Thoughts on Santa Cruz in WBE

[westirvine_loaner]

they kept calling me for a while offering the $722K + free conservatory, or $25K in upgrades + landscaping.

every time we would drive by we'd tell ourselves, "oh yeah, that's why we dont want to live here".  alleys and home frontage looks horrible.  really poor execution.  the models looked better because you didnt have the adjacent houses.  fully built out, i'd feel "trapped".  Same actually goes for Montecito, even with the driveway.  We really liked plan 2 layout and design.  There were avaiable homes, but we passed there as well.

SC @ WBE is one of the worst values you can get in Irvine. The plan 2 they offered me at 697K would have cost us ~ 715K with the upgrades we wanted (even including the $25k incentive) costing about $333/sqft. All this for a detached, packed in condo with hardly any yard and no driveway. You are between sand canyon and 133 which can get noisy too. There is a hefty mello roos too (but this is true of most new developments in Irvine).
I strongly advise people to look at the resale market and be patient...you will find a better deal.

 

[akim997]

im pretty discouraged at the market these days.    If Santa Cruz called me today and offered my plan3 for $625K, I'd bite  =)

 

[irvinehomeowner]

im pretty discouraged at the market these days.    If Santa Cruz called me today and offered my plan3 for $625K, I'd bite  =)

Interesting. I think a Casero Plan 2 (or Sevilla Plan 2) for $625k would be a better buy.

 

[woodburyowner]

SC @ WBE is one of the worst values you can get in Irvine. The plan 2 they offered me at 697K would have cost us ~ 715K with the upgrades we wanted (even including the $25k incentive) costing about $333/sqft. All this for a detached, packed in condo with hardly any yard and no driveway. You are between sand canyon and 133 which can get noisy too. There is a hefty mello roos too (but this is true of most new developments in Irvine).
I strongly advise people to look at the resale market and be patient...you will find a better deal.

To be fair to SC, the MR is actually lower than any other new development in Irvine (~1.5%) and there is only 1 HOA.

 

[westirvine_loaner]

SC @ WBE is one of the worst values you can get in Irvine. The plan 2 they offered me at 697K would have cost us ~ 715K with the upgrades we wanted (even including the $25k incentive) costing about $333/sqft. All this for a detached, packed in condo with hardly any yard and no driveway. You are between sand canyon and 133 which can get noisy too. There is a hefty mello roos too (but this is true of most new developments in Irvine).
I strongly advise people to look at the resale market and be patient...you will find a better deal.

To be fair to SC, the MR is actually lower than any other new development in Irvine (~1.5%) and there is only 1 HOA.

You are correct. SC is better than Woodbury and PS for sure in terms of mello roos. I do not know how how Stongate and Laguna Altura mellos roos will be.

 

[usctrojancpa]

im pretty discouraged at the market these days.    If Santa Cruz called me today and offered my plan3 for $625K, I'd bite  =)

Interesting. I think a Casero Plan 2 (or Sevilla Plan 2) for $625k would be a better buy.

I agree with you 110%!!!  Sevilla > Casero > Santa Cruz

 

[usctrojancpa]

SC @ WBE is one of the worst values you can get in Irvine. The plan 2 they offered me at 697K would have cost us ~ 715K with the upgrades we wanted (even including the $25k incentive) costing about $333/sqft. All this for a detached, packed in condo with hardly any yard and no driveway. You are between sand canyon and 133 which can get noisy too. There is a hefty mello roos too (but this is true of most new developments in Irvine).
I strongly advise people to look at the resale market and be patient...you will find a better deal.

To be fair to SC, the MR is actually lower than any other new development in Irvine (~1.5%) and there is only 1 HOA.

You are correct. SC is better than Woodbury and PS for sure in terms of mello roos. I do not know how how Stongate and Laguna Altura mellos roos will be.

Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed (concerning the Mello Roos being HIGH).  I still don't understand why Mello Roos keeping going higher and higher as bond yields have dropped in the past few years and I know that land development costs have decreased since the bubble days.

 

[akim997]

Even crazier are what some people are paying on homes built in 2006-2007 in Woodbury.  I've checked some assessments and see as high as $8500 per year!!! 

 

[tamilraj2003]

Found something interesting about the closing price for 2 homes in Santa Cruz.  The actual purchase price is 40K-50K below the asking price, but I am not sure whether this includes the 25K incentive. 

Asking price was 681K, sold for 631Khttp://www.redfin.com/CA/Irvine/213-Mantle-92618/home/35653639

Asking price was 677K, sold for 632Khttp://www.redfin.com/CA/Irvine/221-Mantle-92618/home/28678807

That is interesting.  I went to WBE 2 weeks ago and they told me plan one is $679k, plan two is $696,200 and plan three is $722k all with $25k incentive toward closing costs or upgrades.  They said price is firm.  With this link, that means they lied.  Or maybe this is for the ones they cannot sell.

I visited there and took the Redfin sale detail to talk to the sales lady. She said it is because the property was sitting there 4 months they sold it @ that price and we may not able to do so again as they see some upward trend. Can anyone believe this?

 

[venkat]

I visited there and took the Redfin sale detail to talk to the sales lady. She said it is because the property was sitting there 4 months they sold it @ that price and we may not able to do so again as they see some upward trend. Can anyone believe this?

Sure. TIC is probably training their sale staff to carefully analyze "trends".

Santa Cruz in WBE will have tough resale market, with so many 'hoods in competition. Though "resale value" is last thing on any buyer's mind - it IS on buyer's mind. So TIC, all the best for selling SC in WBE!

 

[waitin4ever]

When these homes came out last year i couldn't really see the prices of santa cruz having to be 50K more than Coronado.
Of course the sq footage is bigger but functionally it didn't offer anything more than coronado homes.
Untill they modified the plan 3 to include the 4th bd and full bath downstairs ther was no functional benefit provided by
santa cruz. No wonder coronado sold so quickly but Santa cruz is struggling. 

I visited there and took the Redfin sale detail to talk to the sales lady. She said it is because the property was sitting there 4 months they sold it @ that price and we may not able to do so again as they see some upward trend. Can anyone believe this?

Sure. TIC is probably training their sale staff to carefully analyze "trends".

Santa Cruz in WBE will have tough resale market, with so many 'hoods in competition. Though "resale value" is last thing on any buyer's mind - it IS on buyer's mind. So TIC, all the best for selling SC in WBE!

 

[jyeh74]

Come on, $680k for a 2000 sq ft detached condo isn't totally out of line is it? 
And to think, people actually bought them and they are at the last phases.

 

[venkat]

Come on, $680k for a 2000 sq ft detached condo isn't totally out of line is it? 
And to think, people actually bought them and they are at the last phases.

Calling IndieDev... 

 

[irvinehomeowner]

They are building the remaining Santa Cruz homes crazy fast. It seems they are building 20 or more homes in parallel. Those construction workers are working really hard, even Saturday 6pm.

I don't think they are any more empty lots, so they want to finish it up and move on.

They know Las Ventanas is coming... heh.

Either that or they are gearing up for a BOGO sale.

 

[IndieDev]

Come on, $680k for a 2000 sq ft detached condo isn't totally out of line is it? 
And to think, people actually bought them and they are at the last phases.

Calling IndieDev... 

IndieDev doesn't tell people how to live their lives. If people are happy spending $680,000 on a stucco box, and paying 1.5% to 1.7% effective tax + HOA, then IndieDev congratulates them on their purchase.

If people want to ask IndieDev if that's a good financial decision, then it's a different story.