The Jeronimo Zone in Lake Forest

So what's the deal with the "Jeronimo Zone" in Lake Forest, California these days?
This seems to be the only freaking area in the entire community where single family homes are up for sale at a reasonable price.

Oh, wait a minute. It must be that Amtrak line. Yeah, that's it! Dammit if young families with children settling down in Orange county don't just love to live within busted earshot of a howling locomotive.

And what about my wildfires?? I distinctly remember requesting a single family home located as precariously close as possible to one of the more hot, windy and dry areas where wildfires most easily commence in Lake Forest!

Realtors and foreclosing debt freaks, please don't disappointment me now! What do I see here but a few SF homes available in Foothill Ranch!!!!! Sweet!



Hmm, raging wildfires or eardrum bursting train horns? Eardrum bursting train horns or raging wildfires?

Aww Gee, it's so difficult to choose!

Well, according to Redfin.com, there are a whopping 16 single family homes for sales in Lake Forest between the prices of $350,000 and $600,000 (4 bed, 2 bath).

But let's just see what Realtor.com has to say:


Realtors(R) of the NAR hate Redfin.com because Redfin capriciously states the previous sales history data of listings on their site. Realtors have the MLS, and apparently much more additional information and wisdowm that Redfin could ever dream of having. This is the only conclusion I can come to because Realtor.com indicates that there are not 15, but 55 freaking single family homes priced between $350,000 and $600,000 (4 bed, 2 bath) in Lake Forest today.

Meanwhile Zillow.com thinks Redfin and Realtor.com are both full of shit, because there are not 15, and not 55, but 57 single family homes available for sale between the prices of $350,000 and $600,000 (4 bed, 2 bath).

Jesus! Get it right, Realtor.com!



All I can say today is thank goodness for two things:

1.) For Jeronimo (or Geronimo) that merciless Apache medicine man, and
2.) The high level of data accuracy and integrity that is simply flooding the real estate numbers in south OC these days.

Home Sales Up in Orange County. Mortgage Defaults Also Up.

Orange County median home prices rose 2.2% between February and March of 2009.

Meanwhile, Orange County home mortgage defaults increased 19% in Q1 of 2009 over Q1 2008.
So is it finally time to sing halleluja to an OC housing market recovery?

I don't know man. I've got a really bad feeling about this. And this.

I mean seriously, with all that we have experienced in the last 18 months within this state, do California residents now make the biggest procurement decisions of their lives when there is uncertainty about future employment?

In other news, if you live in OC, you're home is probably overvalued (overassessed) and you're probably paying more in property taxes than you should be. Many homedebtors in OC are now filing appeals with the county to adjust their home property tax bills. But less property tax revenues in OC is going to likely negate some drastic cuts in educational programs by OC school districts. These cuts included firing teachers, eliminating courses and closing down elementary schools.

This can't be happening

So you buy a beautiful home in 2006 for $975,000. I mean, why not? Jacuzzi, swimming pool, massive backyard, lovely Saddleback mountain area.
You've got the means. You've got the financing. Home prices appreciating everywhere you look by double-digits. Now's the time. Get in, or be priced out forever.

A few years later things go pear-shaped financially. Foreclosure. Short sale. And suddenly all the granite in the world no longer justifies the scenario where the asking price means double-digit appreciation over the previous buy price.

Asking Price: $749,900

Address: 8 Puerto Nuevo, Foothill Ranch (Lake Forest),CA 92610

You are a homedebtor, not a homeowner!

Stop arguing! If you live in a $750,000 home and you owe $750,000 or less in a mortgage loan for that same home, then you don't own that home, ok?

You are homedebtor, not a homeowner.

If you live in a $750,000 home and you owe nothing (i.e. it's bought and paid for through either blood, sweat and years, a massive inheritance or through ill-gotten gains), then you are a homeowner.

See the difference?

Don't let these SUV-driving, cell-phone toting, reserve trademarked Realtors in the area tell you any differently.

You owe. You do NOT own.

We need to change the conversation in this country about real estate on so many levels, because people who purchase homes in this country using leverage do not technically own the home until the mortgage is paid off.

The same is true when I buy a car via an auto loan. Sure, I'll drive the car off the lot and all around the town. I'll fill it up with gas, and spill some Diet Coke on the floor. I might even unknowingly drive right into a demolition derby contest at the Orange County Fair and obtain a few "minor scratches" in the process. But unless I paid for that vehicle in full from the start, it's not freaking mine! I may even possess the title for the car in a neat little folder in a desk drawer where I live, but the car is not paid for. It's not my car!!!!

So can the American public, the American media, and our elected officials in Washington pretty please with freaking sugar on it, STOP CALLING PEOPLE "HOMEOWNERS", UNLESS THE OWN THE HOME OUTRIGHT AND HAVE NO DEBT AGAINST IT?!!!

In otherwords, let's be a litte more specific going forward before we bailout the patheticly stupid, greedy and illiterate, shall we? I mean, that's not asking too much, is it?

People who are upside down on their freaking mortgages right now, in the state of California, are NOT HOMEOWNERS!!!! They are mistaken HOMEDEBTORS that, under normal lending standards and rational financial principles and without Realtor malfeasance, would otherwise be, and actually SHOULD BE RENTING a home, or condo, or apartment to live in.

But no.

The American media would prefer for us to all stop what were doing and hold a candlelight vigil to save the precious so-called "underwater" and irresponsible debt-freaks and use the term "Homeowner" to best describe their emotional plight!

I don't doubt that these people are in anguish over their circumstances. I don't doubt that families with young kids are under stress as a result of this. But America, and California in particular is, today chock full of imbecilic, overgrown children who have the attention span of a gnat, and cannot read a freaking mortgage contract, let alone hire an attorney to have it read to them. The responsibility is theirs to carry. They need to foreclose. They need to move to an apartment or condo, pay off their outstanding debts or get them forgiven and start over.

Since when are we obligated to pay for the misfortunes of others?

I get all that Judeo-Christian B.S. about the "Good Samaritan". I understand the "come on, help a brother out" speak.

My parents just lost half of their savings in their 401k.

They are over the retirement age. They both worked and saved since they were 18.

Who is going to bail them out?

Nobody.

My point is, you can't force people to be "good samaritans". My parents started saving late and put money in risky investments in their 401K plan. They've paid the price.

What we are doing, what President Barrack Obama is doing, what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing, is perpetuating the problem of irresponsibility, financial illiteracy and not allowing individuals to pay or benefit from the consequences of their actions.

We are praising a nation of spoiled, overgrown, childish debtfiles, while their children are watching.

You are homedebtors, not homeowners!

California's Crisis in Waiting: The 2008 Option Arm Implosion

Dr. Housing Bubble takes us all to school for an important lesson on the next phase of the greatest housing crash in American history: $500 billion of option ARM loans waiting to go *POOF* - 60% of which were signed for homes in sunny and delightful California.

True to form, most Americans (and Californians) apparently chose option 1: Minimum monthly payment.

Come on, think about it. How else can one afford the monthly payments to "own" that 7-times-your-annual-salary-home price?

A lot like making that minimum payment on your credit card every time, but not paying down the balance borrowed, so interest charges accrue into a 600 lbs. hungry and angry Silverback gorilla. Oh, nevermind that menacing figure in your rear view mirror. That's just your collossal unpaid loan balance waiting to destroy your future financial livelihood!

Man, I wish they would come out with auto loans structured like this! I would buy a fucking Ferrari!

Oh California! You thought you could have your state budget crisis cake, educational cuts, and housing crash too?

This is goddamned scary.

A Weekend With The Realtors

I visited some open houses (5 single family homes) over the past weekend in Lake Forest, California.

Many of the homes I viewed were completely and utterly outside my realm of affordability - which pretty much sums up all single family homes for sale in Lake Forest today, despite numerous foreclosures and a certain degree of home price corrections as a result. But hey, I thought it would be interesting to view a few of the local homes that were for sale in the nose-bleed pricing stratosphere ($700 - $900K) and also find out what some of the realtors or maybe some homedebtors had to say.



Here are a couple of observations (since a realtor was present inside each home during the open house). There were no homedebtors present from what I could tell.:


-All 5 homes were single family's in Lake Forest with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths or more. All had been on the market for 1 month or more. All had been subjected to price reductions of varying degrees.

-4 of the 5 realtors mentioned "increased local sales activity in Lake Forest" and "all-time low prices for the area" for single family homes. One agent used the phrase "there are some great bargains out there".

- 4 of 5 realtors mentioned that "now is a great time to buy". 2 said that phrase exactly to me. When I asked why they thought it was a good time to buy, they cited the historic high appreciation of home values here, good schools of Saddleback School District, access to local convenience stores, no mello roos in Lake Forest, and the recent price declines.

One realtor told me an interesting story suggesting that in Orange County the trend is that "we always have 5 years of an up market and 3 years of a down market".

- One realtor promised that the home he was selling for $899,000 today (marked down from $900K) would be worth $1.4 million in another 4 years.

- 3 of the 5 realtors expressed their opinion that the "the market has bottomed out" or probably has bottomed out.

- 2 of the 5 realtors said the market would bottom out this summer. One then back-pedaled and said "it'll bottom out by around September 15 at least.....but don't hold me to it."



- At one of the open houses, the realtor mentioned to me that he would cut his sales commission by one-third of a percent (but that he would have to clear it with his partner first). That owuld be 0.33%. Given the sale price of the home ($799K), this would be about $2,600 in potential commission savings for the buyer.

- One realtor acknowledged my entrance into the home but decided to continue a loud and boisterous converation with another client about her failure to convince her lender to "make a deal" about the new rate on her condo ARM loan. He then proceeded to explain to her what a short sale was and that he had a visitor and would need to call her back later.

When the above realtor got off the phone, he introduced himself and then told me about his clients' problem (did not mention her name), an elderly woman who can't afford the "new payments" on her condo. The realtor proceeded to say that he didn't understand why lenders don't work a solution out with their customers on these ARM loans. Then he decided to ridicule his client referring to her by saying "some people are just stupid".

- One beautiful 4 bed single family home I visited was for sale for $899,000 in a lovely Lake Forest cul de sac. Really terrific home. Was previously placed on the market for $915,000. Even though I stated to the realtor that I was just perusing and not serious about buying right now, the realtor said he was very sure he could talk the owners down to $879,000 but that the sellers would not go below $840,000!

I thought to myself, holy shit, the sellers may be screwed as it is with the fucked up housing situation of OC, but the realtor they've decided to hire is feeling footloose and fancy free about leaving plenty of cash on the table. If there is a case to be made for people to pay realtors an hourly wage instead of a flat % off the sales price, this realtor was poster material.

I left the last home really hungry and thinking about stopping by a local Pollo Loco restaurant for some lunch.

I then decided no. What I really needed was to take another shower.

Lansner: California Home Prices Down 20%

John Lansner delivers more glorious California housing market news.

If it was ok for California realtors to cheerlead the entire real estate market to its euphoric price highs, is it now OK to stare with gaping mouth amazement at the collossal and historic housing crash now underway?

Yeah go ahead, it's ok. As long as you don't block traffic.

How Do You Read A N.A.R. Forecast?

Have you found that "greater fool"?

The OC Register in southern California reports today that Realtors in the area (California Association of Realtors) are forecasting for 2007 a 14% decline in unit home sales over 2006 actual results.

So if we know that this is a realtor forecast, and we know that for the most part realtors are duplicitous and lie to make income for themselves and cannot be trusted, then what use is such an article to potential homebuyers and real estate consumers?

OK, I'll admit it. That last paragraph was way too cynical and shamelessly rhetorical.

Is anybody else just pissed off about the complete lack of objective real estate data (prices, sales in units, etc.) available to consumers. The entire real estate industrial complex has become a pathetic joke.

Californians More Frequently Using F-Word

As in "foreclosure".

It's not looking good folks.

Landlord informs MarkusArelius of Rancid Truth: "No Rent Increase" in '07!

YES!

And there was much rejoicing!

Yes, some sweetness to life can be found, even during a colossal Orange County California real estate industry meltdown!

CANNONBALL!!!!