The love of money is the root of all evil.
The Bible — Timothy 6:10
Money, its a crime.
Share it fairly but dont take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that theyre
Giving none away.
Money — Pink Floyd
Have you heard about the new realty in town offering to help sellers move property in a declining market? Their name is Dewey, Cheatem & Howe.
OK, it is an old lawyer’s joke, but it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this WTF price on Dewey Street in Irvine…
Asking Price: $940,000
Purchase Price: $527,000
Purchase Date: 7/11/2003
Address: 27 Dewey, Irvine, CA 92620
Beds: 4
Baths: 2.5
Sq. Ft.: 2,500
$/Sq. Ft.: $376
Lot Size: 5,500 sq. ft.
Year Built: 1978
Stories: 2
Type: Single Family Residence
View: Pool
County: Orange
Neighborhood: Northwood
MLS#: P586668
Status: Active
On Redfin: 41 days
From Redfin, “Completely remodeled home from inside & out. Enjoy approx. $200k in u pgrades including: travertine floors, custom paint, crown molding, granite, newer windows, & a resort style custom swimming pool. Main floor master bed w/ blt in vanity & private bath. Gourmet kitchen with granite, pantry, & upgraded fixtures & appliances. Open formal living room w/ vaulted ceilings & fireplace. Lg. secondary bedrooms. Gorgeous resort style swimming pool w/ waterfall. Attend award winning Northwood Sch’s.”
Another listing looking to justify an asking price by telling us how much they spent on upgrades. Who cares? Did you add any value with all that money you spent? Maybe the buyer will need to spend $200,000 to fix the mess. Who knows?
Oh, he added a gourmet kitchen. That explains it.
.
.
So despite the rollbacks happening all around him, this seller believes his property has doubled in value since 2003. This is ridiculous. According to the property records, there is no mortgage on the property, so this seller can cling to his WTF asking price for all eternity — which is how long it might take for valuations to justify this price.
For drinking way too much kool aid, bestow our WTF award on 27 Dewey!
Money, get away.
Get a good job with good pay and youre okay.
Money, its a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think Ill buy me a football team.
Money, get back.
Im all right jack keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, its a hit.
Dont give me that do goody good bullshit.
Im in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a lear jet.
Money — Pink Floyd
This house reminds me of a house in Pacific Beach (San Diego) that languished on the market for well over a year starting in winter 2006. It was a block from the ocean, two bedroom, and priced at 1.2 million. The elderly owners, who had long ago paid off the mortgage, thought they would “just see if anyone was interested” – meanwhile, the more reasonably-priced homes around them got sold while theirs didn’t have an offer.
Finally the price was dropped to 925K and somebody ponied up – still overpaying in my estimation. What annoyed me most was the orginal owners’ stubbornness and insistence on getting top dollar despite the massive amount of gains they would receive in any case.
I believe this attitude cost them in the long run – had they priced it somewhere between their wishing price and the final sales price early on, it possibly would have sold. Of course, their agent was equally to blame for setting the price so high.
I am tired of people thinking it is their due to have the new knife-catcher fund their retirement, kids’ college costs, or any other tomfoolery. Those that cling to WTF prices deserve their fate – no sale! No retirement money! Kids paying their own way through college! And best – HELOCS accumulating interest every day they cling to WTF-ville!
—–
Not far from Irvine, the housing bubble has burst on a street in Santa Ana. See this investigation that ran in Sunday’s OC Register at http://www.ocregister.com/news/loans-camile-percent-1806121-subprime-loan
Well said. It really bugs me when I’m scrolling through listings and see one house whose owners are asking well below the price of the last 2005 sale, and then virtually next door some other sellers believe their property has shot up in value over the same amount of time and are asking way more.
Give me a break. As IR has pointed out, this type of behavior is insulting to buyers and needs to be exposed. Not that I would totally blame them for clinging on to the hope that the angel of stupidity is going to bestow some dupes willing (and able) to pay through the nose for an overpriced piece of property. That’s so 2005.
At this point I don’t believe that most of the people listing homes in Irvine really want to sell…….the “sellers” are only trying to find someone dumb enough to purchase thier residence so they can stash a bunch of money in the bank to re-purchase when the prices fall……of course, the “greater fool” is becoming extinct. When people want to, (have to sell), they reduce the price…….a lot. My guess is that we will see listing inventory start to decline through the holidays again this year like we did last year.
Then in 2008 we will see a whole different maket dynamic. After several years with substantially less pay, the real estate agents that are still in the business will only take listing with prices that will lead to a sale in 60 – 90 days. If someone wants to list at some “WTF” price they will have to do it on their own.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I think it’s an owner’s right to price their home however they see fit; if you don’t want to bid you don’t have to, but you shouldn’t feel like you’re entitled to buy their home for the price you want to pay.
If two identical homes have such a large variance in list price, guess which one is more likely to sell?
After years of sitting on the sidelines and being VASTLY annoyed at the entire situation, I no longer get annoyed at outrageous prices on properties.
I figure, it’s their property, not mine. The market will deal out justice eventually. (though sometimes pretty damned eventually).
These sellers are discovering the hard way that only the Fed can push markets around, and then only for so long. We are seeing what happens when a market is kept aloft by artificial stimulants.
I also figure that if some greedy seller can find a stupe to buy his property for the price asked, that’s fine and none of my business. But the patsy isn’t entitled to gov’t action to prop up the market artificially or bail him out of unmanageable house payments.
Same goes for the capital markets. Unfortunately, however, the buyers of all the bad debt are successfully appealing to the Fed for more liquidity, even though what the Fed can provide is a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed, and is endangering our currency and credibility.
I’m a side line buyer, however with the credit crunch forming up last week and the need for 20%+ down, I’m more content than ever to rent. I have no desire anymore to look for a deal, there are none, in the last month, rates have moved from near 6% to basically 8% for a loan on an Irvine home.
Sellers don’t get it, REALTORs ™ don’t get it, and everybody shopping this weekend didn’t get it. Prices need to fall 20% just to be where we were three weeks ago from a cashflow perspective.
Call me in January when home sales volume has fallen another 50%.
I’m with you Maverick. The value you ask for your home is up to you. And it may be greed, but isn’t cheering for 50% depreciation greed? Everyone is competing for more money. If you see a WTF price, laugh. Don’t get all emotional and attack the “greedy” seller.
The way I see it, if a someone wants to pay for a house they cannot afford, that’s their prerogative. The reason the low income buyers get stuck with these are because they are buying beyond their means. In the stock market, if no one is buying a stock at $50 and a fool decides he will, that is his stupidity. IMO, it is a seller’s “duty” to try and maximize his gain. He shouldn’t have to worry about the welfare of the potential buyer. If the buyer chases the market down, well, that’s a gamble that he took and he lost. Let the market sort all that out.
I meant to say if the SELLER chases the market down…
It’s easy to say that people just didn’t know. But then you read an article like the Santa Ana one someone linked above, and you get to this guy at the bottom of the article. If it’s obvious to a chef – it should have been obvious to everyone else buying on his street.
————–
The only ones who seem content are longtime residents like Rafael Zambrano, who moved to 930 W. Camile St. in 1988. The chef and father of four said he has nearly paid off his $177,000 mortgage. He has a low opinion of the people who loaned money to his neighbors and the neighbors who borrowed beyond their means.
“I never sell. I never refinance,” Zambrano said. “I don’t take money out of my house to buy a car or take a vacation. I’m not stupid.”
Lower socio-economic players in a capitalist system tend to “lose” these battles. However, if your credit was already bad, and a lender gives you a 100% CLTV loan combining many others risk factors, the real loser here is the person holding the paper. The subprime borrower simply walks away (in CA – assuming purchase money loan and/or insolvent borrower) and takes just their lower credit score with ’em.
This 30-year old house, $940k? You can buy a brand new 4 bed SFR in Irvine for $850k-ish, which I still think is over-priced.
Humor re: “don’t get it”
http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-vacant12aug12,0,4584754.story?page=1&coll=la-home-center
Thanks to globalization, requests for BPOs can come from the other side of the world. Ocwen Financial Corp., a Florida mortgage company that is trying to sell 753 foreclosed homes in California, has outsourced its BPO review office to India.
Agents who work with Ocwen e-mail their reports to India, where they are processed and sent to the company’s headquarters in West Palm Beach. Asset managers there decide on the price.
“We’re here and they’re not, but they resist our expertise,” said Jason Bosch, president of Home Center Realty, an Inland Empire firm that works with Ocwen and other lenders. Home Center has put 42 lender-owned homes on the market since the beginning of the year. Only two have sold.
Bosch cited one house in Perris that a lender listed for $427,000. Home Center received an offer of $419,000, but the lender said it wouldn’t budge. The would-be buyer moved on to a more flexible seller.
Ten days later, the lender lowered the price to $417,000, where it still sits.
“This is not the result of a person evaluating these deals on a case-by-case basis,” Bosch said. “This is a computer working off a formula.”
Must have been the same computer that valued the CDOs.
Does Sue post anything new, or just quotes from other online articles?
First off let me state that I currently own a home in Irvine that is on the market. On one hand I am in a position where I need to sell, the other is that I could make my current situation work if need be and pull my home off the market. As someone who has been sitting on the sidelines reading this blog I have sensed animosity towards sellers from (in my opinion) the majority of folks commenting on the extremely colorful postings by IrvineRenter. Thank goodness my property has not shown up yet. 🙂 Looking at this listing I agree with the WTF classification. However, it is their home to list as they see fit. They must truly feel that the upgrades are worth what they say and are hoping someone else agrees with them. Personally, I think they are crazy. However, there are other factors that even Redfin cannot take into account. After grabbing the information on Redfin about my property it shows the classic – bought it a few years back and is now listed a few hundred thousand more. On the surface it looks like I stand to clean up if someone pays my asking price. What it doesn’t show is the additional items (upgrades) I have done to the house. Not that you’ll take my word for it but I have priced my house accordingly. It is currently the cheapest per sq. ft. in the area. While I do stand to make some money off the sale, I think the price point is attractive. I have lowered my price to reflect the current market conditions and will not make as much off the property as I would have liked but that’s the way it goes. I’m not buying or selling houses in order to make money, but rather because I have to based on what turns life has taken. I think the folks out there (the evil flippers) really make things tough for those of us who just want to sell and move on. Sorry for the long post. And please remember, not all of us sellers like the taste of cool aid.
Exactly Mark and I think that’s what most people that are looking for a bailout fail to see. The current “crisis” is one of the few examples in history where the working man actually got one over on “the man.” Lower income/bad credit individuals were able to either finance a home purchase or lifestyle WAY beyond their means with zero risk, i.e., zero down – and are leaving Wall Street holding the bag. If they have to move out of a house they should never have been in then why should we care?
It’s insulting to Mr. Zambrano (above), myself and every other hard working, conservative individual in this country that lives within their means to think that our tax dollars, the basis for our entire economy (the dollar) or the long term health of our country (US gov’t securities) could be used to rescue a minority of the population from their own greed (bankers and homeowners alike).
Dear IrvineOwner,
You have a choice, keep the house for the next 5-7 years or set the price so that it will sell…..it is, of course your choice.
As for a price that it will sell for in the next 60-90 days, try lowering it by 25% to start with. This is the price reduction required to sell new homes prenented on the OCRegister blog. As you know there are lots of sellers out there now that are trying to figure out what to do. In a down market, pricing in the “pack” will not attract buyers.
I agree. Also do what I did, give the SELLING agent a $10,000 bonus on top of their commission, it worked like wonders. The first day that was put in the MLS we had nine agents looking at our house.
The LA time had some front info on how the down turn had effected people associated with the market but meanwhile the Real Estate section was buzzing with the great deals out there!
Unless IrvineOwner is in a MUST SELL position, s/he does not have to lower the listing price by 25%, IMO. I do think giving bonus to agents is a good idea.
I know someone who put their house on the market about three weeks ago, got an offer in just two days. Though the offer was about 9% below their asking price, it was a good offer considering the house was priced highest (per sqf) in the area.
Irvine Owner
I don’t think the majority of people here would begrudge you a fair price for your house. What these real estate blogs are mostly all about is the mass orgy of credit, debt, fraud, abuse and exploding loans started by the _______
(insert adjective) Alan Greenspan Fed and the subsequent bubble it created in the once-affordable, albeit expensive s. cal real estate market and society in general. Ya know, the one where people didn’t have to spend 70, 80 even 90% of their income to “own” a home just to “keep up with the Jonses.”. The MSM was all for it along with the REIC, who are STILL calling this debacle “the sub prime problem” as Wall St. slowly tries to figure out who’s holding the trillions in toxic debt on the liar loan ARMs. IR’s blog has been way ahead of the curve on this problem.
It’s very upsetting to some people, amusing to others and a lotta people somewhere in the middle, natch. Houses are emotional items to some people. Hence the term “proud of his price” if you’re a buyer. In your case, you’re a seller and would naturally have a different mind set. What was once a white-hot seller’s market up until late ’05 somewhere into ’06 (approximately) has now become a buyer’s market. Real fast. There is too much inventory with not enough money chasing it. The market turned on you. It turned on plenty of people. It turned on me a long time ago. Like you say, that’s the way it goes.
If you’ve nicely upgraded your house and have it priced at the lowest sq.ft in Irvine, I’d say you have a pretty good chance to sell it…depending on your agent and your luck. There will always be buyers, just not as many (qualified) ones this time around in the cycle. Good luck.
Several comments:
1. Right before this bubble, there was NOT a home improvement that would give you a 100% return. In other words, just because someone spent $50K in putting in a pool, it did not mean that they could raise the price by $50K.
I think it was noted that a kitchen would be 90% return, bathrooms 80%, and on it went on a sliding scale.
It is funny to hear on the shows when the realtors tell someone that if they spend $15K on improvements they could raise the price by $80K.
2. Just because it shows no mortgage on property, it does not mean that the owners have wiggle room. Saw a property like this (now underwater) where no mortgage was shown. Ended up that the flippers (100% sure) had HELOCed their other properties to purchase this one.
Yes, Yes, Yes……..
8% comissions for the real estate agents(50/50 split) and give them a 1 % kicker if they get a sale in 30 days. RE agents are motivated by money……….if you want to stand out, lower your price and be generous with the agents !!!!!!
Thanks. Nice feedback from all of you. I am experiencing first hand the fallout from the sub-prime fiasco. I have had several offers that never materialized once the buyers went to “talk to a lender”. Since that time I have instructed my agent to not even contact me with these until the buyer has been qualified for whatever amount they are offering.
Again, thanks for the feedback from the readers who posted. As a seller, this blog is also extremely useful to me. Not that I need a reality check, but it is great to get a nice overall picture of some of the mistakes sellers are making in my city..then try not to repeat them.
One quick addition. After reading some of the “pointed” comments regarding the descriptions realtors were putting in. I had a nice discussion with mine to ensure there were no !!!!!! or ***** and especially to stay away from descriptions that insult the intelligence of someone looking to buy. While I do like my home, in no way is my kitchen “gourmet” simply because it has a granite counter, or that my master bedroom also includes a “retreat” because there is just enough room to fit a nice chair and lamp for reading. 🙂
Nano: “try lowering it by 25% to start with.” What a profound suggestion. You don’t even know what the house is priced at to begin with. Why not just tell IrvineOwner to lower the price by 75%?
“In a down market, pricing in the “pack” will not attract buyers.”
Tomorrow’s post has a couple examples of what happens if you price in the “pack”. You’ve got to price ahead of the pack if you want to sell.
Yeah, some of those shows don’t factor in the expert labor cost of 2+ amazing carpenters for a huge job. The only carpenter that won’t charge that much is Jesus. I mean “Jesus” who is a day laborer and who stands outside of Home Depot though. He’s great!
That’s kind of annoying.
I don’t work in the industry, don’t know enough to give anyone advice or insights. So I just post links to things I personally found interesting & let people evaluate them themselves.
Well maverick,
I do know that the house is on the market now, and the owner “lowered” the price at least once……….I stick with my statement, immediate 25% reduction. That would only be enough to take care of the reduced affordability because of the recent increase in interest rates.
Seriously, if you want to sell you better take action now, or be priced “in” forever !!!!! or be Priced “in” for a long time !!!!
IrvineOwner,
I just wanted to say good luck!
Check out this Countrywide rate sheet:
https://www.cwbc.com/PdfFiles/WLDBC%20CA.pdf
Nano,
I really don’t mean to pick on you, but seriously . . .
You don’t know the property.
You don’t know the neighborhood.
You don’t know how it’s priced right now.
You don’t even know how many bedroom and bathrooms.
But you know exactly how THIS person should price THEIR home.
It’s borderline arrogant.
However, it is their home to list as they see fit.
This is not extactly true. Lenders are scrutinizing appraisals more than ever. It is quite possible that this house could not appraise for that much and even if he found a willing buyer the lender would not allo0w the price. Bottom line is in a down market lenders are not letting people over pay. It all depends on the comparibles.
Mark asked, “And it may be greed, but isn’t cheering for 50% depreciation greed?”
No, it’s desperately hoping for reality in a market where said characteristic has been absent for quite some time.
Mark then wrote, “Everyone is competing for more money. If you see a WTF price, laugh. Don’t get all emotional and attack the “greedy” seller.”
Whose emotional? Not me. Plain and simple, it’s schadenfreude seeing these WTF listings. Add to that, I the greedy should be attacked. And if that hurts their feelings, well, pooooor babies.
How’s that for sympathy?
addtional note: There has been no compairible sales over the high 8s. An appraiser could not put that value on an appraisal legitimately.
I enjoy your links and find them informative. Thanks. I don’t work in the industry either, but I like to give out lots of insights and advice which are worth about as much as you are paying for them.
*****Thanks FamilyGuy!!!!!!!
It doesn’t matter if the home is for 100k or for 1mil. He’s speaking in percentages. I think dropping by 25% at once may be too aggressive, but I think a 10% reduction would generate bids.
If you try and make the same amount of money as others from an investment, you’ll lose more often than not. Take a look at what you paid for it versus what you could walk away with, regardless of what others are doing. Anytime you can walk away from an investment with a profit you should be thrilled.
Upgrades are in the eye of the beholder. One man’s ugrades could be another man’s tear-downs.
I was a bear and now I forever will be hibernating. I honestly was hoping for prices to fall. And yes, prices have fallen. But I didnt expect the tightening of credit as a trade off.
A month ago, I would have qualify with my credit score of 690. And now this is not good enough. On top of that, I am expected to put down 20%!
Had I known this, I would have purchase a month ago. Good grief. Live and learn, I guess.
I just think it was presumptuous to throw out any number and assume you know more than the current seller about the market value of his/her home.
The only objective information we know from the original post was that the asking price is the lowest on a PSF basis relative to comps. That’s it.
I’m trying to bring balance to the discussion, because this person was right, there can tend to be a negative slant in the discussions on this site. Mostly because there is pretty much exclusively negative news available right now, but I think it’s a little cliche to start ringing the alarm bells that the sky is falling.
The fact is there will always be buyers looking to purchase homes, at what they perceive to be reasonable prices. And ultimately, the only people who decide if a price is reasonable are the parties involved in the transaction.
I second that.
Often the links are of something I haven’t had time or wouldn’t have found on my own.
Thanks, Sue.
Good luck as well. It is unnerving waiting for a sale … was in that boat a year ago myself as we had to sell and move to a new state for a job change. One tip I read was to let friends and co-workers know you are selling – you never know who might know someone moving into the area looking for a place like yours.
Best of luck.
Yes Sue,
I second that. I appreciate the time you spend putting these links up for us to peruse….Patience2007, what were you thinking ? Sue’s links are “new” information, just in the form of an article as opposed to a comment. All info is good, no matter the format.
And, of course, the authors know more than I do as well 🙂
Federal Reserve Board
The July 2007 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey
on Bank Lending Practices
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/SnLoanSurvey/200708/default.htm
“I had a nice discussion with [my realtor] to ensure there were no !!!!!! or ***** and especially to stay away from descriptions that insult the intelligence of someone looking to buy.”
Then your house should be pretty easy to locate in the MLS. Perhaps IR will track it down and feature it!
“A month ago, I would have qualify with my credit score of 690. And now this is not good enough. On top of that, I am expected to put down 20%!
Had I known this, I would have purchase a month ago. Good grief. Live and learn, I guess.”
The way I see it, this puts more pressure on the sellers, not you the buyer.
Prior to the credit tightening, sales were declining and home prices were also coming down. The credit tightening removes more buyers from the market. So, sellers will have to cut their prices further to reach a wider pool of buyers. Let them come to you!
However, it is funny how the credit tightening is spun in the media to sound as if it hurts just the buyers.
“The fact is there will always be buyers looking to purchase homes, at what they perceive to be reasonable prices. And ultimately, the only people who decide if a price is reasonable are the parties involved in the transaction.”
Righto. The sellers, the buyers, and the lenders.
Renter4ever: you have not been spending enough time reading this and other blogs. Otherwise, you would not be rueing missing the boat; you would be breathing a sigh of relief that you didn’t buy too soon. Wait a while, and you will see prices continue their downward path.
It’s a blog! It’s an opinion! Of course NanoWest didn’t perform a detailed analysis.(And didn’t charge for it.) Of course IrvineOwner doesn’t have to lower the listing price. I think NanoWest’s larger point was to think outside the box — to consider a shocking course of action. Good advice, imnsho.
Also — agreed, good luck Irvine Owner, agreed.
Also — while some homeowners are victims of their own greed — some others depended on sound, principled lending practices … in years past, banks required 10% – 20% down and max 28% of income to housing. (In 1984 I had to document the source of my 10% down payment.) Yes — the simply greedy, and the capitalists (who believe in market discipline), should not be bailed out. Perhaps the simply unsophisticated should be helped. As we live in a democracy (on balance a good thing) — if enough voters are directly and indirectly affected — our representatives are bound to develop political remedies.
Morgan Stanley viewpoint
Can Central Banks Head Off a Credit Crunch?http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/index.html
keep posting the links sue! i enjoy your links and commonly browse through the comments looking for them.
why the lyrics? It’s kind of annoying.
don’t get it, I won’t accept lack of education for an excuse, especially since so many people I have encountered who took these bogus loans to overpay grossly for places in my nabe are distinctly not poor or uneducated.
Here is a Chicago story that is typical: a woman was put out of her lovely little Octogon craftsman bungalow she’d owned since 1978 because she could not make the payments. She is an intensive care nurse. The sheriff came and moved her stuff out on the sidewalk.
Now consider that. Here is someone who makes in excess of $70K a year who cannot ‘afford” the payments on a house she bought nearly 30 years ago for maybe $50K.
What do you think happened here? The only thing that could have happened, given that she had an uninterrupted income for all these years with no nasty surprises (accident, illness), the only thing that could have happened was that she caved in to the blandishments of the mortgage salesmen who were calling everyone 5X a day and took out a monster cash-out loan against her place. Did she not figure out that she was going to have to repay that? What mental dead zone was she in that she thought she could sit there and not make payments and still keep the house and all the goodies she bought with the equity she pulled out of it.
This woman is extremely typical. In my mother’s upper-middle St. Louis suburb, a conservative, tree-lined old ‘railroad’ burb where people used to drive thier cars for 20 years, younger homewners of large expensive houses have been taking out massive loans to build additions as big as the original house, and own fleets of $60K SUVs. Did they not know , or should they not have been able to figure out, that they would have to pay for this? These are not uneducated people, and they are losing their houses.
I would feel sorry for low income people except for one thing. Several things, actually. To begin with , I have a hard time excusing a lack of education because it is too easy to educate yourself. The information is there. All you have to do is ask questions. I don’t believe most people are quite so stupid that they can’t reason that if all they can afford to live in normally is a slum one-bed apt, how can they afford to buy a house? Remember, some of this country’s old powerhouse industries were build by people who never made it past 8th grade, but who educated themselves. Andrew Carnegie comes to mind, and I think that if he had somehow been pulled out of his own time age 20 he would have known better than to do what these people have done.
Additionally, what will these low income people really lose? Their credit ratings were already in the tank, so what will one more little notation, “foreclosure”, do to hurt them? All they are really “losing” is the privelege of making $3500 a month payments when they don’t even earn that much, on a place they could rent for $900.
What the bailout advocates are really bleating about is the fate of all their buddies, the hedge fund babies and mortgage lenders, and the developers. Developers are being foreclosed on their construction loans now, to their total destruction,as most of these loans had to be guaranteed personally. The hedge fund bonus babies wont get their $140MM paychecks this year, boohoohoohoo, and will have to put the $43MM, 65,000sq ft megapalace with the three swimming pools and wine celler and heated 10-car underground garage on the market. Or just mail in the keys.
Yes, many multimillionaires and billionaires are going to be unmade by this shakeout, and many moderate-income people like myself will have an opportunity to buy a nice place at a price in keeping with our incomes. If it’s “greedy” on my part to want property to fall back to my income range , well, I guess I’m greedy, but I believe this shakeout is a good thing.
This is not in the OC, but I think I might have found a winner for the WTF award of the century, this also might qualify for as “Real Homes of Genius”.
Check out this stunning 60 year old, 852 sq ft palace in Riverside for only 690K. YUP, that’s $809 sq/ft for RIVERSIDE!
http://orange.yahoo.socalfinehouses.com/details/start.aspx?Results=true&propid=008S00p591862
(mls P591862)
It has to be a mistake. Me think the agent accidentally put one extra zero in the listing price.
I know that area, and that has to be some kind of mistake.
I’m guessing they think the large lot makes up for the POS house. But you can buy a new 4000 sq/ft home on an acre (about $200 sq/ft) in a much better area of Riverside for about the same price as this dump.
Check out the typical REALTOR description. How do they get every word capatalized? I guess spell check stops working when you put 3 asterics before every word. WOW is a total remodel though, that makes all the difference. Just how do you fit 4 bedrooms into 852 sq/ft? Look, it also does not have Air Conditioning. No AC in Riverside. Maybe they can rent it out as a sauna/heath spa.
let’s hope it’s a mistake but since it’s been up for a couple of weeks I sorta doubt it.
Seriously, will prices EVER come back to peak levels? Like the Nasdaq, will they sit in a long time funk? I am betting that No, we will never again see $809/sq ft in Riverside. Ever.
Of course, underpricing specifically to drive UP prices is extremely unethical and in many states a realtor agents’ review board will yank your license for it.
How would underpricing drive up prices?
I think it’s the eBay effect. (ex. if you’re selling a Foobar on eBay, and there are 19 other Foobar’s asking $200-300 say, and you price your Foobar at $100, then everyone doing a price sort notices and starts bidding on your Foobar. Eventually, the winning Foobar bid is $205.)
Same deal for a house – underprice generates a lot of interest, sometimes multiple bids.