Think for a Minute — Housemartins
Have you noticed how silent the bulls have become? The ones that used to hold their heads high now hang their heads in shame. Perhaps, if they had thought for a minute about paying double for real estate, they wouldn’t have so many troubles now. Today’s featured property has been on the market since April 10, 2007 — a whopping 428 days. It is a story of a year of stress and wishful thinking about the market.
Asking Price: $530,000
Income Requirement: $132,500
Downpayment Needed: $106,000
Monthly Equity Burn: $4,416
Purchase Price: $628,000
Purchase Date: 1/12/2006
Address: 963 Sumerville, Irvine, CA 92620
| Beds: | 3 |
| Baths: | 3 |
| Sq. Ft.: | 1,481 |
| $/Sq. Ft.: | $358 |
| Lot Size: | – |
| Property Type: | Condominium |
| Style: | Contemporary/Modern |
| Year Built: | 1999 |
| Stories: | 2 Levels |
| Area: | Northwood |
| County: | Orange |
| MLS#: | S482981 |
| Source: | SoCalMLS |
| Status: | Active |
| On Redfin: | 427 days |
 Unsold in 90+ days
|
|
Living and Dinning w/ Recess Light, Ceiling Fan, Cozy Fireplace,
Netural Wood Floor and Berber Carpet, Custom Paint, Large Kitchen w/
Breakfast Nook, Inside Laundry Room, Walk to Canyon View and Northwood
High ** The Best Location and The best Price ** w w w.9 6 3 s o m e r v
i l l e.i n f o
It looks like the realtor put together a nice website.
Perhaps English is not her native language. We have this sentence-ender we call a period. I don’t know where the double asterisk comes from.
When I looked through the records on this property, I was struck by the stress this property must be causing the owners. It was purchased by a married woman as her “sole and separate property” on January 12, 2006. The property was put into a family trust in August of 2006, and the husbands name was on the property. In January of 2008, after 8 months of the property failing to sell, the husband removed his name from the title. I speculate this was done in an attempt to save his credit in the event of a short sale. I can just imagine the conversations these two must have had as she purchased the property without him, then he was brought into the deal, and then he wanted out. Most family arguments are about money. Add a white elephant like this to the mix, and there are bound to be issues. I hope I am wrong. I would not wish that on anyone. Through situations like this one, the housing crash is going to have a detrimental impact on families everywhere.
When this property was purchased for $628,000, the owner put 10% ($62,800) down. They didn’t HELOC out their equity, although I imagine they wished they would have at this point. This property was first listed for $645,000. The seller was going to lose a bit of their downpayment at that price due to the sales commission, but the loss would have been minor. It didn’t sell. After 90 days, they lowered the price to $599,980. At this price level, their equity would have evaporated, but they would have received enough from the sale to pay off the debt. For obvious reasons, the price did not budge for another 10 months. Even the stubborn and intractable give up eventually. Last month, they accepted that their equity was gone and their credit is shot, and they lowered the price to $530,000 were it sits today. Unfortunately, the market has moved down even faster than their price, and they are still grossly overpriced. The property still is not going to sell. If it did sell, and if the sellers paid a 6% commission, the total loss on the property would be $129,800. The seller would lose $62,800, and the lender would lose $67,000.
Perhaps 2006 was not a great time to buy…
Something’s going on, change is taking place,
Children smiling in the streets have gone without a trace.
This street used to be full, it used to make me smile,
And now it seems that everyone is walking single file
And many hang their heads in shame
That used to hold them high.
And those that used to say hello
Simply pass you by
Think for a minute, stop for a minute
Think for a minute, stop for a minute
I always said it could they never thought it could
The people look so pitiful I’m thinking that it should
and now it’s almost here, now it’s on its way
I can’t help saying told you so and have a nice final day
And nothing I could say
Could ever make them see the light.
Now apathy is happy that
It won without a fight
Think for a minute, stop for a minute
Think for a minute, stop for a minute
Think for a Minute — Housemartin
This isn’t anything. Look on reality track. Look at the bank owned house on winterbranch that just sold. I lived on the Northlake for years. This house is 5 doors down from my old home. What a comp killer.
Lee
The combo of reducing price too slow and short sell will assure the sit and rot continue.
A knife catcher may pick it up at $480-$500k within this summer season. But will the bank go with it?
This property will sell at $350-$400k in 2010.
Try 250K.
It would probably fetch 180K in Phoenix.
here we go again with the pissing contest…
..at least our desert is next to the ocean.
and sorry…OC heat waves are nothing like Aizona’s.
Bravo! Finally, someone mentions the fact that they are tired of these posts. If it’s not the cut-and-paste images, it’s comments like that which discredit anything that person “adds” to this site.
Go ahead and flame me now..
Personally, love most of the pics. hate the comparisons to other states/cities. sometimes it’s started by you & sometimes it’s started by Irvine-would-be-knife-catchers-if-it-were-not-for-this-site-&-others-like-it.
I actually like to hear what is going on in other parts of the country. But the prices are irrelevant, I suppose.
How many tens of thousands of middle class So-Cal families have moved to the Pheonix metro in the last ten years? Anyone who thinks prices in Arizona are irrelevant to prices in OC is badly mistaken.
What a cynical response !!! I am amazed at how some one can be so insensitive to some one else’s pain. Do you think these issues will not hurt you ? These problems are hurting every one in the country, be it the Auto manufacturers, banks or any one who needs credit. Here in Bay Area rents have sky rocketed. Just a one bed room apartment costs more than $1350 + utilities. Writing these comments or writing a blog may be fashionable now but sooner or later these problems will affect you too.
$1350? I wish rents in Irvine were that low. We’re paying 1500-1700+ for a 1 bd. Thanks Irvine Company! Monopolies have their benefits.
How about this: I have lived in the Bay Area 11 years, make over $100k/yr, and I’m permanently priced out of most desirable areas of both East Bay and peninsula.
What about my pain?
Oh wait… I saved my money… I don’t count…
So, no, these problems will NOT affect me as I did NOT buy a house, I did NOT go into debt, and I did NOT spend most of my income. In fact, I have 7 years savings at my current burn rate. Which means I could work at *In-and-Out* for $10/hr, cover my expenses, and NOT even touch my savings. Since I have a PhD in engineering from Berkeley, I think my employment opportunities are pretty damn good no matter what happens to the economy (because I can afford to undercut *everyone’s* wages).
This opportunity that I took advantage of… was available to *everyone*. Nobody put a gun to anyone’s head and made them assume this indebtedness. They came to it of their own choice. They CHOSE to become indebted, of their own free will. I chose NOT to become indebted.
The only effect these problems will have on me is to free up my time for more surfing, on dime-on-the-dollar boards purchased from people strapped for cash.
I have seen this coming for *decades*.
Damn right I’m cynical.
It was plainly obvious once banks and mortgage lending was deregulated, and no-paper ARM mortgages were handed out like lollipops at the bank.
These idiots bought into it and made the prices soar beyond all comprehension.
Who needs regulation, who needs lending best practices or (god-forbid) economic sense.
This is a get-rich culture, and now its biting a lot of folks in the ass.
Slow and steady wins the race – ya know. Slow and steady also allows us to laugh at your foolishness, silly rabbit.
Dave
When jobs go to places like India/China, they will work for less than $1 per hour. That will still beat your price of $10. Then what, will you work for 50 cents ? If this trend continues to its logical end, your Engineering Phd will be a glorified tissue paper.
Mikee
Not every one caught up in this mess are idiots or did it just frauds. Lots of people just got caught up in this system. I know, you are not the type to help any body but at least don’t show your attitude.
Look around. Do you think like Dave you are immune to what’s happening you ? Price of everything has gone up. Sooner or later it will catch up to you. You are not living in a cave.
This was an extremely foolish purchase. Unbelievable.
Assuming that these idiotic buyers used a fixed 30 year mortgage (highly unlikely) their monthly payment on this apartment is in the neighborhood of 3700.00 per month. 3700.00 per month? Are you F-ing kidding me? At this rate you would need two people earning 70,000 per year writing off half their paychecks per month just to the mortgage lender. What on earth were these douches smoking? And to throw away a hard-earned 60K – what a waste.
You could rent this place in Scottsdale, AZ for 1300.00 per month.
This is the IHB (IRVINE HOUSING BLOG). Don’t really care what this place would rent for in Scottsdale or any other part of that wasteland we call AZ.
Hey, ease up. Everybody’s welcome, right? AZDavid’s comments are as welcome as any.
If I were the proud owner an Irvine mortgage – I certainly would not want some out of state jerk telling me that I am a fool.
I would probably try to trash their home state too in order to reinforce my own beliefs that I paid more because my location is far superior rather than I paid more because I was a sheep in the herd heading to the slaughter.
Perfectly understandable.
LOL
Are we calling someone out? :=}
And if I were a bitter, ex-SoCal owner that moved to AZ, a suburb of the sun, I would want to trash those who are still happily living in SoCal.
Perfectly understandable.
What makes you think I am a bitter ex-SoCal owner? I have never lived in California. Prefer to visit.
I guess it is not perfectly understandable for Tim.
You’ve never lived here? You are always insulting those who do. I guess I assumed that no one would insult a place so much without having lived in it at least a little while.
I have nothing against, CA. I have never bashed it like the AZ bashers on here. I have only said that it is not as special as some people try to make it out to be.
Visited quite a bit. I would not want to live there, but at the same time can see why some people would want to live there.
I just take exception with the people who make the claim that California is the golden hill that everyone desires. That is Kool-Aid talk.
Booya!
This was an extremely foolish purchase. Unbelievable.
Assuming that these idiotic buyers used a fixed 30 year mortgage (highly unlikely) their monthly payment on this apartment is in the neighborhood of 3700.00 per month. 3700.00 per month? Are you F-ing kidding me? At this rate you would need two people earning 70,000 per year writing off half their paychecks per month just to the mortgage lender. What on earth were these douches smoking? And to throw away a hard-earned 60K – what a waste.
You could rent this place in Timbuktu for a dollar per month.
Having lived in both OC and Phx area, I can honestly say I prefer OC. Sure we got high taxes, crowded freeways, poor schools (except Irvine), and high housing costs. But compare that to Snow-birds, 100+* temps, transients, gun tote’n urban cowboys, hee-haws, indian casinos, dust storms, and Mormons.
LOL, plenty of Mormons in the OC, too.
i love Arizona. would totally live there if i could. but you could never pay me enough money to live in the Phoenix area.
That’s right. Irvine is the most important city in the Bubblesphere, because Ramen noodles were invented in Irvine.
Um, no they were not.
Per Wikipedia, ramen was invented in China first, introduced to Japan in the late 19th century, and instant ramen was invented in Japan in 1958. But thank you for playing.
Call AZ what you want, but it’s better than Texas.
Always cracks me up when you guys get in a pissing match over AZ vs Irvine. I live up in Santa Cruz, and view visiting relatives in OC as a descent into a living hell. You’re welcome to come back at me about freezing to death up here at the beach in a June fog. I think folks like to live where the climate is what they are used to, and lots of places have wonderful cultural and recreational opportunities.
The Point is, in some places there are totally absurd home costs by any metric, and others are quite reasonable. Oddly, some of the absurd areas are not dropping much, while some of the reasonable areas are getting hammered.
It all makes for interesting conversation, and some perspective from outside CA doesn’t hurt.
Of course Santa Cruz is great if you like lesbians with hairy armpits.
I LOVE lesbians with hairy armpits!
And who doesn’t! Send me two, please.
Personally I prefer mine shaved.
Don’t forget the Nortenos vs the Sorenos.
Santa Ana with a beach front.
Actually, I really appreciate reading comparison prices from other parts of the USA. Arizona is cool. I might want to move there.
Ya know, Raleigh just got named the most-livable city (or best city, or some such.) The real estate is cheap compared to OC. The schools are hit and miss. The jobs are there, and mountains aren’t far. It’s pretty far from the beach, and there is nothing in Raleigh proper to really recommend it, beyond it being a nice place to live.
I live in Atlanta, and since I live in-town, the market is experiencing some come-uppance like in the OC. Prices went crazy in the last three years. Luckily, I bought before the latest run-up.
How do the wages in Arizona compare to the Irvine area?
According to Census, AZ median HHI in 2006 was $46,693. For “affordable” home mortgage: Multiplied by 3 = $140,079 – Multiplied by 4 = $186,772
According to Wikepedia, Irvine median HHI in 2006 was $84,270. For “affordable” home mortgage: Multiplied by 3 = $252,810 – Multiplied by 4 = $337,080
Gilbert is a suburb of Phoenix out by Chandler and Scottsdale. It’s similar socio-economically to Irvine. Median income $76K. Median family income of $82K.
On average, California cost of living is higher so the wages are higher than Phoenix.
Nevertheless, our household income is higher than the Irvine median. I suppose that puts us in the above average for Phoenix. Nevertheless, we are able to rent in a decent area of Scottsdale for roughly 800.00 per month. Will pay 900.00 when we move to a larger place in 2 months.
I suppose that would put me in a better position to live in Irvine than many of the people who currently live there. Would I? Nope. I don’t buy into hype.
Trash Arizona all you want, I am laughing all the way to the bank.
Don’t get hit by a tumbleweed on the way there… I hear they can really scratch up your paint.
Ipoplaya and his tumbleweeds, I love it.
Whenever you say that, I picture something out of the movies like a deserted old ghost town with the tumbleweed rolling past the old cow skull in the middle of the street.
I can’t say that I have seen a tumbleweed recently. Pretty green where I am located.
I will keep watch though.
Dude, I’ve seen them on the 101 between Shea and McDowell. Our office used to be on Via De Ventura. You must drive that stretch of freeway don’t you?
Indeed. You are right in my neck of the woods. I am all too familiar with Gainey Ranch and the office areas on Via De Ventura. We have probably crossed paths at some point in time and not even known it!
I don’t drive very much except when going out of town. I can bicycle the greenbelt for just about everything.
I don’t see the tumbleweeds though. Perhaps they are there and I have just stopped noticing. I will start looking for them and report back to you so someone doesn’t make the mistake of moving here under false pretenses and discover a tumbleweed on the side of the 101.
I grew up in Ventura County. When I was a kid there would often times be tumbleweeds blowing down our street on windy days. I don’t see many tumbleweeds around here nowadays. I think it’s because the tumbleweed bushes don’t grow on golf courses, pavement and houses.
I miss the tumbleweeds.
Actually, we have tumbleweeds in *gasp* Irvine. I’ve seen them when driving on Irvine Blvd. through the old El Toro base.
Indeed. I’ve seen them more than once here in Irvine.
In fact, last set of Santa Ana’s I was driving down Barranca and a nearly lost it laughing my a$$ off! A tumbleweed literally came blowing down Harvard and crossed over Barranca on it’s way to city hall!
I wish you’d quit comparing Scottsdale to Irvine.
It’s about like comparing Beverly Hills to Bakersfield, BH being a wrung above Irvine, and Bakersfield being about 5 above anything in Arizona.
I’ve lived/worked in all the above mentioned places, and can’t live in Arizona because I have desert allergies that make it almost impossible to work 80-100 days a year. Plus, Phoenix has a bunch of non native trees planted that are all males (plants have gender too), which means they produce lots and lots of polen, which makes it worse. The city planners don’t plant females because although they don’t make pollen (they actually sweep it out of the air) they make more green waste and require more labor.
In short, I’m unemployeable for long periods of time in Phoenix. Same for Vegas.
“It’s about like comparing Beverly Hills to Bakersfield, BH being a wrung above Irvine, and Bakersfield being about 5 above anything in Arizona. ”
I’ve lived in Irvine & AZ myself. Never lived in BH, but did party a little there.
If you actually believe Irvine is one step below BH while AZ is at least 5 steps below Irvine, you define the whole “Irvine is special. Everyone wants to be here. Space is limited. Can’t make anymore land. We’re so wealthy compared to everyone else.”
Try reading IrvineRenter’s post from 2 days ago. You might learn something from his research.
Hey hey, you are going to upset the Irvine is special crowd.
Partypooper–>According to Census, AZ median HHI in 2006 was $46,693. For “affordable” home mortgage: Multiplied by 3 = $140,079 – Multiplied by 4 = $186,772
According to Wikepedia, Irvine median HHI in 2006 was $84,270. For “affordable” home mortgage: Multiplied by 3 = $252,810 – Multiplied by 4 = $337,080
so if you use AZDavid’s estimation of 180k for a similar POS in AZ, then that makes it about 360kish here……Sounds about right if not even optimistic by AZDavidphx 😆
My only issue with the estimation is that the original poster appears to have compared the median income of the state of Arizona with the median income of Irvine which is not going to produce a very accurate result if you attempt to extrapolate from those assumptions.
I typically try to guess the bottom value of an Irvine house using the numbers from the Irvine local economy without bring AZ into the equation. I just like to post the AZ comparison for fun.
But when you post your AZ comparisons, you say, “This would cost $XXX in AZ.” You don’t say, “This could cost $XXX in Scottsdale.” So, it seems fair for them to use AZ for income comparison.
Although today you DID say Scottsdale, so I am WRONG! %-P
According to the most recent Census data Scottsdale’s median HHI is 66K a year while Irvine’s is 74K a year. Moreover, Irvine has a highr unemployment rate 3.1% versus 2.2% in Scottsdale. Educational attainment in both cities is about the same and the violent crime rate is about the same. The idea of comparing the two is silly for housing costs but the idea of comparing Irvine to BH and the idea of Bakersfield to Scottsdale is even worse. Using loaded language and uninformed “information” is far worse. Furthermore, anyone trying to make a valid statistical point by comparing a relatively affluent suburb in OC to the entire state of AZ needs to take a class on data collection and dissemination.
Right, it’s like I have always said. CA incomes may be higher on average BUT NOT THAT MUCH higher. Certainly not enough to justify such ridiculous housing costs.
I guess the crime statistics don’t include the HEAT.
I grew up in (well, near) Bakersfield. I think Bako is five wrungs above ANYTHING in Arizona (because I’m sick all the time there), and I think Bako sucks (but it is home). All of it beats Texas.
I don’t drink the koolaid about any place being “special”. I was only stating that I dislike Arizona the same way some people miss V.D.’s like the clap.
YMMV.
I like to compare Irvine to Scottsdale because I encounter a lot of the same types of attitudes.
I am not going to engage in who is better. Both are nice areas. Many people here have the same attitude “this is the best place to live” etc etc. I don’t think it is the best place to live any more than Irvine. It’s all hype. You are always going to want to believe that you choose to live in the most desirable area.
I guess I am just more open minded to other locations and tend to not thumb my nose.
“I guess I am just more open minded to other locations and tend to not thumb my nose.”
You don’t come across as more open minded. You consistently thumb your nose at Irvine. If you don’t mean it that way, you might want to change the words in your AZ comparisons. It comes across as you saying AZ is better.
I have never stated that AZ is better than anything. I simply compare and contrast the costs of living and typically am met with a salvo of 50 reasons to hate Arizona by the Irvine mortgage owners just because I state the truth which is that there is nothing special about Irvine that makes it worth the extraordinary costs of housing. I wouldn’t want to hear it either. I would be pretty outraged to overpay for my house and then have some out of state jerk tell me that he’s not impressed.
“Irvine mortgage owners”
LOL! Love it!
You may not actually come out and state it, but it comes across that way. That is why you get that salvo. It is generally not nice to tell people there is nothing special about where they live. Why do you pay so much to live where you do? Surely it is not the cheapest place on the planet.
Every place has something special about it. I don’t live in Irvine, but it has some really wonderful things about it that you can’t get just anywhere. How long does it take for you to get to the beach to go surfing? Can you go to your university’s sail base and take out a sail boat for lunch? No, you can’t. So that is something special about Irvine over AZ. There are many other things, of course, but, really, you will just dismiss all of them.
That is why you get that salvo. It is generally not nice to tell people there is nothing special about where they live.
No place is that special where all the residents are required to get hooked on creative financing to afford housing.
Why do you pay so much to live where you do?
I stay below my means. I am debt-free. Quite different from borrowing 600K to purchase an apartment and depending on a second income to barely make the monthly payment.
You are right, I will have to dismiss your surfing and sailboat reasons. It’s one of those things that I would think “wow cool” and then stop paying attention to after awhile.
“No place is that special where all the residents are required to get hooked on creative financing to afford housing.”
I think you mean “condo-ing”.
When I think of a “house”, I think of something with a front and back yard. Seems like most abodes in Irvine have forfeited the yards for a greenbelt & park (which are seldom used, so I hear) and great schools. I like Irvine, but I highly dislike the miserly housing product.
Sorry to pile on here, but Irvine is trash compared to Beverly Hills. I take it the majority of posters here live in Irvine, because there is quite a bias toward it being the best place on earth. It isn’t.
I think in many ways Irvine is better than BH. Irvine is better isolated from the crime, and it’s easier to get to the beaches and freeways.
I used to live in Irvine, but my family cashed out a long time ago (at half of the peak, but still made more than a few bucks) so I’m not biased. I lived there, it’s nicer than Beverly Hills, but there are much nicer places to live around Southern California. If I was buying a place any time soon, it wouldn’t be in Irvine.
Just out of curiousity, where would you buy and for what reason(s)?
Personally I’d like a place in La Jolla, but good GAWD it’s expensive there. It’s the nicest beach city in all of socal, IMHO. I wouldn’t kick Irvine out of bed though.
La Jolla rocks. I think Rancho PV and Malibu are equally as lovely beach cities, albeit with a different flavor. PB/Carmel is right up there too…
Santa Barbara for me. Montecito, especially.
South Bay.
Rolling Hills, Palos Verdes, Redondo, South or West Torrance, maybe even Hermosa or Manhattan.
In a normal market, South Bay prices may be a bit higher than Irvine, either that or you pay a similar price for an older home, but overall I like it much better.
It’s close to LAX (big plus for me because I have to travel often), mild weather because of the breezes, it’s relatively close to all the things that I like to do, and it has beaches that aren’t polluted with tourists.
Unfortunately there’s no motocross track nearby, but that’s one tradeoff I’m willing to accept.
Good choice. I’d love a house in Manhattan Beach, South Redondo Beach or Hermosa Beach, but prices are in there are currently somewhere above the stratosphere. The Hollywood Riviera or PV would be nice, but it takes an eternity to get from there to the 405. I work in Santa Monica, so the commute to and from work from MB would be reasonable.
I’m still watching to see when 310 prices come down below the wtf range.
It’s snotty “California Uber Alles/Arizona is for losers” douchebags like yourself, who instigate the CA bashing.
California is nice, but it is hardly the bestest. place. evah.
There are plenty of nice things about AZ. For one, the people (outside of Scottsdale that is) are a lot more ‘real’ than 99% of the people I’ve met in CA. Believe it or not, climate does not trump everything for some of us. A reasonable cost of living, the relative lack of the ‘keep-up-with-the-Joneses-using-your-plastic-and-HELOC-or-you-are-a-social-leper’ ethos, the availability of outdoors activities within easy reach of the city, the reasonable traffic…
…and anyone who thinks that Bakersfield is 5 notches above anywhere in AZ has his head up his ass and is just asking to get flamed.
“the people (outside of Scottsdale that is) are a lot more ‘real’ than 99% of the people I’ve met in CA.”
Why is it people with low incomes are always glorified for the “realness”. Perhaps being uncouth and uncharming are virtues to some…
But, didn’t you read that the house (oops, sorry…condo) is on premium lot? (read: weird angles and corners) That’s totally worth 530k!
They need to fire their realtor… I almost bought a house from their realtor once upon a time. She drank the koolaid, bought a house in Tustin Field at peak, and loaded it with upgrades. She ate a loss of $100-150K or so but she was at least smart enough to get out last summer.
They need to clear the crap out of their house, pay to stage it, and shoot some good pics.
Put down the Kool-Aid, and pull your head out of IRs butt. He is happily married.
What kool-aid? How does that apply to me?
AZDavidPhx – dude, do you have an obsession with Irvine? I’ve stayed 4 months (thank god i left in June) in Phoenix and liked it alot, especially Scottsdale and Tempe. But as a place to live, please stop comparing Phoenix or any of its burbs with Irvine. Try comparing AZ to the IE, it adds a tinge of rationality to your posts.
Frankly, I think AZ is wrong. This is a townhome/condo. I suspect you can rent it for less in $1300. It’s also small, you can likely rent an SFR in AZ for $1300 at this size.
There are trade offs, but frankly, substitution effects are valid. When renting this place is $1300 in AZ or buying it gives you a mortgage of about $1000/month. You will start to see why California has the migration pattern that it has.
Is Irvine a little nicer than Chandler? Scottsdale? Not really. The weather is more pleasant, is it $4000/month more pleasant? We have the ocean, they have resevoirs and mountains to escape too.
Arizona, Washington, Texas have all been net out migration spots for California. Understanding their market compared to ours helps paint the ridiculous nature of our pricing bubble. Will there be a premium? I suspect so, will that premium be 2X, 3X? Doubtful. For the IE, it will actually be a negative premium. AZ’s taxes are lower, traffic less and general hassles more minor.
Do you want to look at large scale employers? We all think of OC as HCOL, but many employers don’t recognize it that way. They see SF, Silicon Valley and NYC as high cost, but OC isn’t in that declaration.
Do you want to look at California’s ballot propositions for October. Anybody see the all the wealth tax proposals? Anybody see the definition of wealth? Think that’ll make a dent in Irvine’s home prices?
It could very well rent for less. I guessed 1300.00 because similar townhouses are renting up the street from me for around 1400.00 and I believe they have higher square footage.
No Lube,
Bakersfield 5 above anything in AZ ? I can appreciate that you have allergies that make AZ undesireable, but dude cmon… Bakersfield ? What an armpit. I was raised in Fresno and we used to laugh at Bakersfield if you can imagine that.
I’d live in Flagstaff in a heartbeat if I could find work out there.
I love Flagstaff. I am with Schadendude.
Hey IrvineRenter,
Check out the WTF price in NorthPark at 7 Willowridge. Do these losers really think someone is going to pay that much for that ???
From the description:
“One Step Inside This Home and you’ll be saying ‘THIS IS THE ONE’. ”
HAHAHAHHAHAHAH ROFL !!!! But not at that price!
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Irvine/7-Willowridge-92602/home/5813252
Did they HELOC themslves to the MAX ?
To quote the listing: “*** DID YOU SEE THE PRICE? ***”
Yes I did. Now where’d I put my spare keyboard…
Did you see the 2002 price in the $450’s? I’d take it for that.
I’d like my 12%/year appreciation please, thank you very much.
Um, how about no, not from me thanks.
Willowridge is a tad overpriced but not exorbitantly so for this market. Someone will likely buy it for $850K. Low $900s is not my definition of a WTF based on recent comps.
19 Willowridge, which is also 2200sf, got into escrow after about one week, once they re-listed at $869K.
If you think $50-75K above current market value is WTF pricing, what would you call those that are hundreds of thousands over market?
And if you want to see recent comps, you can of course check them out here:
http://www.ipoplaya.com
Frankly, I think your site leaves a lot to be desired – You state that you’re tracking properties ‘in escrow’, and also that for properties that fall out, you won’t update the listing unless it goes back in. However, you have specific color coding for properties that are ‘in escrow’ and other property listings with no legend or key . . . And furthermore, your constant crowing about ‘in this current market’ prices is just plain jacked – just because some fool will part with their (or their bank’s) money has no relevance to the ‘fundamental’ price to rent ratio . . . If you can’t accept the fact that Irvine’s REAL DOCUMENTED household income doesn’t support current or recent prices then there really is no rational discussion that can follow.
Also – I’m a big fan of AZ David’s comments and pictures. It’s great to have a counterbalance to the Irvine-koolaid-intoxicated regular posters.
I would ‘consider’ living in Irvine if the economics were reasonable – which they are still a long ways from.
Right on ipop…
The pic’s are awful, don’t make me want to buy at all. They left half empty glasses on the tables when they took the pictures. The walls are just bare beige. Looks like a nice apartment I might consider renting.
To me the sad thing is that this property was bought for over 1/2 mil and the people look like they live like poor renters, minimal, cheap “walmart” furnature. Shows that people are blew so much dough on the purchase and mortgage that they can’t afford to live decently.
Is the house that bad? Oh well, I’m glad I waited! 🙂 Thank god for this blog!
This is a good example of chasing the market down. In April 07 they might have got $600k but they were asking $645k. I’d wager they had offers above $600k last year, and rejected them.
Fast forward, more than a year later, they are asking $530k, and now that’s still too much.
It’s a refusal to let the market determine the correct pricing. Some people always think they are smarter than the market.
Exactly.
& don’t you agree that by holding out for higher prices, they are helping to actually lower prices? Think about how many people you talked to last year & early January that started looking at buying because they heard that prices were coming down, but then stopped looking once they found out that sellers weren’t negotiating. Those were at least hundreds if not thousands of comps that would have competed with the foreclosure comps.
But no. Sellers were too used to getting their list & the more potential buyers find that sellers aren’t negotiating, the more they’ll wait for lower and lower and lower prices.
Chasing the market down only makes the market fall even lower.
To the AZ poster,
Why do you care about Irvine? You don’t live here. Is AZ so boring you have to waste time tracking the real estate market in Irvine? Start your own Phoenix blog and move along.
I’m just here for the bud light and music videos.
This is a great question that I am always willing to answer (and have many times when someone thinks they are clever and plays the old you read “our” blog because your own area is so boring and inferior card)
AZ experienced a significant housing bubble which was partially a byproduct of the California bubble. Lots of out-of-state speculation as Californians decided to buy investment houses in AZ.
Phoenix real-estate is now tanking along with CA.
California led the bubble on the way up and now it leads us on the way down. Hence my interest in your market is it brings me foresight as to future events that will be experienced in AZ.
I know – Not as sexy as your straw man, but more the truth.
I would think that the AZ market is leading the way down with OC lagging behind. So far Vegas, Phoenix, and San Diego have had the largest declines. San Diego county is at least a year ahead of OC in terms of affordability. The OC market is still so unaffordable that a first time buyer with a well paying salary can’t even think about buying a small SFR on a 30 year fixed. One can however, just barely justify on cost alone a small SFR in the other aforementioned cities.
True, Priced_Out –
But CA has more of the creative financing going on than AZ. Once all that has melted down, I’ll pretty much know that AZ has reached bottom.
Thanks for remembering us first time buyers. I destroy the Irvine median HHI, but there is very little I can afford there.
One of the reasons I never have, and will never believe any of these houses are ‘worth’ nearly what they are sold or appraised for. People swapped houses; equity became a new kind of currency valued differently than dollars. Just like inflation the equity swell lead to a massive price spike. The disconnect this caused at the lower end of the market surely suggested there was trouble down the road. I’m probably reiterating something IR said in a previous post.
…not to mention the creative financing that others before me have mentioned.
Besides, Scottsdale is basically Irvine with straight roads and + 20degrees.
lol…here for the bud light…i like that
AZ was way ahead by at least two bubble years. There is plenty of blame to go around, so go ahead, you can brag a little.
The pictures look like crime scene photo’s, all thats missing are the dead body’s and the blood!
Here’s some West Side Costa Misery hilarity for you:
Last purchase price: $680k, for sale at $350k minus $1
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/671-W-Wilson-St-92627/home/4558937
Backyard neighbors with drastically different asking prices for near-equivalent homes:
$675k: (no previous price available)
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/913-Joann-St-92627/home/4563800
$430k: (previous: $644k)
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/934-Darrell-St-92627/home/4563844
$399k: (previous: $689k)
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/894-Darrell-St-92627/home/4563820
Shortsale at $430k (condo). Previous purchase price $194k in 1997. Was asking $649k last October. Must be a serial HELOC’er:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Costa-Mesa/2164-Canyon-Dr-92627/unit-G/home/4556629
Don’t think that I’ve found anything special for Costa Mesa. This hilarity is abundant in West side, and Northern CM. East side is lagging a little in the hilarity.
I actually looked at these places in 2002 before I bought my place in Westpark. They are pretty nice and were fairly new back then but were a little more than I could afford at the time. These type of units were selling in the $300k-ish range in 2002. The one thing I noticed about this tract is that many were close to Culver which was a big negative.
And yeah, what’s with the r/e agent’s bad english on the listing? If I see my agent write that crap I would fire him/her on the spot…maybe she’s only getting a 2% commission since the owner is broke…lol
** Feel like detached home
** Spacious Living and Dinning w/ Recess Light,…Netural Wood Floor
As a web designer I would immediately fire the listing agent for the cheezeball godaddy tongiht website (http://www.963somerville.info). That site makes the place look even trashier than the listing and the photos.
You’re right, I just checked it out. Pretty cheesy, especially with the broken English.
Funny thing is, she’s a fairly well-known agent in the area. Can’t be good for the rep.
I wonder if she won that sporty award shown on her website?
Wow, I wouldn’t damn her so much. She is doing a much better job than 90% of the “real estate professionals”.
Pluses: She actually made a site, and put up floorplans
Minuses: marginal english, bad photos.
This is in the top 10% of the listings $300k-$700k I’ve seen.
Good points.
I like how realtards always have to put their picture on everything.
“She looks like a friendly face, so I suppose I’ll overpay by $100k from her!”
With the agents name being Winnie Shiao, there’s a good chance English is a second language. A good chance she has a highly educated, highly paid clientele for whom english is a second language, also.
Half the people I work with speak english as a second language, but they all speak english far better than I speak their languages so I am really grateful they are around, since we are selling all our output into countries where the buyers speak their languages.
Time to get over the english hangup folks. But continue to FRY those agents with the !!!! bangs and ALL CAPS. For that there is no excuse.
The benefit to writing a bad description is that when a potential buyer contacts the agent, she will think, “*WOW*, even WITH my crappy description these people are still interested in the property! That says something.”
Sedona! Jerome! Not Cottonwood. A little snow but does not last. I think there are a number of places along the rim that would be great places to live. Jobs would be a problem. OK for retirement as my dad did back in the 70s.
Flagstaf is a bit too cool for me. Nice in the summertime but the winter lasts a bit too long. However, with global warming I would reconsider.
I have decided that IRVINE SUCKS!!!
The location in relation to employment is nice, but I find few positives after that.
There are plenty of great high schools all over the country that can educate your children.
The polution out here has just been horrendous the last week. You can hardly even see the foothills from the freeway. That will lead to poor health and cause extra expenses down the road.
The gas prices in Irvine have to be among the top ten most expensive in the country. A 64 cent tax on gas in California and we have a state government running a 20 billion dollar deficit.
The state income tax rate is 9.3% for someone making 43K and up. And the state government is running a 20 billion dollar deficit.
Irvine and the surrounding areas have to be the largest concentration of materialistic and snobby people I have ever met. It is worse here than Dallas.
There is a drug problem in Irvine. Lots of “rich person” drugs. Just look at the execs from Broadcom.
Rampant corruption in the city leadership. Look at the “Great Park Corporation”.
Ridiculous traffic that will only get worse as more homes and apartments get built. The density of population is suffocating.
There is no diversity in population or in housing architecture. You are either white or asian. Your home is either stucco tract home or condo/townhome.
Irvine is so high and mighty that they won’t allow a Wal-mart in town.
The beach out here isn’t that great. You can’t get in the water because it is freezing cold and the wind off the water is freezing cold too.
Lastly, insane prices for homes that are ugly, have no yards, and built on top of each other. You SHOULD NOT be able to reach out of your kitchen window and grab the salt off the counter in your neighbor’s kitchen. You SHOULD be able to go in the back yard or front yard and play catch with your son or daughter.
I plan to get my MBA here while drumming up some work experience and then move to a place with lower taxes, normal housing prices, friendly people, houses with yards, a state government that is smart, quality schools, no stucco, less traffic, better air quality, and the ability to save money for retirement while raising kids in a healthy environment.
The great weather here is not worth all of the cons I just mentioned. Looks like I will be moving to the South somewhere. North Carolina and Texas are probable.
Maybe some of you Irvine folk need to get out of the bubble and see what other places have to offer.
I have lived in other parts of the country, and there are many nice places but none compares to here. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Sounds like moving out of state would be best for you. Good luck.
I know! And everything has cilantro on it.
I kno rite. And it gets in the way of my commute to San Diego.
Please hurry up and leave, and take some more people with you. That will surely bring the housing prices down even more for me.
You do know about these things called parks, right? Where if you have a small yard you can still do all that stuff with your kids? Not all of these homes are near parks or open areas, but lots are by parks or schools where kids (and you) can play. There are also lots of styles of curtains and miniblinds that offer privacy and still let in lots of light. You can save on your energy bill too, by keeping out direct sun.
The prices are still insane, though. And there are lots of nice places around the country. Some of which where they have small yards and you’re close to your neighbors, but you can walk everywhere (including parks) and then you don’t have to drive! (I’m not from Irvine and have only driven through. Are there walkable/bikable neighborhoods? Defined by: walk from your house to at least some kind of grocery store, some restaurants, and some entertainment/recreation?)
Sorry to be so snarky, but I’m sick and tired of people running down neighborhoods just ’cause the houses are close together. Houses don’t get much closer together than where I live, but the rewards are pretty great too. Lots less time in the car with my kid and more quality time. I’ve gotten to know my neighbors, and the staff at local shops and restaurants. It feels more like a real community than anywhere I’ve ever lived with a yard. We meet loads of other families at the park, and have a weekly informal neighborhood picnic at one of the parks. Elsewhere, everybody just hid in their yard, or was out driving somewhere. People with no yards may be antisocial in Irvine, I don’t know, but I love my house with no yard.
So let’s give close together houses a little break, okay?
You call them parks, but they are really just unbuildable land that profit could not be reasonably extracted from.
I grew up in a city, and we had a yard, parks, school yards and vacant fields. Do you really have to go somewhere to have some fun? It is already bad enough that you have to buy something and spend some money.
Planned community — welcome to the feed lot, where you are the cattle, and your cash is the wool, and your soul is the manure.
You can’t really walk anyplace in Irvine, except to a park. That town is NOT pedestrian friendly. Look at all the garage doors.
Adios, Auf Wiedersehen, Au revoir…
I was born and raised in The South until I had the good fortune of making it to Cali. Irvine isn’t all that amazing in particular, but I’d never want to leave the greater coastal CA area as compared to other parts of the country. San Diego was great, the Central Coast was fabulous, Marin was cool, Westside LA was nice too.
Don’t make the false and poor assumption that people who live in Irvine grew up here and haven’t seen the rest of the country. Many of us have and elect to reside here in spite of the higher cost of living…
“You are either white or asian.”
That statement, my friend, is why Irvine price remains high.
That statement, my friend, is why Asians (not particularly White) will find it attractive to live there.
And you wonder why the Chinese has US by its balls…um…I meant Treasurys.
Do we have this make-up in Scottsdale?
So what is the mindset of this owner now?
Are they living in the house now and still paying the mortgage? Is it rented out? Is it empty?
Is there any advantage to hanging on to this property and getting as much as possible, as opposed to just walking? I guess if the owner has the cash to pay the shortfall on a sale, they can sell, pay back the back and keep credit in tact.
Nobody outside the toniest precincts of London, Paris, NYC, Tokyo, or Berlin ought to have to pay this kind of money to live like this.
No matter where you live, you’d really expect a better lifestyle than this with $106K down and $132K a year income.
Is Irvine more expensive compared to other parts of the US? Yes, undoubtedly so.
However, real estate is an (almost) entirely local market. For whatever reasons people have (and they may include housing prices), people want to live where they want to live. In my circumstance (academia), I only got 2 job offers after two years on the job market (it’s a tough and very small market), and the choice between Stockton and Fullerton was a relatively easy one.
Some folks will be constrained by where their parents live, or tolerance for weather, or job prospects.
Blogs like this one help because I can hear thoughts on housing in general (and IR does good analyses). What happens in Irvine is relevant to the OC, and many other bubble markets.
I am really tired of the AZ’s perpetual carping.
I’m in Miami Dade. So what have Dade prices to do with Cali?
I post because we are similarly bubblicious.
And Cali and Fla are where people move to and have sun and surf.
But our prices never got as high because our salaries are very low compared to yours.
In the end, we and thee will probably be half off.
The blog is much more interesting on days AZ doesn’t post.
Sorry.
That’s quite alright, lawyerliz. You are completely forgiven. Certainly no need to be sorry.
Apparently you are the minority, though as there have been a lot of respondents today whose curiosity was apparently piqued.
Hi, Liz.
You don’t have to have sun and surf to be bubblelicious.
I post because Chicago is in so many ways comparable to Irvine, and because our South Loop is the same kind of overbuilt disaster area Miami is.
We’re well on our way to half off the peak, if not further.
You can scarcely get financing in a glossy new South Loop condo, so overbuilt is it, and with so many really trouble buildings with bad construction problems and huge numbers of foreclosures and unsold units.
It will end in these places selling for fifteen cents on the dollar, and other parts of town more than half off. The sick part is that the inventory that’s showing in the multilist is perhaps a third of what’s actually overhanging the market.
When total capitulation finally comes, and the decimated values at last written off by the banks, it will be the worst drop in values in the history of the world.
Survey Says . . . XXXXXXXXXXXXX!
I seem to notice a dearth of interesting comments from the locally intoxicated when AZDavid doesn’t post . . .
And I have to say that the arrogance of some of the regular posters *almost* makes me not want to return – but then I wonder what pictures AZ has posted and have to check 🙂
Well what do you expect from the housing market, subprime is what killed us all.
…”subprime is what killed us all.”
Prophetic statement. It certainly effected a lot of us. That could be a subject header for IR one day.
Lost my house that way, the whole neighborhood took a huge hit. It took everybody by suprise then the whole bottom fell out of the market.
The housing market will never be the same again.
Do you really think they purchased this place and double its value? Having it drop to the low 300’s seems a bit extreme. I know I hear we are in a downturn, but do you really think it will drop that low?
“I know I hear we are in a downturn, but do you really think it will drop that low?”
Fa shizzle dizzle. It’s “in the bag.” :cheese:
KEEP POSTING AZDavidPhx.SoCal & especially OC are far more tolerable to me now that I am a visitor and not an overtaxed resident.The cool part is that I still have business interests in OC…so I get to vist AND take money with me when I leave.Save for a few bux in Artie Morenos’ coffers while attending Angels games…the rest comes back to Vegas with me.I will tell that Vegas is far from Nirvana too…but you could’nt tell that by all the Cali’s who stream in here every weekend.All Cali’s think they live in the promised land.
Laughable.
BTW…if she begs me-I’ll take this lifeless piece of gingerbread off her hands for 199k…but only because I’m feeling generous.
It seems that people like to bash Texas on this site. If Texas is so bad, why is every third person living in Austin from California? Personally, I wish they would go home.
Irvine is superspecial. That is why I have real estate in AZ, so when SoCa falls into the ocean, I will have beachfront property. And the company of Mormons.