Archive for the ‘Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo’ Category
August 22, 2008
Taking a quick look at this data courtesty of Altos Research, it’s clear that Mission Viejo home values have matched local market conditions in their steady decline. Above is the $/Sq Ft. It’s hard to imagine that back just a year ago we were looking at an average of just over $400. Now the average $/Sq Ft for single family residences in all Zip codes of Mission Viejo sit right around $324.
And of course when looking at the $/Sq Ft we always have to have the BFYB. These are the leaders in single family homes for Mission Viejo right now as far as the best BFYB.
23831 Birch Ln
4 beds / 3 baths / 2,200 Sq Ft
Listed For: $459,900
$/Sq Ft: $205
23702 Brasilia St
4 beds / 3 baths / 2,415 Sq Ft
Listed For: $494,900
$/Sq Ft: $205
28062 Haria
4 beds / 3 baths / 3,322 Sq Ft
Listed For: $695,000
$ / Sq Ft: $209
24381 Regina St
5 beds / 3 baths / 2,594 Sq Ft
Listed For: $550,000
$/Sq Ft: $212
25931 Portafino Dr
5 beds / 3 baths/ 3,000 Sq Ft
Listed For: $649,900
$/Sq Ft: $217
August 19, 2008
Photo Courtesy of castadelsol.com
It’s well known that Mission Viejo and Laguna Hills each offer a good-sized Senior community for those 55+. Back when home prices peaked elsewhere, these senior community prices have typically been lower than anywhere else and were a bargain for anyone looking to live the “Leisure World” lifestyle.
But alas, things have changed. Things aren’t moving as fast as they were and the OC Register reported today that plans to build a new building in Casta del Sol have been cancelled.
Wayne Sant, of Sunrise Senior Living, told the city last Friday the company is no longer interested in the land.
Sant, senior vice-president of development, told city officials the withdrawal is mostly due to a stale development industry and the uncertainty of receiving city approvals for any of their concepts, according to a report given to the City Council Monday by Chuck Wilson, the city’s director of community development.
And it’s becoming clear to see why the market is so stale. What was once a great bargain, is now way overpriced.
For example, 27862 Via Prados. It’s a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1,347 Sq Ft single family home. The interior is not in bad shape, but is definitely dated. The home is listed for $495,000. When just a short jaunt down the street is 26839 Calle Alcala where you can get 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 1,200 Sq Ft for $430,000. Sure it’s a short sale, but the price difference is huge. One drawback is the lack of “community” atmosphere, but with the events from local senior centers and groups, the money one can save is virtually priceless. Not to mention the Casta del Sol home has a $301 HOA/membership fee each month, whereas the other has none.
In Casta del Sol, one can get 28292 Zarza that sports 2 beds, 2 baths and 1,495 Sq Ft for $528,000. This certainly does sport a lot of upgrades – especially as far as Casta del Sol homes go. It has new counters and upgraded hardware in the kitchen and the appliances look fairly recently upgraded as well (at least in the last 5-10 years). But for nearly $100k less (certainly far, far less than it would cost to upgrade the home to exceed the Casta del Sol property) you can get a comparable home just down the street. 26521 Via Gorrion is available with 3 beds, 2 baths, and 1,099 Sq Ft. This home is listed for $429,000. While there aren’t any pictures and I haven’t been on a tour, it supposedly has a new kitchen with new appliances. And the HOA fees – Zarza’s comes in at $319 and Via Gorrion $19. Not to mention Via Gorrion is not too far from the YMCA which has a great Silver Sneakers program for seniors as well.
It’s easy to see why the market is “going stale” as the developer of the new Casta del Sol property noted. What was once a bargain faces stiff competition from the standard residential market for single family homes.
August 18, 2008
For the last year we have been hearing the stories of mortgage companies going under. Loan officers and everyone in that industry are facing incredibly difficult times.
Then the stories of the Realtors starting coming out. If I recall, something like one in every four Californians had a real estate license at one point. Many lost their jobs, started working other jobs, or found new careers as they faced the incredible slowdown in pace.
As the market continued to slide we started hearing about the home stagers, the movers, and the like all facing difficult times. The once booming industry has now ground to a snail’s pace and there is a new group facing an uncertain future – the appraisers.
The San Francisco Chronicle published an article yesterday about the changes in the appraiser’s job. If you thought your job was tough – this group just can’t win. The article reports that appraisers just can’t seem to get the right number in. It’s either seen as too high, thus invalid, or too low, thus also invalid.
They report:
During the housing boom in the first half of the decade, lenders typically evaluated appraisals submitted as part of a loan application by running their own comparisons from their desks. Now, banks are much more likely to send appraisers out into the field to drive by a property and the nearby homes listed as comparables to help establish a home’s value.
I was surprised that this was a “change” in the process. I have family that works in the mortgage and real estate industries, and I myself also worked at a real estate office for about 5 years (back about 10 years ago) and we always sent an appraiser out to assess the values before the mortgage was approved. This was back in the Midwest, but I always assumed it was common practice in even riskier markets (like California).
Not only that, but the very nature of the job has changed. They continue:
The down market has meant that more real estate agents are seeking an appraisal early in the sales process, asking for help determining the price before they put the home up for sale, Mann said.
“I’m seeing an increase of about 20 percent in Realtor activity,” she said. “In a market like this, you have to be as exact with the listing price as possible. If you over-list, you run the risk of staying on the market too long and becoming stale.”
This really surprised me, as I seldom saw agents depending on an outside company to evaluate the value of homes in the initial selling stages. I have seen thousands and thousands of comparative market analyses done by agents alone. But the truth is to sell in this market you’ve got a be a little Drew Carey and make sure the price is right. Many agents realize just how important it is in getting this right and are turning to outside help in order to hit the nail on the head.
That said, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to be an appraiser in this local market. Taking all the factors including a plethora of shortsales/foreclosures, current market conditions, recent sales (that really don’t reflect well since prices are dropping month-to-month) only make the job even more difficult to do.
So today my hat’s off to the appraisers! Good luck and press on…
August 15, 2008
Got a little extra kick in your step these days? Feel like you’ve lost a little weight? Maybe you hit your summer weight loss goal, or maybe you just have a lot less change to tote around in those pockets of yours! In a totally unsurprising article from the OC Register, we find out that about half of the homes that sold in the OC are now *gasp* selling for less than was paid for them.
You can all pick yourselves off the floor now.
In all seriousness, this news wasn’t totally unexpected or surprising in the least, but does reinforce the fact that this mess is not quite over yet. Other totally totally predictable findings from the article.
- In all, nearly half of Orange County homes sold this past spring went for less than their previous sale price. Among those homes, the median price drop was 27 percent.
- Price drops occurred in 82 of the county’s 83 ZIP codes
- Almost 93 percent of homes bought in 2005 sold for less, with a median price decline of almost 26 percent.
- Almost 97 percent of homes bought in 2006 sold for less, with a median price drop of 33 percent.
The one surprising finding was just how far prices have fallen. The article explained, “Sixty-nine percent of the Orange County homes bought in 2002 or later sold for less in the mid-April to mid-June period.” This indicates that prices have scaled back to near 2002 prices.
And while our pants might feel a little looser, the LA Times blog is reporting that the market has the opposite problem and is “bloated”. Foreclosures continue to soar, but just how bad is it? They report:
In its monthly report on foreclosures, RealtyTrac said total foreclosure filings — including notices of default and bank repossesions — rose 8% from June to July, and 55% over the last year, to a total of 272,171 filings. California accounted for 26% of those filings, with 72,285 foreclosure filings in July, a 5% increase over June levels, and an 85% increase over July 2007 levels.
August 13, 2008
You might have noticed that the Redfin search page is sporting a new look this week.
Back in December, the CEO of Redfin Glenn Kelman had a chat with Today Show’s Meredith Viera and talked about how Redfin’s approach to the science of real estate. (Click here to see video)
Photo Courtesy of MSN.com
The spirit of the “science of real estate” really drove the folks at the headquarters (we bloggers are independent contractors able to write about whatever, whenever really) to continue using a data driven, scientific approach for Redfin users as the latest changes were launched.
Kelman explains the new changes the changes here. Definitely check it out to maximize your researching effectiveness.
What I love:
-Numbers, Charts & Pictures, Oh My! There’s enough data here to answer almost any question. The charts and layout really help simplify the information I’m looking at. Not to mention all the information I ever asked when searching for homes about the local area is at my finger tips.
-The Big Picture Often when doing research on single homes it’s hard to get a read on the big picture. We get so wrapped up in looking at one house we are interested we forget to check out the rest of the town/neighborhood/city. Now we can get the big picture to compare to our little/not-so-little house we’re scoping out.
-Breaking It Down Finally the numbers are broken down to separate condos from single family homes! This makes the data we get much better and more accurate!
-The Layout The handy dandy toolbar at the top of the page (see picture below) is super user friendly. In fact, I think a lot of the page is incredibly user friendly and I don’t have to refresh my page or hit the “back” button to look at another data set.
What I Don’t So Much Love
-Address Search For as long as I’ve searched Redfin using an address I only get a hit about half of the time. I often end up searching for a specific address by looking it up on a Google map and then manually searching the Redfin map.
-Street Search I can’t just type in a street name and pull up the listings. Sometimes I’ll drive by a house and forget to write down the address and get home and have to once again manually drag through the maps rather than being able to type in “Mendocino Ct. Laguna Hills” and get the listings on that road.
Overall, the the new system is great and offers up a ton of help to the data-driven junkie like myself. Anyone else have thoughts on the new system?
August 11, 2008
Nestled right in the corner of Trabuco and Los Alisos Rd is the Barcelona neighborhood. It’s got great proximity to the lake, is surrounded by parks and is a quiet little neighborhood when all things are considered. The homes are older and smaller. They are single family homes, though many are the size of local condos. Many have been remodeled, but many also have a lot of cosmetic work that needs to be done and there are a good handful of homes that look a little overgrown.
As far as faring well in the market, the Barcelona neighborhood is very typical of the OC trends – the homes have steadily lost value over the last two years. What was once a cozy (read: small), quiet home that could readily sold for $600k+ now looks to sell for about $450K. My guess is that back in the day these were a flippers dream and the jig’s up now. I think these homes still have a little dropping to do before they “bottom out” in value. We’ll have to keep our eyes on it!
On The Market
27112 Via Noveno
2 beds / 2 baths / 936 Sq Ft.
Listed At: $465,000
DOM: 33 Days
22722 Via Octavo
4 beds / 2 baths /1,463 Sq Ft
Listed At: $549,900
DOM: 11 Days
22701 Via Tercero
3 beds / 1.75 baths / 1,178 Sq Ft
Listed At: $399,900
DOM: 43 Days
2006 Sales
27032 Via Noveno
3 beds / 2 baths / 1,178 Sq Ft
Sold For: $610,000
26841 Via Santa Lucia
3 beds / 2 baths / 1,178 Sq Ft
Sold For: $615,000
22731 Via Tercero
3 beds / 1.5 baths / 1,614 Sq Ft
Sold For: $690,000
2007 Sales
22561 Via Tercero
4 beds / 2 baths / 1,463 Sq Ft
Sold For: $700,000
Recently Sold
26942 Via Quinto
4 beds / 2 baths /1,463 Sq Ft
Sold For: $445,500 (5.1.08)
22836 Via Octavo
3 beds / 1.5 baths / 1,099 Sq Ft
Sold For: $425,000 (4.2.08)
22635 Via Tercero
2 beds / 1 bath / 935 Sq Ft
Sold For: $425,000 (6.30.08)
August 8, 2008
Cozy 1 bedroom, unlimited bath home. Offers an Emersonesque-like commune with neighbor. This unique beauty offers a sprawling yard and open floor plan to it’s lucky buyer. Come check it out!
I have always loved the descriptions of homes in advertisements, on the MLS or anywhere else you can find them. In fact, years ago, part of my job was writing those blurbs for newspaper ads at a real estate office. And according to the Chicago Sun Times, the words used in those ads actually have a lot to say about the home.
Their study included 9 large metro-areas (including the OC), and had several interesting findings, including:
“For the most part, “nice” is used to describe homes under $250,000.
Frequently used quirky words to grab attention include “wow,” “cool,” “savvy” and “fussiest.”
Here are the top 20 subjective words used to describe homes overall: perfect, gorgeous, wonderful, lovely, quiet, updated, entertaining, easy, oversized, old, fabulous, beautifully, stunning, charming, spacious, potential, plenty, luxury, style and quality.
The areas with the highest number of listings mentioning price reductions are Washington D.C. (8 percent), Orange County (5.9 percent), San Jose (5.6 percent) and St. Louis (4 percent). Chicago, Boston, Dallas and Miami were all at 2 percent.”
Other terms & translations:
-Commune with nature = enjoy the raccoons in your attic and the family of skunks under your front stoop
-Recent exterior work = the bullet holes from the last drive-by were recently patched
-Friendly neighbors = (just walk away if used in conjunction with exterior work) duck if they slow down while driving by your house
-Major price reduction = this house has been on the market forever and the selling agent is on their last leg – buy now please!
-Sprawling floor plan = the owners who were trying to flip this gutted the place and ripped out all walls only to run out of cash to finish the flip
-Potential = it’s cheap now but will probably give you a huge headache and cost way more to fix it than you think!
-Location, Location, Location! = your “stunning view” overlooks the 405 and your side wall sporting the master window backs up to the back of the Ralph’s semi-docking station to unload shipments at 5am every morning
-Ocean View = If you stand on the left side of the master bath sink at a 47-degree angle on a perfectly sunny day you can catch a shimmer of Ol’ blue sparkling back at you (this happens approximately 3 days a year)
-Exterior Freshly Repainted = tags and grafitti recently painted over
-Cute = it’s small enough that you can cook your eggs on the oven and clean your bathroom on the other side of the house without ever moving your feet
Obviously this is all done in jest – but do remember, these are advertisements and just like all ads, there is bound to be some exagerration or fallicious argumentation behind it. I’d also love to hear other descriptions and their “translations” to add to the list!
August 7, 2008
As the summer wears on and we near the end of the peak spring/summer sellings season I continue to notice a flurry of Open House signs littering the streets each weekend just about everywhere I go. Mission Viejo has a pretty loaded schedule with a lot of open houses scheduled. If you’re looking for a single family residence, here are a few to check out.
22852 Boltana
4 beds / 3 baths / 2,143 Sq Ft
Listed For: $624,900
Open Saturday 1-4pm
22511 Bluejay
4 beds / 3 baths / 3,451 Sq Ft
Listed For: $959,000
Open Sunday 2-5 pm
25476 Pacific Hills
5 beds / 3 baths / 3,100 Sq Ft
Listed For: $1,125,000
Open Sunday 1-5
27390 Morro
4 beds / 3 baths / 2,815 Sq Ft
Listed For: $899,000
Open Sunday 1-5
11 Regalo Dr
5 beds / 4 baths / 3,139 Sq Ft
Listed For: $895,000
Open Sunday 1-5
9 Cantada
3 beds / 3 baths / 1,830 Sq Ft
Listed For: $665,000
Open Saturday 2-5
August 6, 2008
The airline industry. An upfront apology for the unintentional hiatus in my posting folks, but I uncovered the not-so-hidden problems with our airline industry this week and spent about 50 hours delayed in 6 days.
Why do I think the airline industry is in far worse shape than the real estate market? Because the airlines are getting hit in every direction, whereas the real estate market has far more localized pockets of failures matched to areas of improvement.
Case in point, I was visiting with a Chicago Realtor about the state of the market from the peak a few years back. She explained that the market in the Northwest suburbs has such a disparity that you have to break down the price declines by neighborhoods, not just cities. For instance one neighborhood was sitting just fine and had faced an approximate 3% loss in value at most from the peak in 2005/2006. Meanwhile a few miles down the road home values had gone from the upper $400′s to selling for a meager $315k.
So what does that mean for us Californians? I think we get hit with far more doom and gloom because while the declines are somewhat localized on a national scale(some cities have gotten hit way harder) – the overall market decline covers most of the state.
PMI’s assessment of which markets are at stake for continued loss or gain shows just how localized the “crash” is.
Photo Courtesy of PMI
As you can see, a very large section of the country has a slim to none chance (according to their prediction) of losing home values. Markets appear to be strengthening just about everywhere else other than here and in Florida.
The LA Times blog reports:
Mortgage insurer PMI Group’s latest report on the risk of falling home prices concludes there are “two distinctly different paths” for housing in America right now: most of the nation’s housing markets are showing signs of improvement, but bubble-inflated markets in California and Florida are showing signs of further deterioration amid rising foreclosures.
But what does that mean for us locally?
At first glance it gives little hope to most of us since most Laguna Hills and Mission Viejo residence have lost value on their homes. It is smart to remember, however, that most of the huge losses are very localized. Additionally some neighborhoods just haven’t been hit quite as hard (see Neighborhood Spotlight: Castille). So when local analysts or the national news get all hyped up about just how horrible the real estate market is, remember that it’s not this bad everywhere – us Californians are just seeing the worst of it.
August 1, 2008
Located right on the corner of Alicia and Moulton is probably the hardest hit neighborhood in all of Laguna Hills - Via Lomas. Via Lomas was (and still is) the cheapest neighborhood to move into so when the subprime mortgage games began it was an easy target for dicey loans for first time homebuyers in particular. The street is LINED with foreclosures and for that, the prices have plumetted. Here’s a sample of what sold for what when. It gives a dismal picture of just how bad this mortgage mess got at it’s worst.
25881 Via Lomas Apt 239
2 beds / 1 bath / 894 Sq Ft
Sold For: $370,000 (11.15.05)
25856 Via Lomas Apt 35
2 beds / 2 baths / 897 Sq Ft
Sold For: $395,000 (4.28.06)
25816 Via Lomas Apt 61
2 beds / 2 baths / 901 Sq Ft
Sold For: $390,000 (8.01.06)
25761 Via Lomas Apt 150
2 bed / 1 bath / 893 Sq Ft
Sold For: $138,500 (7.9.08)
25815 Via Lomas Apt 201
2 bed / 1 bath / 901 Sq Ft
Sold For: $194,500 (3.13.08)
On The Market Now:
25792 Via Lomas #78
3 beds / 2 baths / 1357 Sq Ft
Listed For: $200,000
25762 Via Lomas #99
3 beds / 1 bath / 1,170 Sq Ft
Listed For: $209,900
25775 Via Lomas #164
2 beds / 2 baths / 897 Sq Ft
Listed For: $170,000
