Just back from a trip to So. Cal.

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Skye Sakamoto_IHB

New member
Hi, all. Hubby and I just returned from a trip to your neck of the woods. We lived out there for 20 years (1979 to 1999, he in L.A. county, me in both L.A. and Orange counties) before moving east for family reasons. We are now in a position to relocate to a warmer place and are trying to decide if we should move back to CA or find someplace a bit cooler but much cheaper (which means almost anyplace else!)





We spent some time exploring the Santa Clarita area and then headed down south to take a look at Irvine, Lake Forest, and Laguna Niguel. One of the areas I wanted to see in Irvine was Turtle Rock. We followed some of the Open House signs and found ourselves in front of 12 Sycamore Creek (in the "Glen" section). It looked a bit small for our needs but we decided to take a look.





It is a ranch with a tad less than 2,000 sq. ft. Didn't really feel like 2,000 to me, but that is what the flyer says. Built in 1976 and not touched since. Decent floor plan but needs TOTAL make-over. (i.e. Rip off the window treatments (starting with the drapes in the master bedroom that MATCH THE 30 YEAR OLD BEDSPREAD!!), rip up the carpet, gut the baths and the kitchen, swap out all light fixtures, remove wallpaper -- some of which had to be seen to be believed!) Oh, and it has a GARDEN in the middle of the family room floor. Or a big dirt pit, maybe would be more accurate -- but a dirt pit with a tree! And the tree, which was 30+ years old, reached all the way up to the skylights in the cathedral ceiling. It really was quite something to behold. Check out the pics on Redfin:





(http://redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=806766)





And what are the owners asking for this very special home? $945,000!! (Reduced from 998k.)





Or we could drive down to Laguna Niguel and purchase a brand new "detached condo" which is really just a big 2 story house with very little land (which is ok for empty nesters like us who don't need a place for kids to play) and which is about the same size, priced at $711,000. (Larger models were in the mid-700's and mid-800's.)





So what kind of person would buy the Sycamore Creek house at that price, or even at a greatly reduced price? I mean, what exactly is so special about that section of Irvine? With a $200k down payment, you would have to earn $250k a year to qualify for the mortgage. Nobody who makes 250k a year is going to want to buy a house like that, even if it had already been remodeled! Personally, I might consider taking on a project like that if it could be had for about $400,000. Spend another hundred grand on upgrades and you would have a nice house with not-so-bad payments. But almost a mil?? PLEASE!!





skye
 
I've always liked that neighborhood and I even like that house, tree and all. It's quiet and you hear a lot of traffic. The lot/house ratio seems big and it looks like you could actually spend time in your back yard without having to look into your neighbor's house. I'm curious about the tree. Do the roots grow under the foundation?
 
Why don't you just suck it up and rent for 12 months and wait till this plays out? 12 months will fly by in no time. Maybe values will not have fallen much more, who knows. In any case the values are not going up, so you don't have anything to lose. Just park your money and earn interest and watch the foreclosures surmount.





There are craploads of homes to rent. Since renting is cheaper on a dollar for dollar basis, you can live in a nicer area closer to the beach. You can find an awesome place for less than 2500 a month. Sounds like you don't have any kids. Any pets? You probably don't need a rental with a yard either. If this is the case you can get a nice 2 bd condo for closer to 2k a month.
 
I like Turtle Rock for the reasons ABC123 listed above. You can find large single-story homes there as well. I suspect it will fare better than other Irvine neighborhoods because the homeowners have lived there longer, and it has always been a high-income neighborhood. There will probably be a few HELOC implosions, but many owners here really are sitting on mountains of equity and probably won't go underwater.





That being said, the asking prices in there are ridiculous.
 
We are not planning to relocate until sometime next year, so we won't be buying any time soon. We were just checking out the different areas, trying to decide where to relocate. That said, once we do move we will probably buy another house whether we have hit the bottom or not. We have three cats and TONS of STUFF. I can't see moving into a rental and then moving again down the road. We have moved about 8 times in the last 15 years. I'm hoping our next move is our last!





skye
 
<em>"We have moved about 8 times in the last 15 years. I'm hoping our next move is our last!"





</em>Did you think that after your 7th move too???





Just don't feel bad or slighted that you rent. Patience really is a virtue. If you can easily afford the payments and still have plenty of cash left over after your down payment, then you should be able to sleep at night.
 
<em>"We have moved about 8 times in the last 15 years. I'm hoping our next move is our last!"





</em><em>Did you think that after your 7th move too???





</em>No. Our situation is complicated, but I knew that we would only be in this house for 2 or 3 years.<em>


</em>


<em> Just don't feel bad or slighted that you rent. Patience really is a virtue. If you can easily afford the payments and still have plenty of cash left over after your down payment, then you should be able to sleep at night.





</em>We don't rent. We own the house we live in now. We bought it in mid-2006 and so we may end up selling in 6 months for less than we paid. But the house we buy will also go down in price, so I am not worried about it. I am very lucky in that my husband could buy us a nice house and pay cash for it (with plenty left over) if that is what we wanted to do. But we still don't want to be stupid and pay more than we have to for our "dream house".





I am very aware of what is going on in the housing market, in large part because of blogs like this one, and I intend to use that information to our advantage when we do buy. But I won't sit around waiting for the absolute bottom of the market before I relocate and buy what I hope will be our final house. With 3 pets, two offices full of computers, thousands of books, etc., every move is a nightmare. I want a comfortable place to live where I can unpack all my stuff and (finally) relax in the knowledge that I don't have to go through all that work again. I'm too old and encumbered to rent. :)





skye
 
<i>"So what kind of person would buy the Sycamore Creek house at that price, or even at a greatly reduced price? I mean, what exactly is so special about that section of Irvine? With a $200k down payment, you would have to earn $250k a year to qualify for the mortgage. Nobody who makes 250k a year is going to want to buy a house like that,"</i><p>


According to he re agents who frequent these pages, there are tons of rich foreigners with loads of cash and these rich foreigners don't mind one bit spending that kind of money and do not consider it expensive or unreasonable.
 
Skye





I feel you.


I moved around with my parents when I was growing up. It was fun for us kids at first. After a couple times, we were sick of it....and we did not even need to move the furniture because of my father's job, everything was provided for. Not only moving was such a headache, every time after we moved, we always found items missing!





That was why I decided to buy myself a home at age 21. Well, another reason was that I could not find a rental that small enough for just one person but big enough to move in a 6'4" grand piano....





Today some people keep telling me to sell my place, but I am sitting tight, refusing to turn my phantom equity into a reality all because I hate moving.
 
I'm in the process of moving right now - I'm buried in boxes. You don't realize how much stuff you have until you move. It's EXHAUSTING!
 
i spoke to a re agent friend of mine over the weekend, and he's always been straight with me on how the market's doing...i asked him the "rich foreigners" question and if there's any validity to that theory. his short answer: "No".





this foreigners-buying-in-irvine-and-propping-up-prices thing is a scam. once an agent hears of one asian family leaving a house vacant so their kids can attend uni high, the story gets repeated 100 times. then it's like the telephone game, every reiteration is spread with a little more mis-information, until there are more foreigners waiting to buy in irvine than there are homes in irvine
 
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