The King

When I was 17,
I dreamed of being king.
And having everything I wanted.
But that was long ago
and my dreams did not unfold,
so I’m still the King of Nothing.

King of Nothing — Seals & Crofts

Link to Music Video

Link to Metalica King Nothing

An Englishman’s home is his castle, or so the saying goes. Today’s seller is going to take a loss, so that makes him the King of Nothing.

10 Mineral King Front 10 Mineral King Kitchen

Asking Price: $861,000IrvineRenter

Income Requirement: $215,250

Downpayment Needed: $172,200

Purchase Price: $875,000

Purchase Date: 2/27/2006

Address: 10 Mineral King, Irvine, CA 92602

Beds: 4
Baths: 2.5
Sq. Ft.: 2,477
$/Sq. Ft.: $348
Lot Size: –Rollback
Type: Single Family Residence
Style: Contemporary
Year Built: 2000
Stories: Two Levels
View(s): Park or Green Belt
Area: Northpark
County: Orange
MLS#: S509200
Status: Active
On Redfin: 4 days

From Redfin, “MODEL PERFECT HOME IN PRESTIGIOUS GUARD GATED NORTHPARK W/ BEAUTIFUL POOLS, TENNIS & TREE LINED PARKS. FABULOUS PLAN OFFERS FORMAL LR & DR WHILE CAPTURING ‘GREAT ROOM FEELING’ FOR ENTERTAINING IN THE FAMILY RM. GOURMET KITCHEN W/ GRANITE, STAINLESS/BLK APPLIANCES. BONUS/4TH BR HAS WALK-IN CLOSET (NOW USED AS A STUDY NICHE). SUMPTUOUS MASTER W/ RETREAT & LUXURIOUS BATH W/ SHOWER, SOAKING TUB & WALK-IN CLOSET. UPGRADED THRUOUT W/ EXTENSIVE TILE FLOORING, SHUTTERS, CUSTOM DRAPES & VALENCES. MUST SEE!”

I AM GETTING REALLY TIRED OF THE CAPS LOCK.

CAPTURING ‘GREAT ROOM FEELING’? — You’ve lost the loving feeling…

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Today’s seller stands to lose $65,660 assuming a 6% commission. Does anyone think they will get the asking price? I don’t.

Not a big loss in the grand scheme of things. When I profile a property with a loss of less than $100,000, it doesn’t seem quite as interesting, does it? I have to imagine, the $65,660 loss will be a big deal to the seller. At this point, the seller is just trying to salvage what’s left of their $150,000 downpayment. Good luck with that.

I hope you have enjoyed your visits to the Irvine Housing Blog this week. It was our pleasure to bring it to you. Please come back next week as we continue chronicling ‘the seventh circle of real estate hell.’ Have a great weekend.

🙂

Circle of Hell

Here may we reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Paradise Lost — John Milton
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58 thoughts on “The King”

  1. Don from the Tanning Salon

    This home looks like it shows well, and unlike REALTOR HOLLY earlier in the week, some effort was made on the photos and appearance. Maybe the scores of losers in the realtor herd will start to get thinned. I don’t know what the ultimate selling price of this will be, but this is the first listing in a long time where I didn’t immediately think “wildly overvalued.” And it’s on a home that is listing for 8+ bills. I guess I’ve gone all soft hearted by weeks end.

    See ya next week IR.
    —–

  2. Mr Vincent

    I would never buy this place.

    Just look at the second pic on Redfin. The lot is so small – all you get is a little courtyard on the side that is a few feet from the neighbors house. Two tall houses next to each other create an alot of echo. Any noise is amplified.

    Also, notice the 2002 selling price of 472k, which is about what it should be worth.

    The house should fit the lot. Too much house for this size lot. Its a pretty nice looking house otherwise.

  6. YLG

    this is why I am nervous to buy a house. I plan on living there for a long time, and have no doubt that the value will be restored eventually (first a big drop then a gradual climb). But if something changes, and we have to sell quickly it could be a disaster (65K is a LOT of money for me). So we keep renting…

  7. No_Such_Reality

    Way over priced. It’s a stand alone condo. A BIG condo, but just a condo. It has no yard. The lot consists of a patio and 3 foot walkway of shrubs to hide the AC unit.

    The only difference between this an cruddy condo is lack of shared walls. Notice the picture of the bedroom. The windows are set in the corner. Why are windows set in the corner? Because that’s the only place they can be placed without staring directly into a neighbor that is 6 feet away because of the dual 3 foot setbacks.

    Corner windows are bad design. Notice the bathroom door opening onto the sink, notice how when opened it blocks the sink. Bad design. Notice how the dining room table blocks the patio sliders. It’s too small. Look at the family room, look at the fireplace, look at the tiles. Count the tiles. Even with 18 inch tiles, the room is too small for a fireplace to allow use of the room. Bad design. Notice the sitting room with the sofas, notice how narrow it is, sofa, narrow coffee table, love seat and too narrow pathways that are probably smidge over a foot wide. I see the kitchen, but which room is connected to the kitchen? The fireplace room?

    From the photos, that house appears to be a series of cubby holes. Why buy when you can rent? Seriously, this is a disposable house. It has no features apparent that warrant it being something you would want to own for 30+ years or keep in the family through generations. Typical for Irvine development during the boom cycle, all disposable housing. All gloss, no substance. Full of “gourmet” features, travertine, and stainless, but slapped together like a cheap rental apartment building.

  8. jimmyJoe

    “It’s a stand alone condo. A BIG condo, but just a condo. It has no yard. The lot consists of a patio and 3 foot walkway of shrubs to hide the AC unit.
    ”

    EXACTLY !!!!!!!!! Not to mention that most of those homes are built with crapy matierals. This house (along with 99% of most houses in NorthPark) will be falling apart within the next few years anyway.

    $350k TOPS. Anyone who pays more than that is a SUCKER.

  10. FamilyGuy

    It’s interesting that all the recent sales in the neighborhood are listed as 0/0 on Redfin and Zillow? First time I’ve seen anything like this?

  11. Sue

    Don’t think the super SIV reassured that many people if they’re “like radioactive waste” (see quote below).

    U.S. Stocks Drop on Earnings; Caterpillar, Energy Shares Fall
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axUfGKFBUmDM&refer=home

    More than one-third of the 92 financial companies in the S&P 500 have reported third-quarter results as of yesterday. Their profit drop is the biggest since Bloomberg began tracking quarterly earnings growth in the third quarter of 1997. Financial firms account for about 19 percent of the S&P 500’s value and produced 27 percent of the index’s profits last quarter, according to Bloomberg data. The S&P 500 Financials Index has dropped 9.2 percent this year.

    “Right now financial stocks are like radioactive waste,” said Michael James, senior equity trader at Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. “People just do not want to touch them.”

  12. Sue

    Looks like lawyerliz and awgee are in good company re: skepticism over the super SIV

    SIV Concerns Trigger Worst Week for Credit in Three Months

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a0LPV6ej8vCk&refer=home

    Greenspan Skeptical

    Paulson, a former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., brokered talks in Washington with Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. banks, to set up a fund to buy SIV assets and avoid further forced sales. The banks announced the planned fund on Oct. 15.

    Greenspan said it wasn’t clear to him that the benefits to be gained from such a fund exceeded the risks, according to the report in Emerging Markets, a newspaper that is published during meetings of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and regional development banks.

  14. Sue

    Same. I keep thinking about that “Real Estate Price” roller coaster plotted on the Case-Schiller graph this morning, and look at the weird economy and stock market stuff that keeps getting weirder and weirder. I mean, I could understand the usual interest rates go up, economy slows down thing, but this feels like uncharted water. Unless one goes way back to the roaring 20s … in which case that part of the roller coaster video (and the lengthy, lengthy dip which is deflation adjusted to boot …) really makes me worry.

    Must keep renting ….

  15. caliguy2699

    It has to be overpriced. Looking at the sales history, it sold for $472k in 2002 and then $875k in 2006. Is there any legitimate reason for why the property nearly doubled in value in four years?

  16. Jan

    This is evergreen model 4 at NP, a similiar one in the market for a few weeks already is asking just $745,000.

    21 Three Rivers
    Irvine 92602
    4 Bedrooms / 2.50 Baths
    2477 SF (approx) .
    Also, just last month a plan #2 (maybe foreclouse) sold around $650K.

  17. screwrealestate

    Radioactive wasted indeed…..SRS (Ultrashort Financials) is up about 4%, the only thing I own that is…

  18. shhhhh

    “Cubby holes” is right!

    That TV room … I guess the “sitting at least six feet away from the TV” rule doesn’t apply anymore.

  20. Adam

    No_Such_Reality, thanks for the insight. It has helped me learn how to view these pictures more critically and I wish this blog community would make comments like this more often for the novices/1st time buyer.

    In the past, we’d go to an open house to basically just walk around not necessarily knowing what sort of details to look for. We all have to start somewhere and I’d rather learn these things before I move in and realize something is wrong or intolerable.

  21. rastaman

    IR: Setting aside the horrors in that shoddy condo, my sensibilities are offended by the painting: several figures appear to be performing a gynecological inspection on the naked woman to the left. This is orange county, we’re not in San Francisco.

  23. NanoWest

    Gee………only another $100.00 per square foot to drop before this is a reasonable buy.

    How would you like to be working in a bank, and realizing that nobody can borrow money because they lending standards are much tighter…..and at the same time be taking properties back at alarming rates because of foreclosures……..gotta a be pretty scary.

  26. Lost Cause

    That “great room feeling” is the relief that you feel after the stifling claustrophobia of all of the other rooms.

  27. Lost Cause

    Yes, it is a duplex, with a common wall. And it’s in the Tustin school district. I fell sorry for the seller. That price is crazy.

  28. lawyerliz

    Oh, come on, of course Greenspan is. I’d invite him to dinner any time.

    I talked to a business acquaintance at a title company. (An underwriter, not an agency.) She went to the Mtg Banker’s conference and half the people there had been fired, but went to try to network a bit to try to get another job. The meeting had been paid for by their prior employers, but they used their own nickel to get there.

    The mtg bankers put up a press release which I’d post here if I knew how. Anyway, even they are predicting very big drops.

    Again, what crystal ball are they gazing into?

    My title co pal was really worried. We gloomed and doomed at each other. She’s been at her company for years, which is very distinguished, but is worried about her job. (her mtg is almost paid off, too.)

    I said perhaps claims would be down, perhaps, because title errors would perhaps be wiped away or made irrelevant by the foreclosures.

    She said no, the bigger claims are the insured closing letter/closing protection letter claims. The mtg companies are
    claiming that the title agencies (here we have attys, lay title companies, and title agencies owned by lawyers) didn’t disburse exactly according as in the closing statement, hence bad loans closed, hence the title companies should buy back the loans. These allegations have some charm when the Buyers got back money which was not reflected on the closing statement. The mtg companies are not making a claim for the amount diverted to the Buyer but the whole amount. I assume they are also arguing the same thing in totally innocent situations, where for example a divorcing couple asks you to make a check half to one spouse and half to the other, instead of one check to the 2 of them. Or, asks you to pay a credit card bill with some of the proceeds, which they give you a copy of and which is in their name. With instructions in writing to cover the tushy, why not?

    But apparently these innocent accomodations are no longer acceptable.

    Also, regular defalcations, where the title co or atty has been stealing the escrow money. I must say, it’s more likely title companies rather than attys who do that tho attys are sometimes guilty too.

    It is more than a little disingenuous to argue that the title agencies and underwriters take the hit when the lenders were
    by far the most responsible for this disaster.

    Class action lawyers, who I regard as lower than pond scum, are getting into the act, I suppose against all possible parties.

    I woke up in the middle of the nite, couldn’t sleep and turned on the tv. It was an old (?) Oprah episode. The guests were a California couple up to their eyeballs and beyond in debt, and
    with a mtged and HELOC-ed house with no equity, negative am mtg due to reset, 6 kids, spendthrift wife, complicit husband. . . goddess, you can’t get away from it. And I didn’t turn if off either to listen to some soothing tale of multiple murders.

  29. Stupid

    It’s always like that.
    If you Google the address though, often you can find Google’s cache of the site (click the “cache” link) or a realtors site that has the info.

  32. mo

    I have a stupid question .. what’s the difference between a single family house and a detached condo ? When I bought my first house 6 years ago, I don’t remember hearning this term ” Detached Condo”

    Thanks for your help

  33. NanoWest

    Lending,

    Any insight on far we are from banks taking the position…..”liquidate properties at any cost, get them off the books in the next 60 days….”. I suspect we are a little early in this down cycle, but my expectation is that as prices begin to fall at a more rapid pace, the banks will want to stay ahead of the curve

    I am a little naive about the inner workings of a bank….do the loan departments and foreclosure departments communicate?

  34. ipoplaya

    Price is crazy, but while it is Tustin Unified, the schools are pretty decent. Hicks, Pioneer and Beckman I believe…

    Buyers can go on to the other side of the tollroad and get pretty much the same thing for $150K less:

    http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1189054

    Same schools, with swap out of Myford for Hicks. Same shared wall with nothing but a tiny patio. $700K seems much more reasonable to me for something like this…

  36. Westpark Aventura resident

    The “King” references made me think of another song, “King of Wishful Thinking” by Go West:

    I’ll get over you.. I know I will
    I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking
    And I’ll tell myself I’m over you
    ’cause I’m the king of wishful thinking
    I am the king of wishful thinking

  37. skek

    I may be wrong … I’m not in the industry, but I thought it had to do with setbacks. A detached structure with certain minimum setbacks was a single family residence. A detached structure with setbacks less then that were classified as a condo, even if they didn’t share a common wall. My understanding was that this allowed developers to exceed certain density limits but still market the property as a single family home.

  38. lawyerliz

    Typically at a bank (or the ones I’ve dealt with), nobody talks to anybody.

    In fact, they are as bad or worse than county govts.

    The people who take loan applications may not be on the same floor, in the same building, or even in the same state where the foreclosure action happens.

    First responders in the form of foreclosure law firms are utterly uninterested in any kind of work out. They are paid a relative pittance per file to foreclose as quickly as possible. I explained
    very clearly to a young atty why it would be in the interest of the bank to delay a foreclosure. The firm didn’t buy it, but the judge did.

    Banks are stupid.

    Banks are stupid.

    Individuals who work at banks are occasionally smart, but banks as institutions are stupid.

    This includes the biggies.

  39. lawyerliz

    Well, not necessarily. In Florida we have something called “limited common elements”, in which you might have a somewhat greater interest in than the common elements. The law on this has not developed very much, since we don’t have
    detached condominiums.

  40. lendingmaestro

    condos all belong to an association with dues. They usually have shared facilities like a pool, tennis courts, etc. The landscaping is done by the HOA.

  41. awgee

    Warren Buffett went on record today and said that he’d not, in fact, been interested in a bid for Bear Stearns, Countrywide Financial, or Hovnanian.

  42. lawyerliz

    By the way, there is a little value experiment which happened in Florida.

    Both condos and co-ops legally exist here.

    In the early 70s, both condos and a few, a very few co-ops were created.

    However, it was quickly agreed on how to finance a condo. Co-ops were a different story. In Florida, there is a perfectly good way to finance a co-op, but for some reason the banks refused to try it. Of course, in New York City, co-ops are financed all the time. Here, the only financing available is seller financing, and even that isn’t done much.

    The result? Co-ops cost way less than condos. I kept trying to get a small co-op to switch to being a condo, because after expenses, each owner would have seen about a $100,000 increase in value. (Now, who knows?) They didn’t do it, because some owners were very old people who didn’t want to spend even a few thousand dollars. And of course I wanted a nice fee, but it would have been a win win situation.

    Anyway, suppose there were no such things as mtges. Would this be a bad thing? You would have to save up and buy land or a house, but they would be much, much cheaper. Productive resouces would be put into more productive uses. Maybe.

    Of course, mtges have been around for thousands of years, so this experience, like libertarian living, is very limited.

  43. Stupid

    I can’t believe people start and/or believe those kinds of rumors. I mean, if you read Buffett’s annual report, it’s pretty clear what kind of companies he looks for (ie. good trustworthy management, simple profitable buisness models). If a company divergest from that descritpion and is involved in one of the rumors, it’s pretty obvious it’s not true.

  45. CapitalismWorks

    Actually I find Ochre to be a very appealing color. Very popular in Italy, which of course is the design de jour here in Southern California…And Why Not? Italians have certainly demonstrated excellent proficiency in architectural design over the years.

  46. Dr. Ruth

    How could anyone’s sensibilities be offended by John Milton, arguably the best 17th Century English author’s book illustration? OC is a total intellectual wasteland. The land of fake over sized tits and life long goals of rejuvenating vaginas. All in the name of Jesus.

  47. mediaboyz

    Wow a friend of mine who lives there and has a similarly priced home used to gloat about his $1.2 Million value. However, he didnt discuss the $17K a year in property taxes he has to pay. His bubble is popped!

  48. lawyerliz

    That painting looks like a very bad riff on Hieronymus Bosch. If you really want weird, get an art book with close ups of his famous tryptich.

    I think I spelled that right.

  49. patientrenter

    lawyerliz, I think your idea – of no more mortgages – is superb. Of course, I am a cash buyer, so I’d do well as prices plummeted.

    When you say things like “What would it be like if there were no mortgages, or no more deduction for interest on mortgages, or no more tax exemption for gains on home sales?”, most people just assume they’d be much worse off. In reality, house prices would drop dramatically, and this would enable responsible savers to buy very nice homes and live in them comfortably. I wouldn’t object to living in that world.

  52. Stupid

    Yeah, except most would be living in that world in their parents houses 🙂 … how else can a 20 something starting a family put their kids under a roof? It’s the nature of the young to borrow from the old.

  53. Stupid

    At least the painting is art – like it or hate it, it’s trying to say something interesting and original.

    As opposed to the endless nice looking landscapes painted in colors designed to blend in with tasteful bland beige walls to raise the “impressive” value of someone’s McMansion.

  54. lawyerliz

    That’s why in many countries the young DO live under their parents roof. This can be very good or very bad. Read some old novels which deal with the issue.

    I wasn’t thinking it thru, just reporting on an interesting snippet.

    I don’t actually think that world will ever be, altho we could have a passing fling with something close to it, since we are close to having no mtges available right now.

    That can’t last?

    Can it Lendingmaestro?

  55. JimmyJoe

    “This is evergreen model 4 at NP, a similiar one in the market for a few weeks already is asking just $745,000.

    21 Three Rivers
    Irvine 92602
    4 Bedrooms / 2.50 Baths
    2477 SF (approx) .
    ”

    Are you SERIOUS????

    Why does zillow have it for $892,197 ??????

    Gawd, if some knife catcher does buy it for $745k, then MOST of those suckers living in NorthPark who bought after 2002 are SCREWED !!!!!!

    Does ANYONE realize the psychological DAMAGE that’s gonna bring to all those PHONY HOUSEWIVES that live there????

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