Tip

Tiptoe Through The Tulips — Tim Tiny

Isn’t that the most annoying song you have ever heard? Can you fathom a reason why someone would write and record it? In the same way, can you imagine why someone would buy this condo backing on the 5 for $699,000? Some things you look back on and go, WTF?

Actually, this does illustrate the mindset of the bubble rather well. Any property is a good property when prices are going up. Quality doesn’t matter because the property’s desirability comes from increasing prices, not from the characteristics of the property itself. This guy bought the tip; he purchased on the high tick of the market action. There was nowhere to go but down.

8 Orangetip Kitchen

Asking Price: $550,000IrvineRenter

Income Requirement: $174,750

Downpayment Needed: $139,800

Monthly Equity Burn: $5,825

Purchase Price: $699,000

Purchase Date: 5/25/2006

Address: 8 Orangetip, Irvine, CA 92604

Beds: 3
Baths: 3
Sq. Ft.: 1,785
$/Sq. Ft.: $308
Lot Size: 2,517

Sq. Ft.

Type: Single Family Residence
Style: Traditional
Year Built: 2005
Stories: Two Levels
Area: El Camino Real
County: Orange
MLS#: P631932
Status: Active
On Redfin: 12 days

Well, this realtor solved the problem of a poorly written description. He didn’t write one at all…

.

.

This seller put $126,413 down or about 20%. He is going to lose it all. If this property sells for its asking price, it is going to be a short sale. Assuming a 6% commission is paid, the total loss on the property will be $182,000. Of that, the seller is going to lose $126,413, and the lender is going to lose $55,587. Considering they had a 20% cushion, I suspect Indymac didn’t think they were going to lose money on this one. That is the problem when prices are set by comparable sales fueled by irrational exuberance. Prices are justified by the collective actions of foolish buyers without regard to fundamentals. This will fall to rental parity. Assuming you could rent this for $2,500, it is worth about $400,000. Perhaps Indymac will finance the next buyer, and when they sell at the bottom, Indymac can lose on the property again. An 80% loan would be $440,000. Wouldn’t it be ironic is they lost on the same property twice?

I hope you have enjoyed your week at the Irvine Housing Blog, come back next week as we continue chronicling ‘the seventh circle of real estate hell.’ Have a great weekend.

๐Ÿ™‚

.

Tiptoe through the window
By the window, that is where I’ll be
Come tiptoe through the tulips with me

Oh, tiptoe from the garden
By the garden of the willow tree
And tiptoe through the tulips with me

Knee deep in flowers we’ll stray
We’ll keep the showers away
And if I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight
Will you pardon me?
And tiptoe through the tulips with me

Tiptoe Through The Tulips — Tim Tiny

38 thoughts on “Tip

  1. AZDavidPhx

    Maybe we should help out the realtor and send some suggestions for a description. I am thinking something like this:

    “STEEL OF A DEEL! GORGEEYOUS HOME in the HIGHLY SOUGHT AFTER Irvine community!!! Incudes granite kitcen (with SINK) with SLAB counters, STAINLESS STEEL refrigerator, PERGO floors, COZY fireplace with same desert camouflage pattern as used by United States ARMY!! Wall above fireplace is PRE-WIRED cable ready for your FLAT-PANEL TV! Retreat upstairs via beeyoutaful raven black iron stairway with mahogeny rails to relax in your futon! Extended back yard (great for lighting up after a hard day of more price declines and broken dreams!) with non-built in BBQ (great for entertaning!) with private WALKWAY to front of property!!!! BIG GARAGE for your H2 to protect your chrome rims from theft! Seller to clean carpets and paint walls prior to move in. Highly motivated seller! WONT LAST LONG! HURRY! Make an offer and come home to START LIVING THE OC LIFESTYLE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  2. NoWow!way

    Rental Parity. I like the sound of that!

    On the plus side of things, there is no mello roos and it is even questionable if there is an HOA. If there is, I’d like to know how much.

    Personally, this type of property attracts me. If it pencils out to be lower than actually renting, then I’d be a buyer, if I were qualified.

    This property reminds me of the one we raised our kids in. Mine’s nicer, imho ๐Ÿ˜‰

    My focus is on getting the best deal for the money. I don’t don’t “need” new when raising a family. I don’t like high associated fees.

    Call me crazy, but I just bet this one sells pretty darned fast if the sellers are flexible in bringing it down to “deal” status. They didn’t need a MLS description- the square feet, the price/sq. ft, location would be enough to get some attention from value investors.

    $550k is still way too high to pay. The closer it gets to $400k, the better.

    (The proximity to the train IS an issue. However, the silencing of the train by the current roadwork on Jeffrey will help this one out).

  3. Rkp

    There is a house in west irvine that is under 250 per sq ft and been on the market for approx 6 months but still hasn’t sold…

    I don’t think being close to 300 is going to be enough for people to flock to this.

      1. Kirk

        Finally someone makes a decent comment on this abomination of a blog. I swear it’s like Saddam and Gomorrah around here.

  4. ET

    OK will someone please explain the appeal of a house where pretty much the only thing people see when they pass is the big honkin’ garage? Seriously. I know I am spoiled in the drive by appeal after growing up in New Orleans, but this is just plain ICK!!!!! I cannot fathom why someone would pay $700,000 for a house – no matter the location – if a good bit of the front is taken up with the monstrosity of a garage.

    1. AZDavidPhx

      The part that gets me is how close it is to the street!

      Be sure not to fall off your roof and get run over by a car!

      Half million dollars! BWA HA HA HA!

      No thanks!

      This place is heading back down to 250K even with the installed flipware in the kitchen.

    2. Laura Louzader

      Is there a post-1980 American suburb in the United States where the street is not completely dominated by garage doors, to the extent where the whole community has the ambiance of a storage facility?

      This is the way we have built for the past 30 years in this country. Every newer suburb has been rendered completely hideous by yawning garage doors that almost completely conceal the houses behind. If you think the SF home areas are bad, take a look at condo and townhouse developments.

      We have immersed ourselves in ugliness coast-to-coast.

      1. Carl

        Look up pictures of Cary, North Carolina. Mostly built in the 90s and 2000s… very pretty. My house has a side loading garage, can’t see it from the street… all the homes in my neighborhood are the same way.

        1. rkp

          I am in Cary all the time. Actually all parts of NC and I agree, many of the new developments look awesome. From the street, all you see is the front door and windows. Looks awesome!

          I think the reason that garages are in the front is due to maximizing the land. The side loading houses have a nice driveway on the side of the house and we just dont have those kinds of lot sizes down here.

    3. bitteryoungperson

      Will someone please explain to me why every other day on this blog some amatuer new urbanist has to tell us all how ugly garage doors are?

      Garage doors go in the front because that’s the only place they fit! Are you familiar with the size of “lots” in Irvine? There’s no room for a driveway to the back, and in many cases “the back” is the front of your neighbor’s place. Sure, let’s change the zoning laws to prohibit street facing garage doors, thereby effectively mandating more space between houses (i.e., reducing density, promoting sprawl, increasing prices, etc). Or we can all live in high-rise condos and park in common multi-level garages–sorry if you have a mountain bike or golf clubs or a home improvement fetish. Or maybe we should all just park on the street, although I bet you’d rather look at my garage door than my 1989 Ford Escort, which happens to be dirty and covered in peeling bumper stickers.

      1. ET

        Just for the record I don’t consider myself “some amatuer new urbanist” – different strokes for different folks (even if I don’t understand the lure of the burbs). And again for the record, I look at a lot of the back end of cars because I have never lived in a place that isn’t dominated by street parking and frankly I don’t have a problem with this – you look at the back end of cars when you drive. But then I guess us “amatuer new urbanists” are just weird.

        I know that between space planning, lazy designers, etc. that garages were put where they were, but they are still ugly.

  5. Chris from Concord

    I remember seeing Tiny Tim on the Tonight Show! Has there ever been a “WTF” moment on such an epic scale?

    1. jhill

      IrvineRenter should look for an opportunity to use Tiny Tim’s other song (in my view, immortal), called, as I recall, “I am a fish”: Chorus was “The icecaps are melting, the seas are rushing in, the whole world is drowning, to take away the sin…”
      Prescient, huh?? Give T.T. a little credit.
      And by the way, this is not going to 250K. In Tucson, yes (that’s what older 3br 2ba are going for now in midtown). But those waiting for something in the 400s might have a hope.

  6. PigBenis

    When I see a house that close to a freeway it makes me sad to think about the children that live there. Children living close to freeways may have slower lung development between ages 10 and 18 than those living farther away. I would not put my child at risk no matter how cheap the price of the home is, and 550 is nowhere close to being cheap. Sure the sound wall may help with the noise but think about the pollution going over it.

    By the way, I know of a few of people who are buying foreclosed homes right now. They seem to think prices in OC will be rising again soon. Boy do they have something coming next year. I have tried to tell them what I have read in the news and the blogs but they seem to think a cabinetmaker doesnโ€™t know anything about the economy. I am in the cabinet business, we sure have slowed down this year, lots of shops are out of work and its only getting worse. Hopefully this will weed out the “blow and go” type of guys out there and the ones that do quality work will be here when we get back to a normal economy. We did have a great time during the boom, plenty of work out there, money was no object to a lot of homedebtors, now things have changed.

    IrvineRenter, your site rocks! Thank you for keeping us up to date on the state of the housing market in Irvine and OC. Without out you and people like Ben Jones, the Dr. and Patrick we may have all made the mistake of buying into the hype and using our homes as ATM machines.

    1. Chris

      I agree. Anytime I see a for-sale house close to the freeway, I pass. I’d rather pay a premium to be away (not far away though due to convenience) from both freeways and railroad tracks (the train noise can be heard a mile away, trust me).

    2. rkp

      Can you please site a study or article that talks about the lung development being slower?

      I dont want to live near a freeway due to noise but air quality quickly changes within feet from a freeway. That is the air might be really bad 2 feet from the edge of a freeway but only half as bad 10 feet away and almost insignificant 20 feet away. Also, you have to look at the traffic patterns. Obviously a gridlocked area will slow down the air movement and you get a lot of trapped air.

      1. Kak

        rkp – I don’t know if you’ll see this (I’m posting on Saturday) but Kim’s point is well-taken. Sure, some pollutants (such as carbon monoxide) that are emitted by vehicles will have very steep concentration gradients near roadways (although 20 feet is much too short a distance), but others known to cause health issues (e.g. particulate matter) decay on average much more slowly. While it will vary by based up on the meteorology/so on, 500 m is not such a bad ballpark number.

  7. FairEconomist

    “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” was written in the ’20s and at the time the nasal tone and exaggerated vibrato were hip. If you listen to old recordings you hear a lot of it. It was a very popular song at the time. When Tiny Tim did it it probably sounded old and anachronistic – grandmother’s records, as it were (and of course outrageously inappropriate for a burly 6-foot+ man). Now it just sounds bizarre. I expect your great-grandkids will have the same reaction to the current scream-singing style.

  8. george8

    It is about 70 yards to I5, not even long enough to make a short par 3. Is the base ball field behind equipped for night games? I5 noise, pollution and flooding lights from the ball filed — once the price gain potential is removed, all I see now are the drawbacks….

  9. Eat it in the OC

    Wouldn’t this be a first time buyer type home or at the very least a move up from 1-2 bd apartment? Forgive me if I am wrong. From a marketing standpoint, who would this home be marketed too? Retirees? Young couples? Do those two focus groups have $140K down and make $174K? What’s the likelihood of that?

    1. Priced_Out_IT_Guy

      I asked this very same question recently in the forums (see thread: https://www.irvinehousingblog.com/forums/viewthread/1842/) in regards to a 2 bed 2 bath condo in a community of 95% retires next to the east lake in Woodbridge.

      After doing a few calculations, the monthly cash outflow on the condo would be hovering near 8K/month. How many retirees do you know of that have that kind of cash flow? Social security certainly won’t cut it!

  10. roundcorners

    If you guys look at the different redfin views, this property does in fact seem to be newly built in 2005, some pictures still show a bare field. Are there any other “pockets” of new neighborhoods in old communities such as El Camino Real? It’s nice, but too close to the freeway…

  11. Dano

    This is a very interesting area. These homes were built in 2005 and they are right near Irvine High School. You don’t see too many new homes in that area – most of the surrounding homes were built in the 70’s or so. I walk my dogs in the area behind the baseball field (there are no lights on the field so no night games) and next to the 5 freeway. The freeway noise is so loud there that the dogs con barely hear me whistling for them (or maybe they are just pretending not to hear me..). In order to live in one of these homes you’d better have triple thick windows and some great air filters to keep the pollution out. I wonder how quickly the windows get filthy? Well at least I would guess they don’t have to pay any mello roos since all the infrastructure was already built in that part of Irvine.

    Dano

  12. Dano

    Some new homes will be built soon on the site where Alderwood Basics Plus Elementary school now sits in Woodbridge. It will be small development since the school site is not that large. This will be like that home that was profiled a few weeks ago on Nighthawk – that was a development that was built on an old school site. It seems the Woodbridge population is aging and there are not enough school age kids living in the community to support all the existing elementary schools.

    Dano

  13. Red

    Um, guess it’s all about hallucinogens… at least we had a good excuse for listening to Tiny Tim. I’m not sure what explains the peak home prices.

  14. Cary resident

    I was tiptoeing through the Library of Congress this past weekend and came across the Bob Hope Collection. In an exhibit vitrine is the sheet music from “Gold Diggers of Broadway” and an accompanying note that says no known movie edition or anything else apparently exists. The only thing now known about the production is that it featured “Tiptoe through the Tulips” which – of course – did survive the decades.
    It’s a mystery to me as to why this would featured in the Bob Hope Collection.

  15. Priced_Out_IT_Guy

    IrvineRenter,

    I will forever curse your name for getting this song stuck in my brain. “Tiptoe…through the tulips…through the tulips…through the tulips…Tiptoe…”

  16. freedomCM

    Or to ever open your windows.

    This is the third (fourth?) blog post of these condos right next to the 5 fwy.

    what PigBenis said is right. No knowledgable parent would buy this for their kids health.

    what that means is investor owned rental. $2300, -$200 HOA = $2100 x 120 = $250k

    so I guess I agree with DavidPHX rather than jhill

  17. lendingmaestro

    that video makes me want to blow my brains out. oh yeah, and the property is still way overpriced.

    1. rkp

      Its not that bad actually. Maybe I am just super tired after a long day but the song sounds a lot better than all the crap I listened on the radio today.

      1. Priced_Out_IT_Guy

        LOL this song is laughably better than the templated fisher price garbage hollywood studios put out today. Bling rap, cry-me-a-river-because-my-parents-won’t-give-me-my-allowance emo, etc…

Comments are closed.