Are there no more Bears?

[irvinehomeowner]

Seems like all the bearish posters I knew have either bought a place, moved out of the area, or have just gone silent.

I even think that part of the reason IrvineRenter/Larry created OCHousingNews.com was because he was running out of content by profiling just Irvine. The predicted drops did not materialize and there is only so long you can keep on detailing HELOC abuse homes.

With interest rates at record lows and most prices no longer in the bubble stratosphere (although I still feel many homes are overpriced)... is this just not a Bear friendly environment anymore? There are many posters here who are saying "I'm looking here" or "I'm thinking of buying here"... whereas in the past... there used to be a lot of "Don't buy now, prices are still dropping"... the responses are more "Why are you buying there... don't you know it has X next to it?".

Even some of the most bearish posters who scoffed at the idea of an Irvine premium have moved on and bought in other areas which also have their own premiums.

I just find it strange how the atmosphere has switched from "DON'T BUY!!!" to "So what builder incentives did you get?" or "How low a rate was your loan?".

 

[qwerty]

i kind of consider myself a bear, but ultimately my wife is putting too much pressure to move on to a new home.  Also, we are at a stage in life were a 20% drop the value a home we purchase doesnt impact our life (assuming we had to sell down the road). Dont get me wrong, it would suck to lose 20% but i guess my point it is my wife and i will enjoy the new house more than we would the money we save if we were ever lucky enough to time the market. 

over the next five years, assuming interest rates hold in the 3.5-4% range i see irvine prices being stable to going down another 5-10% - i think most irvine is still overpriced by about 20%.  I really do think though that if interest rates somehow manage to shoot up to the 5-6% range it will have a significant impact on the irvine market as well as everywhere else.  However, i see rates staying pretty low for the next 5 years.

 

[gld2]

I think Irvine price will go down, not know how much, at least flat,  as the Greak Park Something will build 5,000 houses more

 

[waitin4ever]

I'm still a big housing bear. Still believe the stuff that larry brought up through his blog.
the whole stock market/financial system everything is fake. I came to a conclusion that
you don't get rewarded for being prudent and thoughtful about your decision. ups and down in
home price/ stock market etc is just a big game played by a select few. sometimes its good to
live for today that to predict what those select few are going to do in future.

 

[usctrojancpa]

I'm still a big housing bear. Still believe the stuff that larry brought up through his blog.
the whole stock market/financial system everything is fake. I came to a conclusion that
you don't get rewarded for being prudent and thoughtful about your decision. ups and down in
home price/ stock market etc is just a big game played by a select few. sometimes its good to
live for today that to predict what those select few are going to do in future.

Markets are manipulated and that's the reality.  It's not changing anytime soon so just go with the flow.  If you think prices in Irvine are nuts, check out what prices are up in the Bay Area like Cupertino....they make Irvine prices seems as low as Riverside prices.  Too much tech money slushing around up there.

 

[rkp]

i think its a mix of prices being really stagnant, people (on this forum) saving up for that day when prices drop, and inventory being super  low.  also, the group has aged and is coming to a different place in their lives.  seems like most of the forum members are guys in their early 30s and 5 years ago, most of us would have been in a totally different place in our lives

when i started commenting on IHB and ocfliptrack, i was definitely a bear and was in my mid 20s.  i saved hard since then and our focus on buying kicked into high gear when my wife got pregnant almost 3 years ago.  so at a certain point, we are sitting on a good size down payment, prices havent really moved much, and there really arent any houses coming up.  you get tired and you want to make a move.  at least thats our story...

 

[usctrojancpa]

i think its a mix of prices being really stagnant, people (on this forum) saving up for that day when prices drop, and inventory being super  low.  also, the group has aged and is coming to a different place in their lives.  seems like most of the forum members are guys in their early 30s and 5 years ago, most of us would have been in a totally different place in our lives

when i started commenting on IHB and ocfliptrack, i was definitely a bear and was in my mid 20s.  i saved hard since then and our focus on buying kicked into high gear when my wife got pregnant almost 3 years ago.  so at a certain point, we are sitting on a good size down payment, prices havent really moved much, and there really arent any houses coming up.  you get tired and you want to make a move.  at least thats our story...

The one thing that really moved were interest rates...from the high 5s to mid 3s.  I was kicking myself for not selling my condo 12-18 months earlier and losing out on an additional 100k+ but I still walked away with a gain so no complaints.  I was a housing bear in 2008 and most of 2009 until I saw the turn with my very own eyes being an agent, it's one thing to look at charts and crunch numbers but it's another thing actually seeing things happen right in front of you in the market.  In 2010 I starting thinking about buying but felt the market was a bit "frothy" with the gov't tax credits so when I saw that prices came back down a bit in 2011 I started to look around because the numbers were making a lot of sense to me (plus I got tired of living in a 1-bedroom apartment for over 3 years).  I might have caught a near term bottom but I'm loving the home that I bought from the driveway to the pool. 

 

[akim997]

I've ONLY had people tell me how stupid I am to purchase a home right now (very few have supported such a decision).  There are many bears out there.  They more so scoff when they find out how much we done in options/upgrades on our new home.  Part of me agrees when I drive through my neighborhood to see all the similar pink/brown/beige stucco boxes and think about what we are paying.  And I don't even get a fireplace...  The plus side is we'll get a good mortgage rate when we close... so I guess we will be stuck in the hood for a long time to come...

 

[rkp]

at the parties we are attending, seems like people are talking about RE a lot again.  not necessarily about buying or selling but fixing up their digs, putting money in their homes, etc. 

 

[OCgasman]

I think it really depends on how you look at a house/condo.  If it's strictly a business decision, then yeah, plenty of bears still out there.  But if you look at it as a place to settle down and raise a family in a safe environment with good schools, then $/sq ft becomes less of a factor.  Eventually, if you have enough money saved up, I think most ppl will stop dipping their toes into the water and just dive in.  Qwerty is correct, at some point the actual cost of the home becomes less of a factor and location and a house that works for you will take precedence.  We all want our kids to grow up in a nurturing environment surrounded by other families with similar values. 

 

[irvinehusky]

I am still a bear as well.

However, after being a long time homeowner here and in WA state, and renting for a few years when we moved back down, we were tired of renting.

Unfortunately, the market up there tanked around the time I had to relocate and sell and the prices down here were still high so we didn't want to/couldn't purchase right away.

I know this is not the correct way to compare the benefits but to us every penny paid to the landlord was a penny wasted not paying for our future home.  So we asked ourselves if the type of house that we wanted would go down more in price than what we were paying in rent and our feeling was that it wouldn't keep doing that.  It did go down a decent amount but we didn't think it would keep doing that.

Also, although many people think we'll have these great interest rates for a while, we didn't want to assume that. 

To me, a house isn't really an investment.  I'm planning to live here for a while so if it loses values for a few years or more, I don't really care.  What matters to me is that my wife is much happier and that I can stop worrying about which schools my kids will go to.  My kids are shy so I feel bad that I had to make them go through all this again at their new school. We just felt it was better for them to get it over with while they were small.

So, I have no regrets purchasing a home fairly recently and it was probably just before the recent major lack of inventory.  We didn't have to worry about others putting in multiple offers so I think we did o.k.  We'll find out in time.