How did TIC handle the early-to-mid-90s housing bust?

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
http://www.boklok.com/ - the ikea pre fab home in the UK



Bks, just pay $10K more for a better design and don't order 100 homes at once.



Evolution of housing designs? We are talking about starter homes, they need 2 beds 2 bath and a back yard, they don't need a wine cellar or theater or planetarium.
 
<p>Vaseline, Great site. Ray Kappe is a very good architect. He started the Architecture School at Cal Poly and Left there to start SCI-ARC (Southern CA Institute of Architecture) in 1977. </p>

<p>These houses are expensive to produced. There are a close cousin of the case study houses (experimental houses) built during the 50's and 60's sponsored by Art and Architecture magazine. The most well known is the Koning house that is hanging off the cliff in Hollywood Hills. Eames house in Santa Monica is another one. Kaufmann house in Palm Spring and Lovell House in Silver Lake by Neutra are the classic of them all.</p>

<p>Cost for these mid-century modern homes is 0ver $450/sf to build it today. It need a lot of land and vegetations surrounding the home to attain privacy. Window covering would ruin the minimalist look of the corner glass. </p>

<p>I was involved with numerous clients who built these style homes in the early 90's. Back then the cost was well over $400/sf.</p>
 
<p>qh rent, no vas, jcaraway - thanks for the links. now I know what everybody's talking about.</p>

<p>I dont know about the cost or if it makes financial sense to do it right now, but looks wise, I dont see a difference between jcar's link and the homes on the Edinger side of Tustin Field I, sorry if I offended anyone living there, but that's what I see.</p>

<p>And for the people that bought in Tustin Field I, the resembling units that is, I would think they only cared about the space on the inside and not necessarily what it looked like on the outside.</p>
 
Vaseline, yeah, cool site with cool buildings, but really, nothing to do with what we are talking about as these are case study homes, and even I think they are impractical to live in or build. Ha, thanks for the architectural design lesson sponsored by dwell and wikipedia, now tells us about Julius Shulman and his contributions to documentating and popularizing so cal arch.



rick, i agree, with the siding on the homes in tustin field, they do look similar.
 
<p>JC,</p>

<p>Entry level homes could be a jewel box too. Look at the 2 bedroom detached condo that evolved from Wisteria in West Irvine to Aldea at OakCreek, San Simeon in North Park, Sage at Quail Hills, Chantory in Turtle Ridge and Cortile in Woodbury. Spinned off products became Bowen Court and Vientos. </p>

<p>You are wrong about the entry level buyers. They are just as picky as custom home buyers. The plan 2 -2 bedroom at Bowen Court in Woodbury did not have a full 2nd bathroom. It had a 1/2 bath downstairs and there were hundreds of criticism about it. Just in IHB alone I have seen over 30 posts regarding the bathroom subject. </p>

<p>The model was improved at Vientos by redesigning the lower level entirely to accomodate a shower downstairs but that was not enough to satisfy the buyers need to have an independent master bath upstairs. </p>

<p>Another example was the outside stairs at plan one of Bowen Court. By putting the stairs outside the sf is less by 80sf. A saving of $28,000 for the home buyers but shopper complained about that too endlessly. There were numerous posts about the outside stairs despite of the financial savings. </p>

<p>Entry level buyers from my experience is the toughest to satisfy. They have very little of their life saving so they shop and compare and study and bargain.</p>

<p>The prototypes evolved again to Sienna at Woodbuty East which is not yet opened. Sienna IMO is the best detached condo achievement thus far.</p>
 
Ha ha, dude, you and trooper love the irrelevant details.



All new home buyers are tough to satisfy, the reason you think first timers are easier to satisfy than luxury is because you think of them as unsophisticated and with little money. Luxury buyers have more demands that first timers simply because of the amount of upgrades and options they have to choose from, they just get less push back from developer because of 1) pricepoint and 2) preconceptions.
 
in any case, JC, i think you're missing the big relevant detail which is: people don't want prefab housing. not that it wouldnt work, wouldnt be cost effective, or wouldnt be superior in quality. assuming all three of those conditions are true, why didn't someone somewhere along the line while a dozen new villages and thousands of new homes were being built around here in the last 15 yrs figure out you can build a better, cheaper house. sometimes the free market is all we need to look to for the answer.





case in pt, at the peak when a detached condo like those mentioned earlier in irvine would go for $450/sq ft, a 1200 sf unit would cost $550k. if anyone has a more accurate estimate of construction costs, throw it out, but most estimates put tract home building costs in the area at around $75-80/sq ft. if we believe these homes are really worth about $400k ($2500 monthly rent x 160), how is it a builder can lower construction costs enough to make these homes affordable. even if the prefab construction cost the builder a penny per sq ft to build, at the prices they paid for the land they would still be screwed and unable to sell the home at affordable levels. in other words, construction is actually the irrelevant detail.
 
<p>I never said entry level buyers are easy to satisfy. You mentioned that 2 bedroom house without bells and whistles made at a factory will meet their need. I am telling you that is not enough because I have studied this group of buyers for a very long time since the 90's of the last recession. They have more floor plan demands than most move up buyers and I am not talking about cosmetic finishes and options.</p>
 
<p>off topic, but bk....do a topic search here on Case Study House #22, the Koenig masterpiece. I saw it a few months ago... and yes, the Shulman photo of it is beautiful. <a href="http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/shulman/">Julius Shulman, Modernity and Metropolis (Getty Exhibitions)</a></p>

<p>On a side note, there is a Shulman retrospective at the Palm Springs Art Museum now through May 4th if anyone is so inclined. <a href="http://www.psmuseum.org/councils/architecture_and_design.php">Palm Springs Art Museum :: Councils :: Architecture And Design</a> </p>
 
<p>JC,</p>

<p>There is a place in the OC where your plan will work. I suggust you go check it out immediately.</p>

<p><img alt="" src="http://www.dizpins.com/archives/images/2006decemberpics/fantasyland_121206.jpg" /></p>
 
<p>Affordability is Inland Empire. Once you venture into Irvine vicinity do not expect to find affordability. Formula does not work. Don't go to Beverly Hills nor Manhattan expecting to find affordability either. The only affordability is the bus bench but that may cause you a ticket. </p>

<p>Builders and merchants do not go the expensive places to provide affordability. It is common sense and economic logic.</p>
 
I think the whole point of this blog is to point out the Irvine shouldn't be an expensive an unaffordable place.



Secondistically, builders aim to provide affordability in EVERY location they build, just that its relative to the demographic.
 
<p>JC writes:</p>

<p>"<em>I think the whole point of this blog is to point out the Irvine shouldn't be an expensive an unaffordable place.</em> "</p>

<p>Copied off the front page of <a href="http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/">http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/</a> :</p>

<p> </p>

Chronicling ‘the seventh circle of real estate hell’ since September 2006.

<p>And FWIW, builders build for maximum profitablity. They extract every penny out of every project they do. They are not charities.</p>
 
Directly involved with local builders, I wouldn't say that our aim was to provide affordability. Our main concern was the profit margin at a certain price point. We knew that the people we sold homes to during this bubble couldn't afford it. Fortunately, companies like New Century and Countrywide solved that problem for us.








Unfortunately, that is the same reason why some of our partners will be filing for BK!
 
To be realistic in bringing cost down all parties have to be satisfied financially. Land developer, builders, and buyers. Streets to me is a waste. It cost more for the developer and robbed the land to build an additional house. The secret is to improve the density without cramping the homes’ sideyard. I am a proponent of detached condos so I would not slam the homes togethher like a loaf of bread. Creative garage configuration is necessary to cluster the highest number of garages by using the least amout of road. This is my analogy of removing ½ once from the toothpaste. The improved density is the best way to spread the land saving (the most expensive component in housing) among each of the buyers. It is like buying bulk at Costco.





The next objective is to offer more floor plan function to the buyers but not increasing footage instead to lowering footage so buyers buy more functions for a lesser price. How do we do that. Open up the bottom of the stairs for a computer tech center with drawers to store keys, bills, and Bkshopr’s notes. The current use is just deep storage under the stairs and not very functional to access to the very back. This function could eliminate 70 sf ($24,000) of space currently dedicated to a home office. Stacked Washer and Dryer would save 18 sf ($7,200) of appliance and standing circulation space. This is a saving of ($31,200) by just better design and has not even incorporated the cost adjustment due to density increase by efficient garage/ road configuration. There is no loss in design integrity and lifestyle but lowered home price. At the end everybody wins.
 
<em>"Directly involved with local builders, I wouldn't say that our aim was to provide affordability."</em>





Working on the development side , I can assure you affordability is nothing more than a dirty word. Affordability requirements destroy land residual values by limiting the potential income from the site.





Builders and developers will only do something about affordability when they are forced to either by the market or by government regulation.
 
no_vase, please explain what the tag line of IHB has to do with my last post.



right, a developer is going to get as much money as possible for their efforts, but they can't price the unit beyond what people are willing to pay for it, which i will naively say is what they can afford to pay. $3M for a house is unaffordable in Irvine, but it's affordable in newport coast. I speak not of the mandate that dare not we speak it's name, i.e. low income housing.



Gosh, i hate to bring this rotted horse up again IR, but again, I believe TIC has voluntarily provide affordable housing in all of their Irvine apartment communities per an agreement they made many years ago independent of market and gov reg. Also, providing affordable housing, per SB 1818, now allows developers get an incentive, height, denisty, fee reduction, and in fact, there are some deals that only pencil WITH affordable housing, with incentives factored in of course. Also, habitat for humanity, one the nations largest home builders, doesn't build based upon market or gov forces.
 
I believe the playhouses by Home Aids displayed at Fashion Island satisfy the affordable housing mandate. They are a bargain for $85,000 with running water and electricity some even has a studio loft. <a href="http://www.projectplayhouse.com">www.projectplayhouse.com</a>
 
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