Somewhere in a roadside motel room
Alone in the silence she wakes up too soon
And reaches for his arm
But she’ll just keep reachin’ on
For the cold hard truth revealed what it had known
That boy’s just
A walkaway Joe
Born to be a leaver
Tell you from the word go, destined to deceive her
He’s a wrong kinda paradise
She’s gonna know it in a matter of time
That boy’s just a walkaway Joe
Walkaway Joe — Trisha Yearwood
Doesn’t this song describe late bubble buyers with little or no money down?
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Asking Price: $449,900
Income Requirement: $112,475
Downpayment Needed: $89,980
Monthly Equity Burn: $3,749
Purchase Price: approximately $580,000
Purchase Date: Unknown
Address: 342 Quail Ridge, Irvine, CA 92603
| Beds: | 2 |
| Baths: | 2 |
| Sq. Ft.: | 1,500 |
| $/Sq. Ft.: | $300 |
| Lot Size: | – |
| Type: | Condominium |
| Style: | Traditional |
| Year Built: | 2005 |
| Stories: | Two Levels |
| View(s): | Hills |
| Area: | Quail Hill |
| County: | Orange |
| MLS#: | S521784 |
| Status: | Active |
| On Redfin: | 2 days |
A Stunning Home! So many upgrades!Gourmet Kitchen with VENETIAN GOLD Granite Counters and Sit-Up Bar * Stainless Appliances, * Stunning Fireplace * Extensive Dark Maple Wood Floors (see pic’s) * Dark Wood Built-ins * Master Suite w/ Spacious Walk-in Closet and Hugh Master Bath w/ Custom Tumbled Turco Stone Tile * Dual Sinks * Separate Soaking Tub /Shower * Open Spacious Floorplan. Great Living Area With Nice Formal Dinning Room * Deluxe Garage * Recessed Lights * Gorgeous Upgrades * This Home Is SPOTLESS * * * * * SHOW LIKE A BRAND NEW HOME * * * * * A MUST SEE! Tax rate 1.4% including Mello Roos!
ALL CAPS
******** Asterisks **********
! exclamation points !
“SHOW LIKE A BRAND NEW HOME * * * * * A MUST SEE!”
Gourmet Kitchen
And of course…
This listing manages to encapsulate every cliché known to realtors.
.
.
The carnage in Quail Hell continues. I don’t have an accurate purchase price and date, but inferring from the tax records, it appears this seller paid around $580,000. If he gets his asking price and pays a 6% commission, the loss will be around $160,000. I would imagine the lender will eat this one, but I can’t be sure. Notice the price on a per square foot basis: $300. This is a very low price for a small unit. It wasn’t long ago we were blogging about breaking the $500,000 barrier in Quail Hill, now we are about to break the $300 / SF barrier as well.
So how low will it go in Quail Hell?
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I love the $5 hardware on the sink in that “Gourmet Kitchen”.
—–
VENETIAN GOLD Granite Counters! Holy cow! I am frothing at the mouth now!
BLING-A-LING!
Take that Mr. and Mrs. Jones! BOO-YA!
Are VENETIAN GOLD granite counters the Goldschlager of countertops?
Real gold flake and a nice cinnamon smell.. in your countertops – that’s HAWT!
Or maybe the FB had just downed a bottle of the stuff when they decided to make this flip/purchase, repeating to themselves over and over that “REAL ESTATE NEVER GOES DOWN! SUPPLY AND DEMAND! PENT UP DEMAND! YAH!”
Ahahahahaha.
I think this is a very nice starter home for a young professional. I guess this will fetch $230/sf ($345k) at the bottom with monthly rent at $2150 (160 GRM).
This price is exactly two years away.
By the way, what is the current market monthly rent on this unit?
The Irvine Company is asking $2,360 for a similar townhome apartment across the street, but that comes with price incentives and all the amenities of the complex.
http://rental-living.com/Communities/Quail-Meadow/Prices-And-Floorplans/
I think your $2,150 rent for this place is probably right for a stable tenant, particularly after a couple of years of stagnant or falling rents.
Numbers? I don’t know. I think, if the all the factors involved continue as they appear to, that “homes” such as this one will go much lower than anyone suspected. It’s nice, but nice in an average sort of way. It’s not upscale enough for the well off, single, executive and certainly not big enough for a family (it’s not really designed that way). It seems as though Irvine is chock full of places like this. Unless employment in Irvine is strong with a lot of high paying jobs for young, single people, I might guess that at some point in the future there is going to be a glut of these properties which could send the price downward, with a vengence.
And then again, I could be wrong. Maybe Irvine has more jobs for young executives who want to live, by themselves, in upscalish (which is a generous description), $300-$400K apartments, errr…condos…errr…starter homes. It’s possible, obviously.
I have this sneaking suspicion that if the real estate inudstry is forced to adopt a model of 20% down and standard fixed rate mortgages that a whole new reality is going to be forced upon Irvine. After a while people are going to be less concerned with trappings of wealth (those “venetian gold” granite counters) and a bit more concerned that they are actually getting something for their housing dollar.
Then again, the average consumer is, by and large, prettty easily duped or so the historical record would seem to indicate.
A condo is a condo is a condo. GRM’s for condos should be more like 130. The bottom will be more like $200/sf or $300K for this unit.
Also, these will have competition from all the other condo projects that are still being built (or dumped). So we should be seeing rents in this class of living falling over the next couple of years.
WTF….28 year old townhome with what looks like no upgrades is going for $549K next to UCI. My friends bought here when they were new (moderate income housing back then). This one looks just the same (actually a little worse) than I remember them.
http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1490662
What exactly makes this a “Gourmet Kitchen”? I see nothing here that isn’t also in my junky apartment. Dishwasher, microwave, stove, fridge. OK, this one has more counter-space, but not much more.
I think below $200/sqft. A condo is a condo except if it’s near the beach. This one isn’t and has to compete with a glut of condos in Irvine. Condos were way overbuilt.
I completely agree. When young people can’t count on rising prices, it makes much more sense to rent an apartment than buy one of these. No one envisions living in a 2bed 2bath condo/apartment for the 7 years it traditionally takes to make a profit. I am amazed at how many of these I see on the market. I keep wondering who they appeal to. I am a young professional and wouldn’t even consider something like this.
Wait! Quail Hill is only a “latte” drive from the Beach. That’s how it was quoted by an RE professional in the last round of IH’s QH tour.
Granted, in a weekend, that latte better be half a gallon, but hey! RE Professionals are not known for details.
One up the street from me is selling a house (same model as my house before the rebuild) as if it were 2200 sq. feet. I happen to know that with their small additions that house can not be more than 2000 sq feet… but hey, that’s just a “latte” between friends, right? 😛
3/3 in a cramped 1415 sf asking $549k and outdated 28 year old? WTF.
Or, did I miss the ocean view, golf course view or any other view somehow?
Excellent observations. I think that younger individuals are also going to start paying attention to the mello-roos (“Tax rate 1.4% including Mello Roos!”Honestly, WTF? Should I be excited about paying mello roos?) and the other taxes and costs involved in home ownership, such as maintenance and a few mortgage payments in the bank in case of emergency.
I’m well into my second year of saving rigorously for my down payment on a home. All of the mental and physical effort involved in saving as much money as possible every month really forces you to think about what you’re blowing it on before you spend it. Anyone who makes sacrifices for two, three, or four or more years saving for a down payment is going to see right past the venetian gold countertops and immediately notice all of the same cheap fixtures such as the plastic shower inserts, lack of tiling around the tub, and missing epoxy/clear coat on the mantle that were commonplace in the apartment they had to live in.
Honestly these “luxuries” do not impress me, and they’re not going to impress many of the individuals in my situation. All of the updated apartments in Woodbridge meadows (where I live) have the pergraniteel in them. In fact they have the same color granite and dark wood floors. This condo looks and feels exactly like an apartment to me. The 1/1 pergrantieel 800sq ft units with walk in closets rent for $1600 and the 2/2 closets rent for about $1,860.
With that said, would I pay $450,000 ($2,697 per month with a 30-year 6% fixed) and $6,500 in taxes per year to live in this Qual Hill condo? What justifies the additional $837 per month in principle/interest and the $541 in taxes? What about this place justifies my $89,900 down payment?
In short, buying a home is much less of an impulsive buy for individuals like myself—who are going to be the ones supporting the market in the near future—and more of an investment. The numbers are going to have to make sense before I’m going to relinquish my years and years of savings and commit to a 30 year mortgage.
Just to drive this thing home:
1) If my shower leaks, who do I call? If I need a light bulb, who gives me one? If my toilet clogs, a power outlet gets fried, a wall needs painting, blinds need replacing, a door lock breaks, or my patio needs a power washing, or I need a fee annual carpet cleaning, who do I call? Management for my apartment complex. They come out the next day.
2) Do I have to pay an additional $155 + $95 in homeowner dues? Nope. (I am assuming that the last $95 on the breakdown is not mello roos.)
3) How long does it take to save up an $89,000 down payment? Assuming you earn $80k/year, are taxed 30%, that leaves you with $56k. Out of that, you could probably save 20k/year, so we’re looking at 4.5 years of savings.
4) How long does it take me to pack up and leave for a new job or a change of lifestyle when in my apartment? Break the lease and I’m out a month’s rent. If I own this condo in Quail Hill, it could take me several months to find a buyer, assuming I could find one at all.
I could keep rambling but I think its obvious enough to everyone that these Quail Hill units are going to take a serious reality beating.
Considering that old and nasty UCI townhome that is posted below, this one actually has some decent upgrades. IMO, the dark wood flooring and kitchen looks really nice, not to mention this one is much newer, design is better, and looks a helluva lot nicer than a 28 year old over priced townhome.
I wouldn’t live in that townhome if it were free.
Every kitchen is a “gourmet kitchen” – a fine example of word inflation.
What will they call a genuinely nice kitchen when this is gourmet?
It’s also a curious word choice. In my former life as an exterminator, I have been in a couple kitchens of gourmet restaurants. I can tell you they are all about function, not granite counters and gilded faucets.
Todays calculated risk (CR) has a blog on “home overimprovments”. “Overimprovement is cost in excess of value created; the problem can range from the McMansion thrown up on a postage-stamp lot in a neighborhood of 1,200 square foot older homes, to the decreasing marginal value of luxury materials.”
In todays example, the sellar undertook “luxury modifications of a perfectly serviceable newer housing unit” with the expecation that these modifications would generate fantastic returns.
But according to CR, the latest data show that average returns on a home remodeling project have fallen from 82.5 percent in 2003 to 70 percent in 2007.
The price is ranging from $525k to $450k. Does anyone know what it means? My feeling is that their resever is higher than $450k. I hate these sellers and banks playing games like this.
Quail Hill is closer to the beach the Turtle Rock!
QH is closer to the beach than Turtle Rock!
Hey, I just tried to place my vote for $225 a square foot…and it told me I had already voted. Oh no I didn’t (shakes head and waggles finger). Anyone else have this happen ?
Exactly! You don’t need a “gourmet kitchen” to cook a gourmet meal. You need a gourmet chef.
What is the mindset of the people that this term is trying to appeal to? What kind of idiot thinks that stainless steel appliances and granite counter-tops are going to improve the quality of the food that they cook?
Actually, the quality of the food depends entierly on the quality of the ingrediants..
For instance, if you want the best tasting tomattoes you have to grow them yourselves which means you need a gourmet GARDEN.
Granite counters are obviously cliche, but they sure are nicer than the cheap formica I got when I built my house in ’04. I didn’t want to have a bunch of upgrades financed along with the purchase price. The saleslady thought I was nuts, since it was ’04, and the boom was in full swing. But I was trying to minimize my mortgage payment. I ended up getting the biggest floorplan with almost no upgrades. I figured we could trick the place out using cash savings at some future date. It looks like I made a good choice too, since the builder didn’t do a great quality job on all the upgrades our neighbors got. Now things are slowing down for the home improvement industry, and I’m hoping to do some upgrades at a discount. I’ll keep my white ovens/cooktop/microwave/fridge. I was never that impressed with the stainless look. But I would love some black granite countertops. Or maybe one of the artificial surfaces, since I hear those hold up better anyway. The contractors should be looking for work these days, and hopefully I’ll get a deal. I think nice upgrades do pay off in quality of life. I’ll be using this kitchen every day for the next 10 years at least. My formica is functional, but ugly. It’s not frivolous to spend a little extra on something you use every single day.
As though paying a 1.4% tax rate is a plus…that’s more than 33% above the Prop 13 baseline.
I agree Chris. I recently got rid of my white tiled kitchen counter and went with granite. Got it done, with demo, edging, install, etc. for under $50 per sf. When we looked at doing it a couple of years back, it would have been more like $75-80 per sf.
Have to say, I love not having grout lines on my counter any longer!
Range prices are simply a tool for realtors to get more eyeballs on their listings. Say for example, they think a place is worth $525K, well they range price it down so those shopping to perhaps the $450K will see the place in their search. Supposedly, if one were to offer low end of range, the seller should take it. I have seen this to be the case on some recent listings. Unfortunately, as it is mostly used as a marketing tool, offers at the low end of range are often countered much higher…
One thing to mention, i’m almost positive this is a 3 story condo. The builder didn’t make any two story 1500 square foot properties in quail hill.
I’m shocked you guys don’t think this is a ‘nice’ condo. I’d like to see pictures of what you guys would consider a nice one?
If it was two stories, and about 280 a square foot, i’d jump all over it.
“The Irvine Company is asking $2,360 for a similar townhome apartment across the street…”
Except not. for 2300 dollars you can get a similar 1110 square foot place. So you really don’t think the extra 400(!!!) sq feet could get you more rent?
I do think prices will come down because there have been a decent amount of small condos built in the last 5 years. Between all of the tiny places in woodbury, avenue one’s disaster, watermark starting to come down, etc. there should be lots of options for young guys making decent money who want to live in a condo.
But to all you who think its going to hit less then 200 a square feet, wtf is wrong with your brain? Do you think the rest of orange county is going to end up like detroit?
Because surely if an ‘upgraded’ condo in one of the more desirable neighborhoods in one of the more popular cities in orange county is that low, what will the rest be at? Surely you think i’ll be able to pick up condos in costa mesa for 70 or 80k then, no?
Anyone notice that the handy dandy ziprealty Irvine inventory chart has been traveling sideways since the beginning of February? With 940 places on the market in Irvine today, we’re only 8% or so higher in terms of inventory units than the same time last year…
Heck, with the pace of buying picking up, we might be even (or even below) in terms of year-over-year inventory numbers by the end of March.
The fridge appears to be white. Anybody else catch that? Thats a deal breaker right there. You cant have a “gourmet” kitchen with stainless steel appliances and then have an ugly white fridge.
The place does look nice on the inside though and I wouldnt mind living there. Renting of course, I’ll let someone else feel the burn.
There are two issue at play here. (1) The price relationship between the various Irvine villages, (2) The forecasted nadir on houses in general.
I believe that the premium areas in Irvine will continue to command a price premium even at the bottom. People would rather live in Quail Hill than Woodbury, they would rather live in Turtle Rock and than Woodbridge, and they would much rather live in Turtle Ridge than NorthPark II.
When forecasting the bottom, it is important to differentiate units in each area, as a condo in Woodbridge (circa 1980) is quite a bit different than a condo in Turtle Ridge (circa 2004).
Many people on this board are “wishing” prices downward (ahem AZ, Nano, Alan, etc.) The doomsday scenario is predicated on three factors: low availability of credit, stable to rising overall level of mortgage rates, diminishing income. The mantra on this blog is that all three are headed in the wrong direction. In reality, things will play out much differently than any one particular forecast (Why do you think economists have jobs?).
It equally likely that credit availability will continue to improve over the next 6 months. TED spreads are returning to historical averages… Though the spigot of free mortgage credit is unlikely to be turned on to the extent that it was in 2006, conditions in the credit markets are showing signs of normalization.
Mortgage rates will most likely to continue to trend down. Fixed rate conforming loan rates bottomed in the mid-4s at the peak of the cycle. Current rates are at 5.5 – 5.75 on 30 fixed conforming, so there is some room to run. The expansion of the conforming loan limit will be particularly helpful in expensive areas like California, as the spread on jumbo to conforming is currently in the 1-1.25% range (this should also narrow).
Finally, locally employment, is widely regarding as being overly reliant on the housing sector. There is some evidence that self-employment unemployment figures are weakening at a faster pace than the overall job market. On the other hand, the Irvine Economy seems fairly well diversified. Again Wikipedia provides some insight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California
Now there are some very large subprime lenders on that list New Century and Option One for example. Lately I have been wondering just how much EXTRA money the employees of these firms injected into the local economy. Surely the individuals at these firms were employed previously, most likely in another line of business. I seem to remember a large number of Technical Recruiters operating in Irvine in the late 90s. This was another highly overcompensated group of individuals generating income in the local market. And, like the mortgage brokers of today, are virtually extinct.
The point is the local economy has weathered cycles in the past. And making predictions about local unemployment and the trickle-down impact on, housing prices does not lend itself to easy analysis.
Captialism Works,
I might agree with your coment “credit availability will continue to improve”, I really don’t know if this will improve or worsen.
I would disagree that you left out the fact that buyers will no longer be able to get into the game with no money down, buyers will again have to bring some money to the plate.
Requiring 10% down ($40-60K minimun) will negativly impact the potential buyer pool irregardless of any inprovment in “credit availablity”.
The reason for the discounted price is due to that guy “Hugh” living in the Master Bathroom- so it is really only a 2 bed/ 1 bath. Wonder if Hugh pays rent? 🙂
TR is in the hills, we don’t need no stinking beach.
CODE VIOLATION ALERT
In the picture of the bathroom/bathtub…. how did they get the AC switch so close to the tub. It’s to the left of the sink.
I thought that City Code does not allow an AC switch within four feet -or so- of the tub? That switch is right over the tub!!!!!
CODE VIOLATION ALERT
CODE VIOLATION ALERT
CODE VIOLATION ALERT
Alan,
Buyers will definitely have to put some skin in the game for the forseeable future. This is a hurdle, and does remove some portion of the marginal demand for housing. Second, people with sub 620 FICOs will be putting in a lot more skin (at least 10% perhaps 20%).
However, I think the prevalence of subprime loans was influenced as much by easy access as it was by the credit-worthiness of the borrowers. At the peak Subprime lending began to capture significant market share from conforming loans, as evidenced that at the peak conforming lending reached an anunal rate in excess of $2Trillion in origination, while at the nadir (and peak of subprime), conforming origination was down to below $1 Trillion. I am pretty sure there was not some widespread meltdown in the credit-worthiness of buyers.
I would guess that buyers simply found it easier to do a low/no-doc loan through a subprime lender, since the extra hassle of of a full-doc conforming/prime jumbo didn’t save much (if anything) in terms of rates. So, when looking at the negative impact on the demand curve, we must differentiate between subprime loan origination as a source of demand, and truly subprime borrowers from a credit-worthiness standpoint. The net result is the overall negative impact on the demand curve is less, if some of the subprime origination simply shifts back to prime/conforming origination.
Yes I have noticed. I have also noticed a increase in escrows thanks to your site (nice work).
My contention from the beginning, though I have become more bearish, is that things are more likely to go sideways for extended period of time. IR tells us that things will get worse because of “bad inventory”. I still believe, that barring in dramatic increases in unemployment (again referencing the early 90s), that we are more likely to see a protracted period of sideways market movement than steep drops in prices.
What? Treasury spreads aren’t narrowing, they are widening big time.
http://financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/sobolev/2008/0219.html
Rates on ALL types of debt securities are rising, credit cards are getting whacked, HELOCS are getting clipped, the secondary market for MBS and all CDO paper is worse now than ever, and you think credit availability will continue to improve?
The Federal Reserve is having to print money to the tune of hundreds of billions and so is the ECB. Nobody is buying this crap, and the banks don’t have the reserves to facilitate credit either, hence to Fed helicopter patrolling NYC.
Are you Larry Kudlow?
Except there is a big disparity in similarly priced units right now. The question on my mind is if prices like this ($300 a sf ft) are going to impact the hoard of 400 dollar + properties for sale in quail hill right now.
PO-IT-G, that is exactly what is going to cruch Irvine and the rest of OC, when people have to come up with a downpayment from their hard earned money, people will think twice about where that money goes.. Buyer will be very picky, prices will come way down.
my prediction is around 200 SF for the higher end SFR, 175 for the average. Condos–>good luck
I grew up in Orange County. Went to Valencia HS in Placentia and my mother owns a four bed three bath in the same city. She’s not buried in the thing yet but if prices slide another 20 percent then she will be. She’ll end up being one of those that have to hold through the price drop before she can ever get out.
That said, I love this blog.
After leaving OC I eventually landed in of all places Santa Rosa. On the Map Of Misery our city has the distinction of being the highest percentage of exotic loans originated during the bubble. My wife and I bought in 2000 in an older rather undesirable neighborhood near the fairgrounds. So we smell the animals at fair time, have to deal with fair traffic at various times during the year and other inconveniences. But, it has a good part to it. Free place to walk the dog off leash.
Anyway, Christopherson homes (Ragel Ranch, follow the link)
http://www.christophersonhomes.com/index.asp
bought the land adjacent to this area. We’re talking beautiful undeveloped land with 300 year old oak trees dotting the pastoral landscape. They built croweded McMansions on top of each other with streets barely wide enough for parked cars, let alone through traffic. The average floor plan is about 2800 sq feet. They sold at the height of the bubble from around 650-900K depending on the view. Every last one of those people who bought are now under water. There is at least one foreclosure happening now. But, those option ARMs and negative amortizations haven’t hit just yet.
This one may make Quail Hell, look like mortgage paradise in comparison.
I don’t even want to think about that bathtub Hugh sleeps in.
Those sound like nice homes to live in for 30 years in Santa Rosa. Or retirement. Maybe the people who bought there weren’t in it to flip it right away. Are a lot of them on the market?
Holy crap, conforming 30-years are at 6.125-6.25% or so after today’s action in the bond market. 30-year jumbos are over 7.0% now…
If the Fed keeps dropping their rates, that’ll drop the ARMs but probably fuel even more increase on long mortgage rates. We could see 30-year conforming rates of 6.50-6.75 before the summer.
IRVINE IS DIFFERENT
They are pretty nice. The things I don’t like are that they’re so close together and the streets are exceedingly narrow. There could be a strong contingent of people that bought to keep because there’s not very many on the market now but a good number. A co-worker I had just did the classic jingle mail for one of those homes and there’s another that went back to the bank recently. Funny thing is that most bought before the models sold and now the models are up for sale and they can’t off them.
There are two foreclosures in the older street connected to the Christopherson development. Some of these older homes went for unimaginably high prices in 2006. That can’t help much for comps in the new development.
You mean before Hillary is annoted as the Dem’s next presidential candidate?
The pressure on prices is not whether or not inventory is going up or down, but how long the average house takes to sell. As long as the inventory supply is greater than approximately 6 months, you will have downward pressure on prices.
Uh, I referenced the TED SPREAD. It has narrowed to roughly 100 bps from 200 bps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_spread
You are referring to CREDIT SPREADS, which of course have also normalized over the last year. Remember credit spreads across the entire spectrum of risk assets were running at historic tights through June 2006. Why do you think Grantham was correctly identifying the first global asset price bubble? Everything was tight, and risk premiums were unreflective of actual risk.
I would suggest that the current market is FAR healthier than what existed up to last summer, and that prices (read rates) at least adequately compensating investors for risks, and in some cases overcompensating…
The lack of liquidity in MBS is a tremendous opportunity, but then again, if you are only looking at rates its hard to tell.
We’ll see how inflation comes in tomorrow. With mean expectations at 4.1% YOY through Jan 08, we anticipating looking at afairly high and sustained elevated level of inflation. Oil at $100/Barrell again today doesn’t help.
How so? In order for the market to clear a bid and ask have to meet. Without forced sellers, homes will simply sit on market in a stand-off between buyers and sellers. You are using a simplistic heuristic that may or may not apply.
It seems like not that long ago we never saw 2 bd/2 ba. in Quail Hill for less than $500K.
This place is still overpriced, but I am encouraged that we have dropped below the $500K threshold. We have to keep moving, though.
Prices are dropping from the obscene to the merely outrageous.
“Are you Larry Kudlow?” Classic! I love Kudlow’s show, but he is the ultimate optimist. Even Cramer’s now suggesting that buying a home may be a good idea (although that’s an opinion shared with the whole country, which he might qualify if asked specifically about CA, FL, AZ, or Las Vegas).
How come nobody is mentioning that this is an Ambridge property? To have Ambridge become the example of Quail Hill is ignorant. A Condo surrounded by apartments and the freeway doesn’t make sense. How about Sienna, Olivos etc? When Sgae drops below 500k than it becomes Quail Hell. Until than let’s talk about the 100k ++ builder incentives in Woodbury…..
I would trade 300 year old Oak Trees for anything Irvine has to offer.
I think there must be some sort of Irvine city ordinance to cut down any tree after five years
Graduated from VHS myself. El Tigre!
At least on Zillow, I don’t see prices dropping all that much in our old Placentia neighborhood.
http://www.ipoplaya.com/stats.htm
Not much more than six months worth of inventory on the market right now, so there would appear to little downward pressure on prices right now if you are correct.
Three of the last five escrow entrants I picked up were less than 30 DOM before they got into escrow… Not exactly representative of languishing inventory.
WTF prices, probably mostly from distressed sellers, are keeping a bunch of inventory on the market. More realistic pricing, i.e. rollbacks to 2004, appears to be enabling selling with much more ease.
I’m in santa rosa too. Check out the Cobblestone development at streamside dr off of hwy12. Cobblestone built about 50 of these 3 story places , about 20 people bought at the end of 06 for 500-600, then after Jan, they had some problems selling the rest until an investment group came and bought the remaining 25 places and turned them into rentals. Rent are 2,100 I think. Only one foreclosure so far, which was for sale at 414k.
I almost feel bad for the people who own the places, they paid over 500k and thought they’d have a nice little community but now its filling up with renters who are paying less then they are. Such is life i guess.
You just get a lightbulb? The IAC repairman comes with his stepladder and replaces all of mine 🙂 …
Gourmet Kitchen’s come with battered, classic cookbooks that are falling apart and covered with foodstains from cooking…
Funny old post on those improvements here
http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/sections/news/news/article_556959.php
Quail Hill floorplans
http://quailhillhomes.com/floorplans.php
The problem is that, as your name implies, that “Captalism Works”. It mostly does (better than the alternatives), but it requires regulation (ex. Glass-Steagall regulation). Without it, it’s a mess.
(Interesting link below – which would imply the one to blame for the subprime credit crunch is not Mozillo … but Bill Clinton! for repealling the Glass-Stegall regulations, allowing banks to speculate like hedge funds …)
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10609325
I found that weird, then did some reading .. apparently the trees are supposed to be spaced apart and not overhang roof to allow for fire control. That would explain it…
Interesting. The run-up to 10 months makes sense because of the jumbo loan issue, but I can’t figure the sudden drop in December. I would have to see more data (at least 2 years) to check for seasonal factors and to judge just how volatile the measure is for this size of market. But during this time, I think the months to sell measure also significantly decreased for OC as a whole.
I take the approach of trying to predict what the overall market will do. That is, do I think we are going back to 2002, 2003 or 2004 prices. Then use redfin’s past sales data to figure out what the homes where selling for in that neighborhood at that time.
Come on, “sideways”? Sideways would be an improvement compared to what we’ve been seeing.
Fault is a meaningless term in reference to the subprime credit crunch. The markets overextended credit to less than credit worthy borrowers, and now investors in that credit are getting crunched. It is simply a bad investment, and will take time to clear through the market.
I’ve been trying to find floor plans for the Villas at Shady Canyon to no avail. Anyone have access to them?
If only the government would allow that to happen. I see a lot more corporate welfare than capitalism in what has been happening of late.
I graduated in ’89. Tell me, does the new gym still have the huge tiger painted on the wall. From what I remember the VHS Tiger was mildly cross-eyed.
Yeah, I’ll make another vote for no granite lines. When we redid our kitchen, my wife insisted on a solid surface type counter (we got some plastic-aggregate Corian-clone).
Grout lines make it hard to make pie shells. She makes awesome pies. Did I mention there was pie?
Return the internet for a full refund. Or exchange it for a squirrel coat.
With the bubble, people knew housing went up, and up fast. In the bubble, housing is about profits and ego.
When people realize it may be years until they can even break-even, the bubble unwinds. Housing stops being about profit and ego and starts being about utilization: shelter and security.
It all boils down to rents and imperfect substitution properties.
Irvine competes against Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Tustin, Lake Forest and the Viejos.
They have all already pushed through or pressure $200/sf with their leading edge and are showing signs of going much lower. How much premium will Irvine command?
I started biking to work last month.
Wheee!
And … get this. The four-year old now prefers walking the half-mile to daycare. (Yes, we walk _together_…)
I always thought manzanita trees were very exotic.
You are paying a premium for your freedom. Do you really want to live under nanny management forever? Maybe you prefer Soviet style living, but most Americans recognize that we won the cold war because their system didn’t work. If you don’t have the 5% down payment you can just take cash advances from your credit cards. That’s what I did. I also used my 401k debit card for the down payment on my Dodge Viper. If you really can’t buy that house then maybe working with computers isn’t the profession for you. I can hook you up selling Herbalife products if you want.
Did you have a team of scientists help you figure that out?
Yeah. Irivne is exactly the same as every other city in orange county. Must be why the rents are the same.
ex-Tangelo – mmmmm, pie good. Your remarks on crust remind me of my dad’s ‘dough board’: he didn’t really care enough to replace the tile surface on his kitchen counters, so he bought a big (≈ 24″ x 36″) Corian sink cutout from somebody.
I’m definitely in favor of solid surface composite, provided it’s made with a lip to stop spills running off (pet peeve of mine).
Has anyone here ever seen a residential kitchen with floor drains? I’ve long wondered if they have drawbacks I’m not seeing, since it seems like they would make floor cleaning significantly easier. (For, of course, solid waterproof flooring such as tile.)
Or maybe 18″ x 30″? It was pretty big but I think I overestimated above.
I would guess that buyers simply found it easier to do a low/no-doc loan through a subprime lender …
Well, that wasn’t the only reason. Consider for example this comment from last April wherein the options suggested to a prospective buyer are to either “go full doc” with the maximum allowed debt service ratio or “be even more agressive and go stated.”
I see a clear implication that to “go stated” is a way to avoid the debt ratio cap – i.e., by fraudulently overstating income. Low/no doc loans got nicknamed “liar loans” for a reason.
If any significant part of the move from full doc prime to low/no doc subrime was due to income overstatement, then there are a large number of buyers who are in homes they can’t (by traditional metrics) afford. They can’t move back to prime unless they now buy cheaper property or have higher incomes.
Sorry, that first line “I would guess that buyers simply found it easier to do a low/no-doc loan through a subprime lender …” should have been a blockquote. I was quoting CapitalismWorks. I put the wrong tag on.
You have to remember that floor drains connect to sewer lines. So, it not just a drain, but also a drip line and trap (you know that U shape thing under the sink). The trap is not there to trap stuff you drop down, but to trap the smell from coming back up.
These prices are unbelievable. I own apartment buildings in Cincinnati, Ohio and rent great apartments in the clifton area. http://www.rentclifton.com
The only real problem I can see with the trap is that for SFH on slab, a trap on the ground floor would be in the slab. I think they make traps with top access plugs for just such an occasion, however. Traps do retain some solids – this ia a major cause of slow drains – thus need to be cleaned out occasionally.
It might be just that floor drains are – I must admit – unsightly and of small net benefit, so most people would decide that they aren’t worth it.
Here is what most dont know about short sales. The only people who are going to benefit are the ones that have money and great credit. Many instances only the ones with money, lots of cash that is. I can give you an example from someone I know. Shortsale home listed for 525k. 1st offer at 525k and 20% cash down. The second offer was for 500k cash. Guess who the bank sold to? Yes, it was for the 500k cash. The banks do this often. Though prices will drop more, the great deals will go to the people who have it all in cash.