Here is a beautiful house for you to view this weekend.
Asking Price: $869,900
Address: 22 Rockwren Irvine, CA 92604
Puttin on the eyes til theres nobody else
You never realize what you do to yourself
The things that they see make the daily reviews
You never get free when everybody wants you
Everybody Wants You — Billy Squire
This house is awesome. Everybody wants it….
Woodspring Street near this property is one of the most attractive in Irvine.
Across the street is a walking path on a hedgerow leading to a local pool and North Lake.
Asking Price: $869,900
Income Requirement: $217,475
Downpayment Needed: $173,980
Purchase Price: $775,000
Purchase Date: 6/4/1998
Address: 22 Rockwren Irvine, CA 92604
| Beds: | 5 |
| Baths: | 4 |
| Sq. Ft.: | 3,495 |
| $/Sq. Ft.: | $249 |
| Lot Size: | 5,500
Sq. Ft. |
| Property Type: | Single Family Residence |
| Style: | Cape Cod |
| Stories: | 2 |
| View: | Pool |
| Year Built: | 1978 |
| Community: | Woodbridge |
| County: | Orange |
| MLS#: | P699738 |
| Source: | SoCalMLS |
| Status: | Active |
| On Redfin: | 3 days |
Unbelievable property at an unbelievable price! This is AN EQUITY sale.
End of cul-de-sac location, three car garage, fabulous entertainer’s
yard with private pool, spa and built in BBQ centre. Remodeled
throughout with gourmet granite kitchen w/center island, two tone
paint, new carpet, custom loft with built-ins, office, and main floor
bedroom/bath. This property is not to be missed. Please note that the
square footage on the tax role is incorrect – this property had an
addition and has an appraisal measurement of 3495.
Unbelievable.
I really like this house (except for the price). There is an open house on Saturday from 1:00 to 4:00. I may go see it.
Nice interior photography.
Did they get a professional to do the shots?
The kitchen looks like it must be a mile deep. Is that from a wide-angle lens + photoshop correction?
Yes, this is how you properly use the wide-angle lens and correct distortion in Photoshop. Reality is a bit off, but the photo looks great. Notice that all the straight edges are straight, and the vanishing point in the right center of the photo is prominent. The photographer knew what they were doing.
Clearly they did!
Too bad you can’t say the same for their realtor. I hope these people reeely don’t need to sell. I think it could sell to a cash buyer for $600k. Big homes are going to get killed soon becuase banks are rarely lending anything over $400k.
Ubernerd stuff.
These photos were taken with an ultrawide lens. Ultrawides exaggerate the relationship between near and far. This makes the room/s appear larger and makes the viewer feel like he/she is right in the middle of the action. Ultrawides are not fisheye lenses. Fisheyes distort and curve everything. Ultrawides (technically) keep straight lines straight. This photographer did a very good job at this.
These are some of the best photos I’ve ever seen on a listing. I don’t think they’re photoshoped at all.
My wife has a fish eye lens which creates circular pictures — the corners of the square picture are black. IR has posted some really distorted, but not circular pictures; they could be cropped, but I got the sense that all wide-angle lenses made arcs out of straight lines.
What kind of lens does these pictures come from?
I think those photos were taken with a point and shoot camera wide open, not a dSLR. Those photos are awful … absolutely atrocious.
I don’t know much about fisheyes, other than I don’t like them. I don’t own one, and never will. However, some people like that kind of distortion (art), it’s just not for me.
Lines do curve when using an ultrawide lens (this is technically a mistake), especially when shooting at a focal length less than about 18mm … also when shooting a crappy lens. The best ultrawides allow the photographer to shoot at a shorter focal length, while preserving the integrity of the image (keep the lines straight). Also, the quality of the photographer is important … a good photographer knows to place him/herself at the right angle to create the right effect, while preserving the integrity of the image.
Imagine this … what you’re trying to do, is shoot the horizon of the ocean, while keeping the waterline as straight as possible, while capturing as much (left to right) as possible.
No way, no how this thing sold for $775,000 in 1998. The price range for the neighborhood was $425,000-$525,000.
property tax seems to indicate otherwise. Wasn’t 1988 the peak of the last bubble? Plus it looks like the house was completely remodeled – doesn’t look like anything else built in 1978.
There’s a mistake somewhere. The whole story doesn’t make sense.
I thought we were taught that Irvine was once affordable? If homes doubled and triped, was this home ever worth $2.3 million? The whole story reeks. Even the list is a headfake.
I agree. This did not sell for $775,000 back in 1998. The previous poster is correct that the property records do show a sale in 1998 for $775,000, but there is no mortgage information. Perhaps it was not an arms-length transaction and the price was inflated. I don’t know. $775,000 certainly would have been much higher than market pricing at the time.
It sure is strange that they would be paying that amount of property tax though. Something’s real fishy, but I can’t figure it out.
No way, no how this thing sold for $775,000 in 1998. The price range for the neighborhood was $425,000-$525,000.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see that neighborhood priced at the top-end of that level when this debacle is over.
The real issue is who has $174K to spare for the down payment, now that no one is selling their starter (or mid-level) homes for a profit anymore?
5500 square foot lot? The house takes up more than half the lot–is this normal in Irvine? I don’t want to hear my neighbor’s morning alarm if I’m paying over a half mil for a house. Not even a quarter mil. What’s the difference between that and a townhouse?
Yuck.
Believe me folks, this home @ $250/sf will sell this weekend. Unfortunately, it will sell at close to $950K or more due to people willing to over pay. Mark my words. $250/sf is the Bottom for Irvine. Period.
I kinda remember IR saying that $250/sqft was where he expected to find the bottom — but that was probably a year ago.
IR, since you do like this house, what would you be willing to pay for it?
This home is completely rebuilt and at this price, in Woodbridge, it will sell.
Anyone who says otherwise has their head buried in the sand down to China.
It looks like it needs a new roof is that Shake??
That would be at least 40k or more. And since it’s a turnkey that means heloc abuse I bet–or else the owners left the scene or maybe had to move away?
Turnkey means you can lowball it. I would try for sure.
The house was totally remodeled and expanded in 1993. I bet it goes for $1.1M+.
The roof is wood shingle but it’s only 16 yrs. old.
C’mon, for a lot only slightly bigger than the house? Surely u jest.
When you zoom out on the aerial view this neighborhood looks like Tokyo or Mumbai or Brooklyn or any other high density antfarm on the planet (albeit with nicer farms, but still, uhm, cozy) Sure hope you like your neighbors; they’re family now.
A roof usually needs replacement at 20 years old and you call 16 years new—-LOL
Actually this house has been discussed in the forums when it came up last week. It is a trustee sale, and they are having a closed bid process to sell the house. I think someone in the forums who researched this said that there was no debt on the property. Based on what I have seen in the area, and based on what I saw when I viewed the house, I think it will fetch over $900k. Wow, I sound like a bear – I’m not, I just think that based on the low inventory of larger houses in Woodbridge and the low starting price for this house it will get bid up above asking. We’ll see…the process is supposed to be over in a few weeks.
The house is two stories, so it could fit on a 5500 sq ft lot. Not exactly a big lot, but not small either.
But this is the perfect Irvine home — 100% fake in every detail. Everything is dressed up, but ultimately it is a showplace product designed to extract the maximum cash, and not a home.
Went to go see that house today. Kitchen cabinets are all PLASTIC. Yuck! Smelled like an apartment. It looked somewhat staged. At 869K it will sell. That house should be going for 625K tops.
Great musical choice for this one! Billy Squier rocks – and he’s touring again, coming to OC and LA.
With respect to the house, it does look pretty nice. I’ll offer 600k.
That bathroom looks like it’s straight out of 1985. I can’t stand the glass block, Miami Vice look…yuck.
Let me start by stating my admiration for this blog, one of the best blogs on the Internet. I come here most days simply because there’s always a new angle being mooted. Indeed, I’m surprised at how much there is to say about the current mess – far more than I could come up with. And Irvine is a great source of material, because it’s both a desirable place and an enormous supertanker of Kool Aid.
Also, I would like to stress how I fully understand that many people enjoy Irvine, or would like to live there. I accept that.
With that out of the way, I’d like to say something: I wouldn’t live in Irvine.
Yes, I currently live in an area of downtown Denver known for its social-services establishments. A meth girl tried to call me out as I was walking out to my car the other morning. There have been two stabbings, one fatal, and a shooting, within a block of here during the past year. And some of the citizens, when confronted by an officer of the law, whip out shotguns and shoot at them; though it didn’t end well for the bar patron who used a shotgun in this manner – who carries a sawed-off in their jacket, anyway? – you have to admit the gentleman, may he rest in peace, had style and bravado.
So I live in an area where, no, I wouldn’t raise my children, and where I don’t plan to retire. But there are eight wonderful restaurants within walking distance, excellent views of downtown from my balcony, a dozen concert, theater and sports venues within 1.5 miles, and beautiful Victorians all around. I walk to work – holding my breath through one scary area. I walked to the Rockies game tonight – two home runs and two triples in one inning should tell you all you need to know about the pitching tonight – and walked back home.
Whatever else you can say, Uptown Denver is certainly not a planned community. Unless, that is, it was planned by the Charles and Marilyn Manson Foundation.
Something about today’s featured home threw a switch for me. The term “Stepford” comes to mind. This house is so damned clean and nice, complete with perfect S-curve road, tastefully landscaped, that it makes me want to fetch a chainsaw and some channel locks and go kill a whole bunch of people. I mean this in the nicest possible sense of “fetch a chainsaw and some channel locks and go kill a whole bunch of people” – and, of course, present company is excepted. It all looks so relaxing, so air conditioned: I’d never have to walk further than from my couch to the garage, or from my air-conditioned vehicle to the door of Starbucks. But I would not lack for exercise, as it would be only 5 miles away at my gym, to which I would also drive.
This is among the nicest homes I have seen featured here, and it makes me want to puke. Weird, eh?
I have no objection to other people living this way, but I tried living in a perfect tract house, driving in air-conditioned comfort on every errand, and it made me want to take up Russian roulette just to spice things up a bit.
Rant over.
I suspect my feelings stem from years spent in Santa Barbara. Now that I am in Colorado, I won’t go near Boulder – I’m leery of places widely regarded as paradise, full of SUVs with “Save the Planet” bumper stickers jockeying for position at the drive-thru.
Irvine is a perfect subject for this sort of blog. It is pleasant, it nearly epitomizes the suburban paradigm squarely at the heart of most Americans’ desires, and it’s full of all the types of debt abuse and self-delusion which characterized this ghastly bacchanale.
I just marvel at how so many people want to live in Irvine, while I just don’t.
Finally, I can report that all my friends and co-workers here in Denver tell me that real estate won’t fall much here, because “it’s different here.” I have heard those last three words verbatim from at least 5 people. One of them is now in foreclosure.
Oh, and we have too many 95-degree days in the summer. Going outside in 20-degree weather is bad; 11 below is very bad. Neither is gonna happen to you in Irvine.
“I have no objection to other people living this way, but I tried living in a perfect tract house, driving in air-conditioned comfort on every errand, and it made me want to take up Russian roulette just to spice things up a bit.”
I don’t blame you. Have you every tried to live like the villagers in Burma/Myanmar?
I lived in Ghana during the Peace Corps, and in a nutshell: personal comfort honestly doesn’t equal happiness. I don’t expect anyone living in Irvine to “get it” though, and I won’t even bother to explain it.
The Rockies? Hey, did you know that Garrett Atkins is Irvine born and bred? He went to University HS and then UCLA. What’s his role this year? I see his stats are kind of low. Is he still playing 3rd base or is he a pinch hitter?
HydroCabron,
You are a very good writer. I really enjoyed your astute observation.
Unfortunately he comes through as a stuck up person. And someone who has also drunk plenty of his own Kool Aid.
Irvine is nowhere the stereotypes that he blithely blows out. It is far more complex than that. It seems that his idea of Irvine has been “learned” from watching Houseswives of Orange County.
Really, he confuses Irvine with South Orange County. I guess there’s no room for ethnic diversity in HC’s worldview of view.
Writing well is fine, but content is more important. Oddly, HC’s vapid post is exactly what he set out to complain about: Form without content. That’s his post.
tonye, I don’t think HydroCabron’s post was content-free. Basically he was just stating his personal neighborhood preferences. While I do not share his preference for trading in safety in exchange for walkability, I appreciated that he made it clear he was only talking about his own preferences and not making a dogmatic proclamation that everyone should feel the same way (as a number of other commenters here regularly do).
As someone who grew up in Irvine and spent nearly 20 years there, I’d say HydroCarbon is spot on. Irvine is the quintessential planned community, and it fits the stereotype. I’d never go back.
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to state for some time that my eyes always perk up (hmm, that phrase doesn’t translate very gracefully into the world of written communication) when I see “HydroCabron” (love the pun, BTW) at the top of a comment.
I live in a similar neighborhood in Chicago, and I have only to say that you shouldn’t and you don’t necessarily have to put up with large populations of criminals, dope fiends,life-long welfare recipients with 8 out-of-wedlock kids, and other assorted social problems to live in a bustling, walkable big-city neighborhood with a diverse population, interesting and diverse architecture including a huge inventory of lovely, stately older homes and elegant old apartment buildings, proximity to a public transit, parks, and a variety of retail and cultural amenities.
Unfortunately, many of these great and potentially great city nabes tend to be plagued with the types of problems you describe, and they owe mostly to your local leadership. Many local politicians pander to the non-profits and to certain negative social elements. Why? Because low-income Section 8 housing and non-profits mean lots of easy, no-work profits for slumlords, who are big contributors to local politicians. They are enabled and encouraged by armies of “politically correct” local citizens who can be easily guilt-tripped into tolerating elements in the population in their neighborhoods for the sake of “diversity”.
We have two neighborhoods side by side here on the north lake front of Chicago that are case studies in how a neighborhood does well and how it fails. Edgewater (60660) and Rogers Park (60626)are right next door to each other and have very similar demographics- mostly middle-and-modern income neighborhoods, very urban in character with mostly high-density multi-family housing,many high rise apts., large minority populations, and a significant number of low-income residents. They are visually beautiful neighborhoods with incredible architecture and beautiful, irreplaceable old homes and apartment buildings, so many mature trees that from the 10th floor they look like forests, and they both front on Lake Michigan and have nice beaches. Almost everyone lives close to the beach in these areas.
One area, Edgewater, is highly successful, having been rescued from spreading blight by a dedicated alderman who will not tolerate crime, disorder, and badly run, blighted buildings. The other nabe, Rogers Park, has an alderman who ignores the concerns of his constituents and who is very chummy with local slumlords, and who is utterly unconcerned about the alarming violent crime in a couple of violence-plagued pockets.
One neighborhood is delightful place for anyone to live, while the other is a place that is beautiful to look upon, but in which there are whole streets you don’t want to walk on, where gunfire is heard frequently, and in which you look over your shoulder constantly- and the difference between these two areas is strictly due to the quality of the local political leadership AND to the citizens who elect it. You get what you will tolerate.
I enjoy this blog because it was refreshing to discover that home and condo buyers in my area, the Rogers Park/Edgewater area of Chicago, weren’t the only housing kool-aid drinkers. Irvine prices might have gotten bubbly, but they look almost sane beside the prices I saw around here at the peak. One house in Rogers Park, a 100-year-old craftsman-style bungalow on a street that has had shootings on it recently, and a block away from a gang-infested apt. building, had a price tag of $1.2M on it, and sold for over $700K. I mean, I won’t even walk on that street. You don’t have to be a suburbanite in coastal CA to be insane. Cookie-cutter condos in Rogers Park and Edgewater with no amenities whatsoever, like pools or even parking for 2 cars, were going for $400K, even when they were located right next to car washes and taco joints. SOME sellers are still trying to sell $450K 3bed 2bath condos so commonplace they look like they were squeezed out of a cookie press, on streets with regular gang warfare.
“enormous supertanker of Kool Aid.” 😀
*****HILARIOUS*****
Charlie and Danny have fun with the police state at the Canary Wharf, UK.
http://www.askbutwhy.com/2009/08/charlie-and-danny-at-canary-wharf-uk.html
The one thing I notice on comments about the houses profiled in this blog is the opinion of valuation just based on pictures and a Google map of the location. I understand that non-locals see Irvine as an overpriced bubble ground zero but there should be some balance here.
To really assess the value of real estate takes a more in-person approach. This location is really one of the best areas that Irvine has because of the lakes, parks, walking trails and centrality to the rest of Irvine. Although older, Woodbridge has kept its value pretty well through the years. This particular house is located in a very nice neighborhood on a single loaded cul-de-sac… very hard to find in Irvine.
The floorplan is decent and although the appointments are dated, those can be changed out to make them more current. The upstairs is a very unique in that it has a loft/study area, a dedicated office area and two rooms connected by Jack/Jill bathroom and a shared walk-in closet/secret play space.
This will not sell for $870k. Just remember, there are no Mello Roos here, the tax rate is about 1% and the HOA is only around $78 per month. Recent comps were higher, so this looks to be pushing the $1mil range. Prices are just stubborn in some areas in Irvine.
If you want to talk about this more, join us in the forums:
https://www.irvinehousingblog.com/forums/viewthread/5934/
I walk to the lake from my place here in Woodbridge, and I go right past that house all the time.
The house was rebuilt from the ground up about 10 years ago. I mean the lot was virtually scraped before they were done with the demo. They may have kept a single wall or whatever is required to avoid a visit from the tax assessor, but aside from that, the house looks nothing like it used to.
If you want to see an original house, look at the brown one to the left of it.
The cul-de-sac doesn’t impart the privacy of most cul-de-sacs, because another street goes right by it. Still, it’s a nice place.
Question: does a trust sale necessarily mean that the owner died while living in the house? I’d like to go check out this property, however this could be a deal-breaker for my wife, who is super sensitive about that kind of thing.
Normally they would have to disclose this information, and after speaking with the listing agent, they aren’t sure whether or not the previous owner died in the home.
I agree with you completely! The price is way too low and mis-leading. I wouldn’t be surprised if this home got over 50 offers and sold above $1,100,000. Crazy!