Address: 7 Green Hollow, Irvine, CA 92620 (Northwood Pointe)
Plan: 3004 sq ft – 5bd/4ba
MLS: S470910 DOM: 51
Sale History: 7/28/2006: $1,230,000
6/6/1997: $337,000
Current Price: $1,249,900
Here we’ve got a plan 3 in the Bainbridge tract built by California Pacific Homes in Northwood Pointe. It was purchased at the peak(?) in the summer of 2006 for $1,230,000 and subsequently listed 5 months later at $1,249,900. Ummm… prices have gone DOWN in the last 5 months, not UP. But sure, I understand that no one wants to lose money. From what I can gather, it was purchased with 20% down and in December 2006 they refinanced the 80% and took out a 10% HELOC. There’s definitely some room to bring the price down on this depending upon how motivated the sellers are.
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Is this is a greedy flip or a corporate relo? Who knows? But I do know that the pictures put up for this home on MLS are of horrible quality which is surprising since the agent is a pretty big producer in Irvine. If you are going to sell your home for $1.25mil, you need to make sure that the agent you are paying a fat commission to is spending money on marketing your property correctly – one small part of that is putting up high quality pictures on MLS.
If sold for the asking price of $1,249,900 and assuming 6% in selling costs, the sellers are looking at a $55,000 loss! Surprisingly (at least to me), another plan 3 sold for $1.35 mil in April 2006. Maybe these sellers tried to catch a falling knife when they bought this past summer.
responding to evaLseraphim’s post on forums (since i don’t have a user ID on those):
Las Colinas – Portola Springs WTF?Bottom of Page
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CommentAuthorEvaLSeraphim CommentTime2 hours ago
Doing my Friday Zip check and I see what appears to be a Las Colinas home being sold for $827K? These are all priced over $1M, but Taylor Woodrow listed this one themselves. I knew housing was in trouble, but *this* big a price drop? WTF? MLS # S477344
It’s actually a Las Arboles plan 1, and those are priced from $827,000, per TW’s web site:
http://www.taylorwoodrowna.com/index.cfm?method=Homes_ModelDetail&CommunityID=207&ModelID=2188&divID=1&MetroAreaID=26
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Why would you put 20% down then try to sell in five months?
This makes no sense. Maybe they found something horribly wrong with the house?
another flip in westpark, S477138
I came across this blog and I would like to say that this is the problem we are currently having with people in the marketplace. First off, the listing you are talking about is in Los Arboles. They have always started in the $800’s. The property you are getting confused is Las Colinas, which they have always started in the 1.1 million range. “The sky is not falling”. You all need to get your facts straight before you panic and start throwing stupid comments into cyberspace to get everyone riled up and put uncertainty into people’s minds.
To everyone that reads this, the market is healthy and homes are selling. Stop reading fiction and start reading facts.
(I am in the homebuilding industry and work for a major developer in the area)
JR
What is your goal here? To point out stupidity of flippers?
Have you ever given an ounce of thought to that some of these may not be actual flips. Some sales may be forced by familiy tragedies, divorce, loss of job, etc.
Until you know the facts of the why of the sale, it seems like a leechy thing to ridicule the sales or drop in sales price of these homes. Also who in the right mind pays 6% in sales commission these days? That assumption is way off, most seasoned flippers either have broker licenses or work closely with their own discount agent (think volume of deals).
I am not a flipper, I believe in the bubble, I just don’t like your angle.
JS, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the plight of the seller. I want them out of my house.
anon,
Thanks for pointing out it was a Los Arboles Plan 1. You can register on the forums and post pretty much just as anonymously as on the blog. But if you prefer to post here, that’s fine too 🙂
JR,
The post on the forums was updated with correct information within hours. This was NOT a blog post — and on the forums, I believe it was posted as more of a ‘What gives? Is this real?” type of post. anon reposted on this thread what was said in the forums and clarified what plan/tract was actually being discussed. I don’t really see where anyone is proclaiming ‘the sky is falling’. But if you check the forums, you’ll see that prices on some plans have been reduced by over 100k by the builders. That’s perhaps why I have a hard time thinking “the market is healthy and homes are selling”.
If you find any other incorrect information, please post. We are definitely motivated by providing factual information. If ‘the market is healthy and homes are selling’, please provide some more insight into that. With your background in development, I’m sure we could learn a lot from what you have to say.
js,
Flippers are responsible, in part, for some of the bubblicious price appreciation we’ve seen lately. Also, over the last few years, there has been plenty of talk and media attention given to flippers – “Buy a home, fix it up, sell it, and make money!” Everyone knows of someone who has done this. But you never (until recently) hear the stories of people who lost money on such deals. People that are new to the home buying process need to understand that prices don’t always go up and you can’t expect to always make money when selling a home, especially in a short time period.
Over the last couple months I’ve tried to be more sensitive to the fact that not all ‘flips’ featured here were necessarily bought with the intention of flipping. In this post I wrote “Is this is a greedy flip or a corporate relo? Who knows?” You’re absolutely correct, there can be many reasons why someone lists a home they recently bought.
The drop in sales price is an important sign of the turn the market has taken. People are losing a lot of money on these transactions – regular people as well as seasoned flippers. The 6% is an estimate of selling costs (not just commissions). I don’t know what people are paying their listing agents (I’m guessing 2.5%). The amount offered to bring a buyer is listed on MLS and IMO averages 2.5% and I’m also adding another 1% for closing costs. The actually selling costs could be less (if the seller is an agent/broker or if the listing agent is a relative, etc – and I’ve taken that into account on some posts), or could be more (if they are paying closing costs for the buyer).
Also, please keep in mind that although we have many posts about flips, there are also plenty of posts regarding other topics.
Well JR sounds like he has major reason to stick his head in the sand and think happy thoughts.
And js, I do enjoy how some of these flippers are not making tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars any longer. Yes, some might not be actual flippers, but for those who are, they’re getting what I believe they deserve.
My dream of purchasing property in SoCal is still that, just a dream, in part due to these flippers.