Today’s featured property is in the Woodbridge Cottages. I picked it only for its street name.
If you find humor about flatulence offensive, you are warned not to read the remainder of today’s post.
Irvine Home Address … 68 RACINGWIND Irvine, CA 92614
Resale Home Price …… $825,000
{book1}
They’re all dying. Dying inside
Slowly. Drowning in pride.
Reeking of lies. Proud of their lives.
Proud of their dead. Proud of the blood that shed.
Dying. Dying inside, slowly. Drowning in Pride.
Of Human Pride and Flatulence — Catttle Decapitation
One of the joys of writing for the blog is finding creative ways to tie properties to other things. The street names offer a fertile field for funny affiliations, occasional alliterations, rhymes and ruminations. That being said, I have never taken “fart propulsion” as a theme for a post before; however, given the street name, I could not resist.
I like these cottage homes. The front elevations are attractive, the floorplans are functional, and there is a nearby community park that is very nice. On the downside, you don’t have a back yard, and the density is very high.
I want to point out a land planning trick used to get more yield. If you look closely at the houses I have highlighted, they all have one thing in common; there is no street in front of them. On the downside, between (1) guests and (2) owners who fill their garages with possessions and must park on the street, the sidestreet parking near these units is full most the time (see photo).
For those who like less asphalt — and who doesn’t — eliminating the street takes out an ugly element that consumes much land. This is an area where the developer’s desire for density and a buyer’s desire for a detached house are in alignment. Expect to see much more of this kind of planning in the future. Hopefully, they will put in more guest parking.
Irvine Home Address … 68 RACINGWIND Irvine, CA 92614
Resale Home Price … $825,000 
Income Requirement ……. $170,047
Downpayment Needed … $165,000
20% Down Conventional
Home Purchase Price … $189,000
Home Purchase Date …. 4/24/1998
Net Gain (Loss) ………. $586,500
Percent Change ………. 336.5%
Annual Appreciation … 13.1%
Mortgage Interest Rate ………. 4.96%
Monthly Mortgage Payment … $3,527
Monthly Cash Outlays ………… $4,440
Monthly Cost of Ownership … $3,270
Property Details for 68 RACINGWIND Irvine, CA 92614
Beds 4
Baths 3 baths
Size 2,252 sq ft
($366 / sq ft)
Lot Size 3,024 sq ft
Year Built 1980
Days on Market 14
Listing Updated 11/24/2009
MLS Number S597050
Property Type Single Family, Residential
Community Woodbridge
Tract Ch
This is a one of a kind custom home in Woodbridge Cottages. Highly upgraded throughout. Move in ready. Beautiful new casement windows and French doors. Gorgeous staircase and mouldings. Granite countertops and custom cabinets in kitchen . Teak hardwood flooring and Ralph Lauren carpeting. Fireplace in Master Bedroom and Living Room. Indoor laundry room with cabinets galore! Walking distance to award winning Irvine Unified School District neighborhood elementary, middle and high schools. This is a must see…….absolutely charming.
one of a kind custom home in Woodbridge Cottages? Unique tract homes? Hmmm…
These people stand to make a fortune; however, in typical Irvine style, they have doubled their mortgage debt. With $450,000 already spent, it isn’t the windfall it should be, but that is our new way of living, I guess.
I hope you have enjoyed this week, and thank you for reading the Irvine Housing Blog: astutely observing
the Irvine home market and combating California Kool-Aid since
September 2006.
Have a great weekend,
Irvine Renter
:;
Home Purchase Price … $189,000
Home Purchase Date …. 4/24/1998
Gonna be one unhappy knife catcher when Irvine gets corrected back to 1998 price levels.
http://www.crackthecode.us/images/Irvine2011_GetReady.jpg
[from my ‘inflation calculator’]
if they bought the house in 4/1998 for $189,000 ($37,800 down, $151,200 loan)
their orig mortgage payment was: $1,019 (at 7.13%)
inflation adjusted that’d be: $1,337
$1,337 at 7.13% is a purchase of: $248,015
$1,337 at 5.25% is a purchase of: $302,743
lol @ 175% inflation adjusted increase in price.
Keep in mind there’s an addition that more than doubled the square footage of the house (from 969 to 2,252). It still might be a bit overpriced compared to comps or inflation, but not by all that much. That also might explain why they doubled their mortgage debt-to pay for the addition.
I went back and looked at the records. The increase in their mortgage was in 4 separate events ranging from $25,000 to $130,000, and they were spaced apart by at least 9 months each time. If they had spent most of the money on the improvements, there would have been only one refi with a large amount; they had two moderate ones and two large ones. It looks more like loan dependency to me with a renovation thrown into the mix.
Not necessarily. It may have been they kept a monetary moving target during construction and kept increasing their loans to pay for the ongoing construction cash draws and when they got finally done then they bundled into a cheaper loan.
For example, during our three year construction we took one line of credit mid construction, paid it off still during construction (sold some stock) and finally refi’d the whole thing when we were done.
Where are they getting the 825K from?
Even Zillow’s Kool Aid estimation model puts this place at 425K.
What am I missing?
The addition.
Oh, I would love to know how much they actually spent on this “addition”. Probably comes nowhere near 400K. PUH-LEEZE. If so then they got hustled by an overpriced contractor.
The #1 factor in price is neighborhood. This is the reason you should never build a mansion in the midst of a trsct full of tiny home. In this case, with all on these tiny lots, there is no chance that this neighborhood will begin to sprout Mc Mansions anywhere else. These people did a very foolish thing with their money.
.
http://www.crackthecode.us/images/Futility.jpg
LOL! Good one.
Woman sues debt collector over husband’s death
By Rich Phillips, CNN
December 10, 2009 11:57 a.m. EST
http://www.crackthecode.us/images/horror.jpg
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/12/10/debt.collector.lawsuit/index.html?source=patrick.net
Dianne McLeod says debt collecting tactics contributed to her husband’s death
The couple fell behind in their mortgage payments after her husband went on disability
The mortgage company calls claim “meritless”
Tampa, Florida (CNN) —
Dianne McLeod recalls her husband, Stanley, getting so visibly upset when the debt collectors called that she had to take the phone away from him. She believes constant harassing phone calls and other tactics eventually killed him.
McLeod is suing her mortgage company, Green Tree Servicing, for the wrongful death of her husband. McLeod said she thinks he would be alive if not for the stress caused by Green Tree’s debt collectors. She said they sometimes called up to 10 times a day and also called the McLeods’ neighbors.
Stanley McLeod had a heart condition and in 2002 was airlifted to a hospital after a second heart attack. He went on disability and Dianne McLeod says they fell behind about three months on their mortgage payments.
My question: Whose fault would it have been in 2002?
Sounds like the ambulance chasers found their mark. I would imagine that suing mortgage companies these days is easy $$$$.
I wonder if one of the juror selection questions will be “Have you ever been foreclosed on?”
I wouldn’t be so sure. It’s not that easy to get through clogged courts. This is especially true in Florida, where foreclosures are judicial (unlike CA, where judicial foreclosures are rare).
I once had an incompetent student loan servicing firm that I had to deal with. I found that if you have careful documentation and contacted their legal instead of servicing department you spoke to someone about 80 iq points brighter, and who could actually do something.
It’s the same old routine.
They are going to sue for some ridiculously stupid amount and then stack the jury with foreclosure people and bamboozle them with Chewbacca.
Sue the mortgage company for something like 100 Million.
Then shift into a mock compromise and ask them to find the mortgage company for only 25% responsibility.
Jury agrees that 25% responsibility is perfectly reasonable and awards plaintiff 25 million.
Lawyers take 20 million. Woman takes 5 million.
Nobody bothers suing the actual debt collector.
“I once had an incompetent student loan servicing firm that I had to deal with.”
When I sold my house in Florida, the loan servicer had incorrectly processed a payment, and it appeared to them that I was consistently 30 days late for about 9 months. I had two people from Huntington Bank on the phone at the same time, and neither of them could figure out how to reset their system and erase 9 months worth of late charges. It never did get resolved before my closing, and rather than fight on, I capitulated to their bureaucratic incompetence. Huntington Bank was rewarded for their poor servicing with my incorrect service charges.
Yes, I once had a mortgage with a processing bank in Florida.
We kept making extra payments to lower the principal.
The bank did not know how to process they payment so they’d put it into an escrow account until they figure it out.
Meanwhile the computer would spew out late payment notices and fees.
At one point we got a statement that showed us three months delinquent on the mortgage and an escrow account with four months of payments -on which they were paying us interest.
I finally sent a very long certified letter to the CEO and cc’d the mortgage broker and the State Attorneys in CA and FL. A bank VP took it upon herself to clean up the mess.
And, once the mess was cleaned (my FICO was never affected thank God) we bit the bullet and refi’d out of that bank. It cost us fees but we just didn’t want to deal with bank anymore.
You won’t believe the hassles we had with them over the home insurance…. that took six months to fix.
The story failed to mention that Stanley McLeod was visibly upset after finding out that her wife of 27 years had racked up over $109k in credit card debt after a love affair with luxury handbags such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Chanel đ
This house is unique.
It has Ralph Lauren carpeting.
I’m impressed.
I always thought “custom” meant that the home had been built on a custom basis… not that its particular mix of paint colors, choice of counter tops and the number of atoms on the porch step were unique within the tract/city.
I didn’t know Real Estate agents knew about Avogadro’s number and Planck’s Constant.
I like the “French door” on the 1980’s architecture.
http://www.crackthecode.us/images/combover.jpg
I think it’s been added on to, thus “custom”.
It is larger than the other homes in this neighborhood, so I think it has been added on to. However, it is not a custom estate like some in Shady Canyon, it is an Irvine Cottage home made larger.
The listing says the square footage is 2,252, with four bedrooms and three baths, yet the square footage on the tax rolls is only 969, with two bedrooms and two baths. The listing also says “Square Footage Source: Builder”. Clearly, there was a huge addition that more than doubled the square footage-I guess that could justify the “custom home” status. This is also messing up the automated comps; they are pricing it as if it only had 969 square feet. Before buying this, I would double check with the city to make sure the additions were properly permitted.
Actually the automated comps do not catch aditions regardless of whether they’re legal or not. Automated comps only work for cookie cutter homes.
Example, my house and two of my neighbors. The auto comps show the houses to be 1800, 2050 and 1650 sq feet respectively, when in reality the houses are not 2700, 2600 and 3200.
All of us got legal permits.
You have to admire a guy with strength of conviction:
U.S. Government’s New Housing Bubble
As readers here have heard regularly, it is absolutely certain that there will be another down-leg for the U.S. housing market, beginning no later than spring of next year. We already know the latest date, since that is when the next spike in U.S. mortgage resets kicks-in.
There are two differences between the first spike in mortgage resets and the second. Not only will the second spike last for at least two years (longer than the first), but it will be much nastier.
Roughly 75% of these mortgages are either âoption-ARMâ loans, âAlt-Aâ loans, or âagencyâ loans (i.e. from Fannie (FNM)/Freddie (FRE)/FHA), with still a few, remaining sub-prime loans sprinkled into the mix. Put another way, only about Âź of the these mortgages are âprimeâ – a word which certainly doesn’t mean what it used to, given that these âprimeâ mortgages are also experiencing their highest level of defaults in history.
The largest category are the option-ARMs, the category of loans which has already had the highest level of defaults. With the vast majority of these mortgage-holders having made minimum payments (or less) on these mortgages, their monthly mortgage payments will increase to multiples of their current payments â even with interest rates at record-lows.
The next-largest category in this group, the so-called âAlt-Aâ loans were supposed to be of a better quality than sub-prime. However, with default rates on Alt-A mortgages approaching the levels for sub-prime (given that many Alt-A mortgages were also âliar’s loansâ), it is clear that this supposed higher quality was yet one more fiction in this massive bubble.
Then we have the âagencyâ mortgages, from the money-hemorrhaging entities Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and now the FHA. If the massive losses which these quasi-government entities have already suffered on previous loans isn’t enough to frighten people about the future defaults coming from this source, then their current lending practices should certainly do the trick.
Providing over 90% of all mortgage-funding for new home loans, the U.S. government has essentially nationalized the U.S. mortgage-market (âinsuredâ by taxpayers), but with the free-loading banker-oligarchs able to insert themselves as âmiddlemenâ – taking a cut of profits for themselves, while having zero, personal risk (the new âbusiness modelâ for the U.S. banking oligarchy).
If this level of risk for the U.S. government is not proof enough of insanity, in itself, then its âlending standardsâ (or lack thereof) clearly pushes it past that threshhold. The same U.S. government which is taking miniscule down-payments on these mortgages (90% of which are only 4% or less) with one hand, is handing out an $8,000 cheque (again paid for by taxpayers) with the other hand.
The net effect is that for virtually every new mortgage which these government entities are initiating of $250,000 or less there is zero (net) down-payment. Given that a large majority of current sales in the U.S. are below this level, this means that most of the home-buyers in the U.S. this year are putting up zero down-payments.
To perfect their new Ponzi-scheme for the U.S. housing market, the Federal Reserve allows the banksters to âborrowâ money at 0%. The banksters then âdepositâ this money with the Federal Reserve as a âsavings accountâ for which they collect interest, while paying no interest on the âloanâ. In other words the Federal Reserve is simply giving the banksters free money (they are currently collecting interest on over $1 trillion of these âloansâ).
But the money doesn’t actually sit there. Instead the Fed uses that money to buy U.S. mortgage bonds â the only thing keeping U.S. mortgage rates several percent lower than they would be otherwise. So, to begin with, the new Ponzi-scheme implodes as soon as the U.S. government stops âbuyingâ its own mortgage bonds (with 100% of the money used to âbuyâ those bonds simply being printed on Bernanke’s magic printing-press).
Obviously, even the U.S. government can only soak-up so many trillions of dollars in this manner without taking the U.S. dollar down to zero. So we already know this next Ponzi-scheme will end badly. The U.S. government is initiating millions of new mortgages, to questionable buyers, at interest rates which can only remain artificially low for as long as the U.S. keeps âbuyingâ all of its own mortgage bonds.
Okay … let’s put this together~
a) The Fed loans money to banks at 0%
b) The banks then deposit this SAME money back into the Fed, as an interest bearing account. <---The banks growing free money! c) The Fed then uses this money to buy US mortgage bonds, and corrupt mortgage rates. This is called financial innovation on Wall Street. LoL
The question is how long will the fed keep this up? This runaway train cannot and will not stop on a dime, even tho’ they say they will stop buying MBS in april they cannot turn off the supply. Small mortgage servicers could go stop lending and declare BK and close shop but this giant backed by the government does not have that option. Raising rates will kill the fragile recovery..the only hope is that as the economy improves, home valuees increase time and they gradually stop buying MBS.
The other issue is that home owners have a say, renters dont…hence these idotic rules to force modifications or extend foreclosure. I understand that people should feel said about people losing home, i will if there is a genuine reason…but if you overpaid for something you couldnt afford in the first plance then you should recognize your mistake and move on, trying to pin the blame of loan sharks and realtors is ok for a little while but no one forced the homeowners to sign on the dotted line.
We are in the a race to devalue our dollar vs. foreign dollars. We print, they print. So what’s the end result? Massive world wide inflation.
Thank you zubs. Thank you! Houston, we have a problem. This is a disaster in the making.
They can’t stop because it will be a disaster. if they keep going, it will be a disaster. There is no painless way out of this.
North Korea already switched from their old won to a new won….when will the treasure announce a new currency where US$5 now = New US$1
This will never happen, because we aren’t North Korea.
The New Peso?
El Nuevo Dollaro!
NAFTA at work.
Free-market Republicans love NAFTA.
And so the Democrats in Congress. Don’t get confused here: With the Democrats, what the say and what they do is quite different.
This is a devastating article. Sadly, I really can’t find any flaws in the logic.
At massive expense, we’ve postponed our day of reckoning with the housing bubble.
IR, this is why I love this Blog… This brilliantly sums it up !!!! WOW, wait till the FED stops buying Treasury notes..
Seems as though the FED is running the entire show now… and we will be left to clean up the mess…
The last thing a corrupt Gov’t does is loot the Treasury..
Providing over 90% of all mortgage-funding for new home loans, the U.S. government has essentially nationalized the U.S. mortgage-market
THINK about this, people. What the HELL is going on here???? This is an appropriate role of a society’s government? Are we running our own flavor of the Soviet Union here?
Why is our government trying to enslave us into a lifetime of servitude?
I am going to say it. This is anti-American and unacceptable.
Anyway – Did anyone else hear that Tiger Woods nailed a porn star? DAY-HAM!
“What the HELL is going on here????”
The Federal Govt and the banks are conspiring to work against your best interest. Either join the debt party and buy a gawd-damn house, or remain a bitter renter forever!
That’s at least what they are trying to do.
And the American middle class will be the ultimate victims. As you said they will either join the debt servitude or hopefully watch their hard earned/saved money earn next to nothing while losing value over the time. In any event they will be on a downward path for at least a decade ahead.
but AZDavidPhx, they are just trying to help.=P AND, they HAD to do this because it was the “least worse option” :/
What a crock of BS. This only buys time and creates a bigger problem.
You forgot the credit card business…. as the Oligarchs keep borrowing at 0% they turn around and charge 20%++ on unsecured credit.
To top it off, they also raised their ‘preferential rate’ to 15% for their most secure customers (those of us who pay it off on time). Of course, that means those same customers then cancel -or refuse to use- the accounts (Actually I’m charging a token something and pay it off just to cost them money).
The end result, of course, is that the Oligarchs of the unsecured credit are forcing bankrupcies on the most unsafe customers (Oh! Wait! Didn’t they change the Bankrupcy Law recently???).
Of course, the real, REAL pisser -like I told the BoA credit card company phone guy who I called to complain about my rate going up- is that WE taxpayers are providing the money for the same self Oligarchs who they want to charge us for using our own money too….
I need to become a bank.. The First National Bank of TonyE.
I will not make mortgages, I will not lend money to customers… my business model will be to borrow at 0% from the fed and then deposit that money with the Fed and earn 1%. I figure I’ll need a nice trillion ‘New Dollars’ to begin with. That’ll be good for.. hmm… 10B profit per annum.
Though I didn’t vote for any poli-tick-ian during the last election, I had a little bit of hope that Obama would do the right thing regarding these GD banks, and all the BS on Wall Street.
Here’s what we got!
>:-(
You forgot one thing: WTF! This is a miniture house on a tiny lot, in one of the worst configurations in Irvine. This house was built in 1980, almost 40 years ago!
Sure, the day may come when we have a walkable Irvine, where people don’t have to drive cars, and there is public transportation everywhere. In the meantime, Irvine is the biggest and one of the most auto-centric of all the L.A. exurbs. Anything other than a six lane, high speed street is an after thought. You would die without a car in Irvine — you cannot even buy food without getting in the car. There are only token efforts at busses and Metrolink — nothing substantial. Irvine could have taken another path — but they failed.
Hmm….2009-1980=40…..I must be on crazy pills
You must be — it is only 29 years old! Probably closer to 31 years old, but who cares. It only seems like a long time since they build “It’s a Small World” style.
I wouldn’t call 2,252 square feet a “miniature house”. That’s certainly big enough, even for a family of four or five, IHMO. It’s not McMansion huge, but that was always overkill. The original 906 square feet was pretty tiny, though.
There is a two car garage, so it doesn’t need to be walkable. And there are plenty of expensive houses throughout the country that are forty, fifty, a hundred years old. Plus, the remodel seems to have been fairly recent and quite extensive.
Now, the lot itself is microscopic, but welcome to Irvine.
Mortgage âCram-Downâ Bankruptcy Amendment Fails in U.S. House
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=azB6PD4NAPSs&pos=2
A quiet victory for the lending Oligarchs.