Thank you again for allowing us the opportunity to present ourselves to you in this manner. We look forward to working with you. Sincerely, Larry Roberts

When you are ready…

The following are links to the analysis posts of Irvine Renter:

6-15-2009 — Should Adjustable-Rate Mortgages be Curtailed? — Another look at the problems created by adjustable rate mortgages and their place in the housing market.

6-1-2009 — How Much Cash Do You Really Need to Buy a House? — A review of the cash demands homebuyers face.

5-18-2009 — Irvine's Future REO Inventory — A review of the building wave of foreclosures due to hit the Irvine market.

5-11-2009 — Temporary Affordability and the Third Foreclosure Wave — An analysis of the problem adjustable rate mortgage create for the future of the housing market.

5-4-2009 — Negotiating for Real Estate — An overview of the negotiation process for residential real estate.

4-27-2009 — California Personal Finance: Ponzi Style — The methods of personal finance developed during the housing bubble created an unsustainable lifestyle.

4-20-2009 — Pent-Up Supply — A buildup of inventory at the mid to high end of the housing market signals an upcoming drop in prices.

3-30-2009 — Responsible Homeowners are NOT Losing Their Homes — People who were truly responsible with their borrowing are not losing their homes in the housing price crash.

3-23-2009 — Real Estate's Lost Decade — Rising interest rates could stop appreciation for a full decade.

3-9-2009 — The Market Bottom Is Not a Price Point — The bottom of a real estate market is not a specific price point, but a state of affordability.

3-2-2009 — What Risks Should Borrowers Be Allowed to Take? — Excessive risk caused the rise and fall of the housing bubble. Should some of the riskiest practices be eliminated?

2-12-2009 — The Financial Implications of Short-Sales and Foreclosures — Reference to an attorney's description of the what can happen in short sales and foreclosures depending upon the circumstances of the borrower.

2-9-2009 — The Moral Hazard of Market Supports and HELOC Abuse — Is the government's efforts to support the real estate market going to serve to create the psychology that inflates the next one?

2-2-2009 — Fire and Ice — Is it better for the market to correct quickly or slowly? An analysis of the implications of both methods of market correction.

1-26-2009 — The New Real Estate Sales Business Model — A proposal to change the 6% realtor sales commission model currently popular in the United States.

1-19-2009 — Tax Policy and Housing — A review of the various tax programs and how they impact house prices

1-13-2009 — Unlocking the Housing Market Recovery — A review of a popular proposal for saving the economy and the housing market.

1-12-2009 — Bring Back Paternalism in the Mortgage Market — A plea to re-regulate the mortgage market.

1-5-2009 — Debt-To-Income Ratios: The Forgotten Variable — The impact of debt-to-income ratios on house prices and the housing market.

12-8-2008 — 4.5% Mortgage Interest Rates? — What would happen if mortgage interest rates were dropped to 4.5%.

11-17-2008 — A Free-Market Solution to Prevent Housing Bubbles — From the final chapter of The Great Housing Bubble.

11-13-2008 — Reverse Liar Loans — An example of how bailouts are creating more problems than they are solving.

11-12-2008 — The ARM Problem — Adjustable rate mortgages scheduled to reset from 2009-2011 are the next wave of foreclosures that will flatten the real estate market.

11-11-2008 — The Carrot and The Stick — a look at what is really necessary to make a homeowner bailout program successful.

10-6-2008 — Fundamentals at a Market Bottom — A review of what market conditions prevail at the bottom of the housing cycle.

9-29-2008 — Desire is not Demand — A revealing look at the final myth propagated by realtors during a price decline.

8-25-2008 — I Was Wrong, It’s Worse… — A review of projections of future price drops 18 months later.

8-18-2008 — Affordability Mortgage Products Make Prices Unaffordable — A frank discussion on the problems caused by lender's solutions to the problem of affordability.

8-11-2008 — Timing Does Matter — An analysis dispelling the myths about timing the residential real estate market.

3-31-2008 — Investment Value of Residential Real Estate — An economic analysis of the true investment value of residential real estate.

3-29-2008 — Efficient Markets vs Behavioral Finance — An overview of the two competing theories of market price movements.

3-17-2008 — Bailouts and False Hopes — A cynical look at the psychology of potential bailouts.

3-15-2008 — Mortgage Default Losses — Parsing the distinction between default rates and resulting default losses on residential loans.

3-13-2008 — Floplords — A discussion of the phenomenon of accidental landlords.

3-12-2008 — Mortgages as Options — A look at how borrowers and speculators gamed the system using mortgages as option contracts.

3-11-2008 — Houses and Commodities Trading — An examination of the parallels between commodities markets and the behavior of residential real estate markets.

3-10-2008 — Mortgage Equity Withdrawal — An overview of the role mortgage equity withdrawal played in the recovery following the 2001 recession.

3-8-2008 — How Big Was the Bubble? — A review of statistical measures of price to evaluate just how big the housing bubble really was.

3-4-2008 — Systemic Risk in the Housing Market — The second of a two-part series. This posts examines the failures of structured finance and suggests methods for addressing this failure to prevent future housing bubbles.

3-3-2008 — Structured Finance 101 — The first of a two-part series. This post provides an overview of what structured finance is, and how it was used to during the housing bubble.

2-28-2008 — Affordability — A review of the concept of affordability and what it means for the housing market.

2-25-2008 — The Credit Crunch — A discussion of the causes and implications of the credit crunch.

2-18-2008 — Selling for Less — A look at the changing market environment where buyers are in control of the action.

2-4-2008 — What is Equity? — Looking at the components of homeowner equity and the factors that impact it.

1-28-2008 — Speculation or Investment — Comparing the motivations and activities of two distinct classes of purchasers of real estate. Knowing the difference between speculation and investment can make the difference between making and losing money.

1-14-2008 — Rent Versus Own — A detailed look at the cost of ownership and the various reasons to rent or own a particular property.

1-7-2008 — The Fallacy of Financial Innovation — Shattering the myth of "financial innovation" and reinforcing the use of 30-year, fixed-rate, conventionally amortizing mortgages.

12-3-2007 — What is a Bubble? — The concepts and beliefs that when acted upon by the general public create an asset price bubble.

10-1-2007 — What Caused the Bubble Rally? — A detailed analysis of the conditions the preceded the bubble rally and the causes of its inflation.

9-24-2007 — A Buyer’s Market — A hard-nosed look at negotiating when market conditions change.

9-13-2007 — The Market Bottom — A review of the conditions that formed the last market bottom and why it formed at the price level it did.

9-10-2007 — The California Social Contract — A meditation on the plight of homedebtors written from their perspective.

2007-07-16 — Land Value 101 — A detailed explanation of how raw land is valued when used for residential construction.

2007-06-25 — Houses Should Not Be a Commodity — A discussion of the psychology of commodity market trading and why this is an undesirable element in housing markets.

2007-06-18 — Telling Good Analysis from Bad — An evaluation of Gary Watts Real Estate Outlook for 2007 and a description of the characteristics of a robust market analysis.

2007-06-11 — The Reservoir of Schadenfreude — A whimsical look at the emotional phenomenon of taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.

2007-05-21 — The Day the Market Died — A look at the conditions which led to the bursting of the bubble with analogies to Don McClean's American Pie.

2007-05-14 — The Anatomy of a Credit Bubble — A detailed, mathematical analysis of the impact changing lending standards had on home prices. This is fundamental to understanding of the mechanics of the real estate bubble.

2007-05-07 — Your Buyer’s Loan Terms — The precursor to The Anatomy of a Credit Bubble. It discusses house prices from the perspective of the future buyer of your home. It demonstrates the impact changes in loan terms will have on future buyers and how this will impact the amount your future buyer can bid for your home.

2007-04-30 — Appreciation is Dead — Rapid home price appreciation has become an accepted truism in Southern California. There are many reasons to believe this is not a basic Truth of Life. This post examines the causes of appreciation and explores the reasons why it may all be coming to an end.

2007-04-23 — It’s not the Borrowers; It’s the Loans. — The "subprime containment" meme has been used to quell the fears of investors since the collapse of subprime lending in early 2007. This post examines the spurious nature of the subprime containment idea and explores the implications of the larger problem being hidden from the general public.

2007-04-16 — How Homedebtors Could Avoid Foreclosure — A look at a potential financing mechanism which might be used to assist homeowners who are underwater. It also examines the potential implications of the widespread use of such tools.

2007-04-08 — Southern California’s Cultural Pathology — An exploration of the unique cultural beliefs which made the housing bubble take hold in Southern California. This is a critical post to understanding why the bubble was so pronounced here while in other areas of the country it was not as extreme.

2007-04-02 — How Bad Could Bad Get? — A look at the worst case scenario for our housing market, and why it is not unrealistic.

2007-03-24 — Who is responsible for this mess? — A rant on the difficulty of identifying the party or parties responsible for our current problems.

2007-03-14 — Why the Sub-Prime Meltdown is a Problem — Many have postulated the sub-prime collapse would not impact housing prices in more affluent areas like Irvine. This brief post debunks this idea.

2007-03-11 — Predictions for the Irvine Housing Market — A prediction for the future of housing prices in Irvine based on an analysis of emerging data and trends. This is the capstone post tying together the series of posts from 3-1 to 3-9.

2007-03-09 — What if Prices Dropped to Fundamental Values? — A brief "what if" on the impact a decline to fundamental valuations would have on Orange County housing prices.

2007-03-06 — What is Past is Prologue — A review of the mechanics of the collapse of the last bubble to provide a foundation for the projections of the market action in our current market bubble.

2007-03-05 — How Sub-Prime Lending Created the Housing Bubble — A simple thought experiment to show how a loosening of lending standards helped create a commodities market mentality and inflated the housing bubble.

2007-03-03 — How Inflated are House Prices? — A discussion of the fundamental valuation of housing prices. This post is essential reading to anyone wanting to understand how residential homes should be valued.

2007-03-01 — Financially Conservative Home Financing — A review of available financing terms and a discussion of why the new "innovations" in home financing are disasters in the making.

2007-02-27 — I am IrvineRenter (Inventory Cholesterol) — A brief introductory post and a discussion of the different types of housing inventory and how they impact prices.