiation, LAW, and whose only loyalty is to get the deal done.
With redfin you get to see the house in context without spending 2 hours in a real estate office going over BS comps, and you get to do most of the legwork yourself. Realtors are nothing more than markey friction (and leeches), and the quicker we can erase their function, the more efficient and sane the RE market will be.
Can you tell I haven’t had any good experiences with Realtors(TM)?
ripcord,
I am a fan of spanking new home, who would not? However, it gives me a chill just to think of the money I need to throw in to make a house a “home”. It even gives me a “bigger chill” to think of putting my life on hold for about 6 months to deal with contractors and HOA & City’s approval for the outside work. For those who bought brand new homes know what I am talking about. How much does this pain and cost worth to people. Then the amenities worth a bundle too.
Now, I admit realtors, we just look “bad”. That is why I think Redfin is capitalizing on this concept; who needs a realtor!
Good realtors will improve your bottom line and improve your life though.
I want to make one thing clear: BUYERS ARE THE ONE WHO SET THE PRICE. Realtor sets the price to bring buyers in to see. A house that does not sell does not do anyone any good.
You have to look at the whole package. That is why sometimes you see resale listing much higher than new.
nirvinerealtor,
Thanks for the response, what you said does make some sense. I imagine you are right about “good realtors”. I guess I just haven’t met one yet… and I REALLY tried… I interviewed six before I listed my Turtle Rock home. What lies I was told…
“the true cost always matchs exact .. to get the price at the move point.”
It also depends on the phases, but, in general, new homes directly from builder is about 5% lower than the resales home.
Is the builder kicking in that $442/month mello roos payment yet?
Between the two associations and mello-roos, you have over $700 of expense payments a month that aren’t write-offs from taxes.
So at $580K and fixed rate of 6%, you are still running over $4500 a month to live in an average home. After taxes it’s still $3000 a month.
Donut,
Everyone that I know tax deducts Mello roos. Why? the tax acessesor just send you ONE bill, ONE amount, for property tax, no break down. Talk to your CPA.
9 Stonegate, Irvine, CA 92602
This flipper suffered a little loss. He bought at 950K and sold at 940K after 2 years.
“Everyone that I know tax deducts Mello roos. Why? the tax acessesor just send you ONE bill, ONE amount, for property tax, no break down. Talk to your CPA.”
That doesn’t make it legal.
Check here for state info on deducting mello roos. I had the same exact question.
http://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/faq/net/909.html
You can’t deduct your vehicle registration fee either. You can deduct a tiny portion of it but a large amount of your vehicle tax isn’t deductible, yet most people deduct the total ‘tax’ bill each year.
It’s all fine, until something or random chance selects your return for review…
then guess what…
they’re now looking at several years of back returns, plus penalties and interest for deducting $5300 of ‘taxes’ that aren’t taxes.
Got CPA? Real Estate Attorney?
I read the web site mentioned by raymond and it looks kind of grayish?
We live in one of these mini homes (rent for $2,500 per month) in Turtle Ridge (same exact layout and size). The real joke of these neighborhoods is the fact that there are no yards (front, back or side) and absolutely no open space anywhere for children to play. The kids all play in the shared driveways! It’s like an inner city slum, kids playing on the asphalt all day dodging cars! We’ll be moving next year for sure as our baby will be becoming a toddler and she sure won’t be playing in a driveway!
This property is across the street from Valley Oak Park, but I don’t think it has a pedestrian bridge like the one that strech across Alton Pkway around the corner.
Oak Creek has several small-ish parks scattered around the community. You can look up the address on yahoo maps and see.
There’s also the Oak Creek Community park around the corner, it’s only ~12 acres though:
http://www.ci.irvine.ca.us/depts/cs/commparks/cparks/cparks_oakcreek.asp
The main issue here, I think, it’s that these parks are all located “across the street” from this property. So if you have kids and don’t want them to wander too far, then they’re stuck playing in your driveway.
Realtor’s that I have dealt with tend to be simply salesmen.(or women for you pc nazis)… They typically know less about the house and neighborhood (unless your buying in a new town). All most realtors do is add a few percent to whatever your appraisal district says your worth. Most homeowners will never realize a +6% in the sale of their homes and thus lose money on their realtor. The other issue is that unless your are selling a piece of high dollar property 1mil + your realtor is barely interested in arguing up the price of the home. Remeber your agent only makes 3% off the sale side of the transaction. THe difference in commission for a $100000 dollar sale and a 110000 dollar sale is $210 dollars for the realtor. And note that this is a 10% increase in the house price for you.
Lookie… this one just sold for $600k. $564k after commission.
Loss of $57k. Not to mention mortgage interest.
Makes us feel better for renting the last 24 months eh?
Nirvinerealtor –
Well, I’m a CPA. No, you can not deduct Mello Roos. And as Nirvinerealtor states, many people attempt to deduct them. But, as more people e-file their taxes, and as the County provides greater detail electronically to the IRS and FTB, the “improper” filer will get hit. By the way, don’t talk to your CPA — they will NEVER advise you to willfully violate the internal revenue laws of the United States. It’s called conspiracy to commit tax fraud, and I’m not losing my CPA license over some client’s improper deduction. But that aside, the deduction for property taxes is becoming less meaningful. As more people get hit with the AMT (you can’t deduct taxes for AMT purposes) and have their deductions limited by the “phase out,” property taxes provide less and less tax benefit.