Orchard Hills Update Website

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
I was looking up information on new homes and came across the site of the planner & architect for Orchard Hills. They also have Portola Springs' plan on there and some future community on the border of Foothill Ranch and Irvine called Baker Ranch. When you go in the links of the communities, you can click the pictures to make them bigger.





<a href="http://www.jbzarchitects.com/2-portfolio/subcategory.aspx?id=11">www.jbzarchitects.com/2-portfolio/subcategory.aspx</a>
 
If older homes across from Portola Rd.on "flat" land are going for 1 million. I doubt the newer homes in OH will be going for less.
 
<p>ISM,</p>

<p> I share your sentiment. And had the Irvine Co. continued the course of building out OH as they were scheduled to. The theory of what goes up, must come down would have applied.</p>

<p> But as we all have seen. As things start to go down, what does the Irvine Co. do? They stopped constructions. And not just with this particular project but numerous others.</p>

<p>Note: this is just an observation and not to be argumentative</p>
 
it would be great if the older homes currently asking $1million go down to $800 or $700k in a couple of years (just like Irvine Renter's blog today that goes with the Prince song When Doves Cry), then OH could start perhaps a tad under $1 million, people can dream, can't they?
 
The prices in Orchard Hills will not be any higher than the market will bear. If they price this development at their initial asking price, they might sell 2 units a year for the next 200 years to build it out.
 
Lack of buyers at the prices they are targeting. I bet if they targeted $750k - $1m in Orchard Hills they would be amazed at the number of IHB trolls with "pent up demand" who would come out of the woodwork for their new community.
 
CK - not necessarily. If their definition of a 750k - 1m product is attached, three-stories, with no yard, they can stuff it. I am waiting for a nice HOUSE, not a McMansion but definitely a house. No glorified apartment or stupid shotgun floorplan for me, thanks.
 
They are waiting because they believe that they will be able to charge significantly higher prices in 2010 then they can charge now. They are mistaken. When they realize they are mistaken, they will begin developing in earnest once again. It's not greed, or arrogance, or a desire to sell only to rich people. It's simply incorrect beliefs about where the market is headed.



It's a shame that developers like Lennar and (indirectly) the Irvine Company are putting the brakes on so much new development lately. And it would be a lot less frustrating to watch if not for the fact that they are so obviously going against their own interests. Oh well.
 
<p>BMS- With the significant twist of Irvine's land cost acknowledged, I'm not quite sure how postponing OH is "so obviously going against their own interests," depending on who you mean by "their."</p>

<p>There's an old adage about the viability of selling at a loss and making it up in volume. The land is still overpriced, and the logjam of prices dropping will not relax until some big valuation writedowns occur.</p>

<p>SCHB</p>
 
Yes, the write-downs need to happen. Why aren't they? I contend it's because someone is holding on to the hope that they won't have to.



If the management of Lennar woke up tomorrow and suddenly became convinced that home prices were going to decline drastically over the next five years, do you think their behavior would not change?
 
It would be great to see nice single story homes or two story homes with good floorplans and the master on the first level on spacious lots for under $1 million in a few years instead of the three level monstrosities I've seen in Portola Springs. Well, it's nice to dream, anyway.
 
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