Take a minute to do the following; put both of your hands on your mahogany desktop, slowly push yourself away from your cubicle, and take a nice walk outside of your building. Inhale deeply. Do you smell that? Yes my friends, that is the smell of delusion and grandeur that many current sellers have in Southern California. Today we Salute Stanton with our Real Homes of Genius Award. The above 680 square foot palace is something akin to what Saddam’s palace was like, except this place is in Orange County and 20,000 square feet smaller.
Do you notice the beautiful yellow fire hydrant and how it blends in naturally with the yellow dead grass? This type of home would bring a tear to the editors at Architecture Journal Weekly for its magnificence. What else do you get for $475,000? Well you get one bedroom and one bath because when you are this rich you want to keep your family close, preferably at an arms distance in one room. Two bedrooms? Not in this village of the bourgeois elite.
Let us take a look at the current sales action:
Price Reduced: 03/13/07 -- $499,000 to $475,000
Okay, maybe this home was purchased for $300,000 seven years ago correct? Well let us find out:
Sales History: 10/30/2000: $138,000
Wow, they expect to net a profit of $337,000. Or $48,000 a year, more than the median family income in the area. Again why would you want to work when you can live in your mansion and make bank without lifting a finger; I actually feel some Persian kings rolling in their graves.
Today we Salute you Stanton with our Real Homes of Genius Award.
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14 Comments:
You forgot to mention why this property is so valuable. It has a secret spider hole, which you can use in case of immigration raids or drive bys.
anon:
How can I forget that! I think Ziprealty listed that as the third most important feature of this home.
With one bed room you have a lot of space to hide.
I honestly can't believe someone paid even $138k for that shitbox back in 2000.
I am dying to own a house though, so maybe I'll buy it. Let's see, 20%($95k) down, 30 year fixed at 7%....sweet! My payment is $2528/mo. That's only $600 more per month than the rent on my 2br 2ba 1100 sq ft apt six blocks from the beach in Santa Monica! Living in Stanton is probably just like living in Santa Monica, plus or minus (or plusplusplus) a few murders, rapes, and burglaries.
Btw, your full page interstitial ads are back...
Dr.
Your post had me laughing with you. I had a picture of smelling something, but it wasn't dilusion. ;)
And yet some think this is going to be over quick. Sigh... Wait for last winter's foreclosures to trigger fresh foreclosures. Still wait for that to trigger round 3 of the foreclosures. (About Fall 2008) The slide won't be done then, but at least prices will be sane.
Got popcorn?
Neil
This series is great. When participants in a housing market can look at a property like this and think "yeah, that is worth 10 times the median income," you know you are witnessing a speculative bubble. That house may be worth $400K in 2067, but not 2007.
Squints: I can understand your desire to purchase a home. Especially if you’ve been waiting for two years. Do not despair because the tides are changing. Yes, it is hard to believe that someone would be willing to pay that much for this home. It is only 1 bedroom 1 bath on 600 square feet! Stanton isn’t exactly a prime location in Orange County. For all the glamour and glitz of the OC, there are a few bad areas.
Wannabuy: Your timing is about right. I think we’ll notice some price declines by Q4. I will even go out and say that ALL Southern California areas tracked by DQNews will be negative by then. You can check on my main page at the upper-left hand corner for the most up to date stats. Go figure that LA is still treading up but I attribute this to shady brokers committing fraud and funneling folks making $40,000 into $450,000 homes. You say it can’t be done? Trust me, I was in this industry and still know folks in it and not only is it being done, this was the bread and butter for the subprime market. We all know how well that turned out.
Irvinerenter: This is a bubble. Even when the pundits and permabull real estate syndicate was touting the differences of real estate to anything else, I always knew we were in a bubble. But you need a place to live they echoed. Well, you need to eat every month too but you aren’t going to spend $4,000 a month on meat and potatoes eh?
Ten Ways to Make Your Home Irresistible at an Open House
1. Put fresh or silk flowers in principal rooms for a touch of color.
2. Add a new shower curtain, fresh towels, and new guest soaps to every bath.
3. Set out potpourri or fresh baked goods for a homey smell.
4. Set the table with pretty dishes and candles.
5. Buy a fresh doormat with a clever saying.
6. Take one or two major pieces of furniture out of every room to create a sense of spaciousness.
7. … Ten Ways to Make Your Home Irresistible
Check out the school district. . . .
ExchangeCA.com
La Jolla Real Estate
It seems that the last really hot real estate market in the U.S. is just south of the Salt Lake City (Utah) valley, specifically areas around the championship golf-course communities of The Ranches at Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs. Home sales and price appreciations are strong. The reasons for strong home sales seems to be a limited supply of homes and the increased migration of Californians to this area as e.g. Micron is hiring 1,000 new workers and 60% of Utah companies are planning to hire this year. Also, its expected that approx. 1 million people will move to the Wasatch front within the next 10 - 12 years.
The home appreciations are taking place because the whole Salt Lake City valley is a few years behind the national average - after the Olympics the real estate market took a dive with real estate prices beginning to recover in 2005 and the momentum is increasing.
$300k will still buy you a very nice newer home in this area, although some surrounding areas have already appreciated a lot in the last 6 - 9 months like Highland, Alpine, Cedar Hills, and even Lehi and Pleasant Grove, and also Saratoga Springs is appreciating quickly followed by The Ranches at Eagle Mountain which is still lagging behind a bit. Where else can you get million-dollar views of a lake, mountains, valley, city, canyon and hills at a bargain price?
Here are some Websites that might be interesting for researching the area:
http://scherf.com/realestate.htm
and
http://greathomesutah.com
I wish these comments would not show people peddling their Ponzi Scheme nonsense in Salt Lake City. Let's focus on the "Real Homes of Genius" nonsense near LA instead.
Dr Housing, that was excellently written. Every sentence had me guffawing.
chris,
You are right. Just goes to show what is happening. Folks getting desperate to unload properties on a housing bear blog. If anything, we are the last people to buy over priced real estate.
I've deleted many comments like this but I think it is good to see the angle people are trying to use to peddle overpriced stucco boxes.
Cheers
Well, if this house too small then first time buyer can upgrade to 2 bedrooms for ONLY 135K more .
http://tinyurl.com/2x2mq4
Okay, fellow GFs,
Play hardball on this one. I feel a motivated seller in the air. Offer 10% less then the list price, or you're walking! Geez, We should actually jail the terrorist at GITMO at this house for a couple of years. When the news gets back to the Jihadist on how we treat thier fellow comrades/cowards as prisoners, I think they might take up another line of work.
You guys are smoking more crack and drinking way more Kool Aid then here in Massachusetts!!!
Complete devastation in Cali!!
What is the lot worth? Because that is what this house is worth-the price of the lot.
Is it zoned high-density multi-family? If not, I don't see why anyone would give more than $10K for a single family house lot if this is the kind of nabe some commenters in here hint that it is.
But what do I know? I'm a midwesterner. I think CHICAGO prices are insane-that they have no relationship to the incomes and true buying power of the prospective market for a particular property. You pay our prices only if A.) you like taking a steep drop in your standard of living when moving from rental to ownership-like from a great 4 room vintage with all the millwork, beautifully maintained down into a 3 room fixer-upper with 500 sq ft. or B) you want to live on a diet of raman noodles for the next 10 years.
So my perspective is sort of skewed.
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