Irvine sales leading Orange County

[irvinehomeowner]

In today's Irvine World News, there is an article by Cathey Haney (a realtor) using MLS data to show that Irvine as one of the 3 largest cities in Orange County (Anaheim and Santa Ana being the other 2) leads other cities by a large margin in 2010 home sales. While the MLS data alone shows resale numbers close to or above Anaheim and Santa Ana (who have 40% larger populations), when you add in the 800+ new homes, it becomes apparent that Irvine is in much higher demand.

(The article is not online yet, the Irvine World News articles that are not printed in the Register take a few days to go online, but I will edit with the link when it does.)

This brings me back to question some of Larry's posts on the IHB and if they are a little skewed to serve his agenda more than the facts. On his November 9 blog...
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/low-interest-rates-will-not-create-demand/

... he talked about how low interest rates do not create demand, but low prices do. I asked in the comments that based on that, why is there such a high demand in Irvine?

His response:

Astute Observation by IrvineRenter
2010-11-09 11:56 AM

?If low interest rates do not create demand, and low prices do? why is there such a high demand in Irvine??

There is not ?such a high demand? if you look at sales rates. Houses are selling slower than the peak and slower than historic norms. This is evidence of the absence of demand at current price points.

My response asked him if he included new sales figures in his sales rates and he did not respond.

Additionally, regardless of historic norms, you compare demand based on surrounding cities... and based on just resale rates alone, you can conclude that Irvine is in high demand compared to other OC cities.

IrvineRenter does not like to acknowledge the sales pace of the new homes in Irvine, in another blog post he dismissed it as not true based on "his data"... but we all know otherwise.

It seems like he's lost a little of his objectivity. And I wish him all the luck in his business dealings, but I wish he would respond to some of these counterpoints that are offered up instead of going radio silent and letting other non-Irvine residents do the arguing for him.

 

[irvinehomeowner]

Here is the article:
http://www.ocregister.com/news/irvine-280528-homes-number.html

And a good excerpt:

Despite the fact that Irvine has almost 40 percent fewer residents than Orange County?s two largest cities, Irvine dominates the housing market in terms of number of real estate transactions. For the 12-month period ending November 2010, Irvine had 2,242 total residential transactions. Santa Ana had 2,289 and Anaheim had 1940. This information is based on data from the MLS, which typically does not include new homes sales. When you add the 800 or more new homes sales that have sold in Irvine so far in 2010, Irvine has had more real estate transactions over the last 12 months than any other Orange County city.

 

[iacrenter]

Here is the article:
http://www.ocregister.com/news/irvine-280528-homes-number.html

And a good excerpt:

Despite the fact that Irvine has almost 40 percent fewer residents than Orange County?s two largest cities, Irvine dominates the housing market in terms of number of real estate transactions. For the 12-month period ending November 2010, Irvine had 2,242 total residential transactions. Santa Ana had 2,289 and Anaheim had 1940. This information is based on data from the MLS, which typically does not include new homes sales. When you add the 800 or more new homes sales that have sold in Irvine so far in 2010, Irvine has had more real estate transactions over the last 12 months than any other Orange County city.

This doesn't bode well with my Irvine price implosion theories.