Irvine public schools? reputation and housing stress

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
CORRECTION: The test is of unknown origin in Snopes (it may or may not be real). The commentary on Snopes debunks it's value in terms of comparing today's students versus the students of 100 years ago...





-OCR
 
<p>garfangle - Thanks for your latest update on upcoming collapse of Irvine. Do you recommend we in Irvine follow Jim Cramer's advice on what to do with the IE, and just plow Irvine over and restore it to strawberry fields? BTW, IE = Inland Empire, you might not get that, since you have never been here before. How ironic that I read your post right after I read an email from TIC outlining their most recent $2M installment on the $20M grant they gave to IUSD. Funny they would invest so much money into a district and community that sounds like it is headed the way of the San Fernando Valley.</p>

<p>I know I am in the minority of the group-think here, but I don't log onto IHB much anymore --- The whole doomsday mentalilty here is starting to get tired. Sure, we are in for a prolonged downturn --- and I think a $450k median price in Irvine by 2010. Some people will lose their rear end, but perhaps a culling of the fools who bought into the bubble (including the speculators) from our ranks will actually IMPROVE quailty of life in Irvine. Didn't Irvine and Southern California survive the last downturn? And the one before that? Wasn't Irvine a pretty nice place with good schools in 1995? Does anyone really think the intelligent populace in Irvine will not come through this stronger and smarter than we were before? I hope you all think our little society here will survive, because if you don't you sure are wasting a lot of time on this blog.</p>

<p>BKSHPR - WHERE ARE YOU??!!! I miss the discussion of housing on the Irvine "Housing" Blog. </p>
 
When prices drop, the quality of life will dramatically improve in Irvine. People who are spending over 50% of their gross income on a housing payment are not spending much money on anything else. When that changes, are economy will improve. Economic growth should be based on earnings and income, not on debt and continual borrowing.
 
<p>That test is a joke compared to the IUSD standards. They learn stuff like that earlier and more thoroughly. Arithmetic on an 8th grade exam? Where's the algebra and probability and geometry the Irvine kids get in the 8th grade? The practical rules of grammar? What a joke, my kids have been learning grammar since kindergarden. By the 7th grade it's more like writing term papers comparing different world religions or cultures.</p>

<p> </p>
 
<p>IR,</p>

<p>I agree that for future home-buyers and residents falling prices will be a welcome relief. However, in the near-term there may be a dislocation as underwater owners and ex-real estate workers struggle and all that stress, financial and emotional, which can only affect their families, the community, and most likely the schools to the negative.</p>
 
garfangle,





Sad but true. The adjustment to lower housing prices will be very painful, particularly to those who need increasing house prices to fund their lifestyles.
 
Can someone help me understand this:



OC population as of 1/1/2007 is 3,098,121, of which 202,079 is from Irvine or 6.5%.



In 2007, the net employment reduction in OC's real Estate & Real Estate Finance sector is 9500 people. For illustration purpose, assuming the demographic of those people reflects the county demographics, then out of the 9500 people, 6.5% or 617 people actully lives in Irvine.



617 out of 202,079, .3% of the Irvine population.



Now let's look at the distress listings:



according to the OCRegister site, there are 3324 distress properties on the market. Out of the 3324, 2054 are under $500K. There are not many homes / codos in Irvine are under $500K, so let's just assume none of the 2054 are in irvine. So that leaves 1270 distress homes. I think it is safe to assume 6.5% of the 1270 are from Irvine, that brings the overall distress homes to 82 homes in Irvine. Assuming those 82 homes has four people/ household, that is 328 people.



So now we are a total of 1000 people in Irvne is unemployed and/or in housing distress. Let's triple this number just to to be safe...that brings 3000 people in a city of 202079, or 1.5%.



I will need some help to understand how the 1.5% of "distress" population will dramatically effect our school system? What am I missing?
 
Any time someone goes through a reduction in lifestyle spending power, even if it is not so dramatic as to cause the loss of a home, it is stressful and potential disruptive to families.





Personally, I think of greater concern than the foreclosures to the academic performance of students and thereby the schools is going to be the increase in the divorce rate the financial distress will cause. Couples in OC are not good at staying together in good times (67% divorce rate,) so you can imagine what will happen when they can't buy fancy toys and they are eating Ramen noodles every night.





All that said, I don't think you will see much of a decline in school testing scores.
 
<p>Irvine123,</p>

<p> </p>

<p>All your stats have been compiled at best from the just the beginning of the downturn. It's like discussing the last housing crisis by using data from 1990 instead of looking at the fallout during the entire period of the early 90s..</p>
 
well said IR.



Garfangle,



The population data for OC and Irvine came from the CSF's center for Demographic Research update as of 2007. I am sure you will agree there has not been any material changes of population data throughout 2007 for our discussion purposes here.



In terms of distress property data and job data, they came from today's OCRegister.



How did you figure those stats are from "beginning of downturn" and be so sure about it? I am sure you are not saying the downturn just started this or last month. I tripled the stats to make sure to be "conservative". My conclusion stands if you prefer to x 4 instead of x3 the actual numbers as of this month.



If you believe my data source is in correct, then let me know what data set I should be look at. I am sure you too appreciate fact based arguments.
 
Irvine had a reputation for quality schools long before the housing bubble. If anything, the housing bubble has deteriorated the quality of education. When I was in elementary school the parents of my friends were engineers, professors, dentists, teachers and doctors. After the housing boom, the only people who were buying homes in my parents' neighborhood were the less educated sales type people from the real estate & mortgage industry. It's difficult to tell your kid that he has to study hard to get to a good college when he sees someone with just a high school diploma making over $20,000 a month.
 
irvine123,





I am not nitpicking about your point, but I am going to nitpick at your data points. I am not trying to be a jerk. Anal retentive? Maybe a little...





Using population and job data for percentages doesn't paint an accurate picture. Not when 88,310 or 48.3% of the 182,855 population in Irvine is employed. All my data comes from the <a href="http://factfinder.census.gov/">census bureau</a> and the <a href="http://www.calmis.ca.gov/htmlfile/county/orange.htm">EDD</a>. A better way to look at it, is the RE/Finance/Insurance sector in OC employed 148,697 people near the peak. Irvine employed 11,589 or 7.8% of the sector. Comparing the latest EDD report and the census report, 15,197 jobs in that sector have been lost. If Irvine accounts for 7.8%, that is 1185 jobs lost in Irvine. That would be 1.86% of the 63,646 households, or 1.34% of those employed in Irvine. To fine tune it some more 35,907 or 56.4% of the 63,646 occupied housing units are owner occupied. So, if 668, 56.4%, of the 1185 jobs lost are owner occupied, then that would only be 1.86% of the owner occupied housing. Not that scary of number.





In Irvine 7703 homes sold in 2005 and 2006, which is 42% of the 18,373 of the householders who moved into their unit in that time. If that 42% ratio is true, 28.2% of the householders moved into owner occupied units since 2000. I will find the annual sales data since 2003, it's killing me that I can't find it.





There are about 128 bank owned homes and another 250 in the foreclosure process. That would be 35.5% of the listings in Irvine, not including the homes that haven't received a default notice, that are a "short" sale. One thing... I think the data Steve Thomas misses are the homes that are listed as "corporate owned" homes. They do not say "bank" owned, so a search in the MLS would miss this when searching for "bank" owned homes.





How does this effect the performance of kids in school? I would like to think it is minimal. I would hope that the parents, who are going through the stress of financial troubles, would shield their kid or kids from the stress. But, not shield them completely, to the point that the lesson that could be learned is hidden.





Is it that bad in Irvine? Certainly not as bad as other areas, but it could get worse, or it could get better. I hope that it does getter better rather than worse, and I am not a doom and gloomer. I see the numbers for what they are, and unfortunately they are worse than I ever expected. I'm an ubernerd, not a pessimist.
 
Thanks graphix! You are ver helpful as usual. You are not being a Jerk or being anal at all. That is what blog is all about - sharing fact based view points. My intent here is to stimulate more folks to back up their statements with solid data instead, especially those "factless dooms day" scenarios. Making a "factless" statement after jumping either a "bear wagon" or "bull wagon" is a complete waste of blog space and waste fellow bloggers' time.



Thanks again for providing us with a better analysis with solid data.
 
123 - That's pretty funny. When I read the first post, I thought, "Well, that's one person's opinion" and moved on. What has amazed me was some of the angry (as I read them) responses from people who are normally pretty level-headed. I was kind of amused that one opinion that Irvine school performance might decline as a result of financial distress was the equivalent of a "yo Mama" or Materazzi comment in another culture. What do you think that says about Irvine culture? (<---- This is an honest question.)
 
Funny you mentioned that. When I first read it, I said the same thing to myself, and moved on thinking the trend will just die off. I guess the involvement of IR and Graphix changed the "game" on this trend. LOL. I was shocked that we have more than 30 responses on this. I think the bloggers here are very diversed. Due to the blogging nature, we have no way of linking their background to their comments due to the nature of blogging.
 
"the RE/Finance/Insurance sector in OC employed 148,697 people near the peak. Irvine employed 11,589 or 7.8% of the sector"





How many of those employees live in Irvine and Orange County? I worked at a couple of mortgage companies and I would have to say more than 50% of the people I worked with lived in Riverside County (I'm talking about the low level support staff positions). You could always tell when there was an accident on the 91 because the office would be empty until 10AM. I knew quite a few who commuted from Oceanside and Los Angeles as well.
 
I think what is going to hurt Irvine the most is the lost tax revenue from all of the closed mortgage/real estate businesses that were located here.
 
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