31752 Secoya Way

31752 Secoya Way is scheduled for foreclosure auction; again.  This property has been featured in our posts, “Take $1,000,000 Off“, “Update: Coto on Ebay“, “High Stakes Poker“, and “Coto on Ebay“.  The auction is scheduled for 9/10/10 and the published bid amount is $2,765,464, or $68,768 more than the last time a notice of trustee sale was recorded, (11/03/09), on this property.  There is no opening bid showing.

6 Westchester, closed at $271/sqft

Everyone thinks their home is above average.  If you say a home is average, its almost viewed as an insult.  Our home is where we live and many of us put a lot of effort, time and money into making our house something special for us.  We are proud of our homes, which is good.  Showing pride in your home is what keeps our neighborhoods looking so dang nice.  Still, 49.9% of the homes in any neighborhood are below average for that neighborhood.  That’s just the way it is.  Math sucks.

6 Westchester closed yesterday at $859,000.   That’s $271/sqft.  We’ve noticed that this seems to be roughly where nice average homes in Coto sell.  Given the data I showed on homes currently with accepted offers, $271 is slightly below average for equity sales.  When I saw that picture, the first thought that came to my mind was “what a nice house”.  I can see why Stuck would be sitting outside Tanglewood waiting to buy up all the homes.

What do we get for $271/sqft with this home?

• A nice pool and hot tub
• Travertine floors with built ins
• A well done kitchen with a big center island and granite countertops (sorry, no Viking appliances )
• A modern master bathroom
• A decent sized master bedroom with a balcony
• A great park for the kids just a few houses down

I haven’t seen the house in person, but by the MLS pictures it really looks like a wonderful house.  I can picture someone raising a family there and being very happy.  Based on its price per square foot, the market says its probably in the lower 49.9% of homes in Coto as far as finish level or maybe right around average.

The purpose of this post is not to put down what by almost all measures is a great house.  I picked the house because I actually liked that pictures and it got me thinking.  The purpose of this post is to show the relative standards set in Coto, due to the success and hard work of many of its residents.  Its to show when we talk about homes going for $275/sqft what people are getting for that price.  We are spoiled.  Average is good.  That $271/sqft bought a darned nice home.

The home was on the market a little over 2 months before closing.  They had 1 minor price reduction 2 weeks after listing, and eventually sold for just over 2% below their original listing price.   The listing agent appears to have done a good job pricing the home to sell in a reasonable timeframe.   There still appears to be a good market in Coto for nice, properly priced homes.

Congratulations to the new owner.

80 Via Candelaria

Through the Gate

Are ya starting to get that the banks are postponing foreclosure because they are insolvent and can not recognize the loss and not because there is some compelling reason from the borrower?  The first scheduled auction for 80 Via Candelaria was scheduled for 9/7/10 and was postponed until 9/21/10 with the reason showing as ‘unknown’.  The 2nd photograph above was shot through the front gate and shows that the landscaping of this home is not being maintained and the home is most likely vacant.  So, really, …, why postpone the auction?  A family that can afford the payments and maintain the yard and home could be living in this home already.  C’mon, Bank of America.

26 Constellation Way

9/7/10 was the second date with the hammer for 26 Constellation Way.  The first date, 7/23/10, was postponed, as was the 2nd date, so the new date for the auction is 11/22/10.  There exists a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd mortgages totaling more than $1,000,000 on this property so it isn’t like anything will be solved long term by postponing or loan modding or whatever.

Just thought I’d update my running graph of active inventory, pending offers, and closed sales.  As always, this includes single family detached homes in Coto de Caza.  I keep a list myself of the specific homes, and update it on a weekly basis.  There is no Wagon Wheel/Trabuco/Dove/etc data in here… this is “inside the gates”.

Inventory still continues on a slightly up trend (as of this AM inventory is at 117) from our low in June.  I wouldn’t say its spiked up noticeably, but it is trending towards the higher sides of where we have sat the past 5 months.

Pending offers leads closed sales by about 30 days as would be expected.  Pending offers are running roughly 2x the closed sale rate.  The difference primarily is short sales taking longer to close.  Current backup offers are 60% short sales… expect those to typically take 2-3 months to close versus the just over 30 day average for an equity sale.  Really the only thing of note on pending sales and closings though was the obvious huge spike of accepted offers in June followed by the huge spike in closed sales in July.  Besides that we are back to where we started, and homes continue to come on at a fair pace and homes priced appropriately continue to sell, and sell fairly briskly.

We do see some falling out of escrow, but to put it in context, the past 8 weeks we are averaging 6.5 homes accepting offers per week, and 1.8 homes going from Backup Offers to Active.  In most cases the “falling out” happens either very quickly after accepting an offer, or is a short sale which probably just got bank approval, and will take another offer.

For homes in Backup, overall median asking price is $255/sqft.  For short sales its $247, for equity sales its $286.

12 homes are > $300/sqft.  By tract:

• 3 Oak Knoll
• 2 Pinnacle
• 2 Weatherly
• 1 Atherton
• 1 Private Collection
• 1 San Marino
• 1 Terraces
• 1 Woods

The $300+/sqft range appears to be for nicely done semi custom homes and custom homes.

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

6 Roosevelt

The first auction for 6 Roosevelt is scheduled for 9/7/10 with a published bid amount of $1,440,167.  6 Roosevelt was purchased brand spanking new by it’s present owners in April 1997 for $381,000 with a 1st mortgage only for $285,350, and to arrive at $1,440,167 only took eleven refis and 2nd mortgages.

The comments sections of blogs seem to have a running argument about whether the quoted statistic should be using the average or the median or maybe even the mean.  In my observation, all are reasonable and eventually reflect the same outcomes or trends.  Median is the number most used for displaying real estate prices trends and IMO, it is probably the best indicator of real estate price trends.  But it is just a price trend and in the short term it is a mistake to assume that if the median price of homes in a particular area is rising or falling, that the price of individual homes is concurrently rising or falling.  If fifteen homes sold in Coto de Caza last month and the median price rose, it does not particularly follow that the price of all, some, or even any of the homes that sold, sold for more than they sold for last year, or last month, or any other time period.

from Wikipedia”

In probability theory and statistics, a median is described as the numeric value separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to highest value and picking the middle one. If there is an even number of observations, then there is no single middle value; the median is then usually defined to be the mean of the two middle values.^[1][2]

In a sample of data, or a finite population, there may be no member of the sample whose value is identical to the median (in the case of an even sample size) and, if there is such a member, there may be more than one so that the median may not uniquely identify a sample member. Nonetheless the value of the median is uniquely determined with the usual definition. A related concept, in which the outcome is forced to correspond to a member of the sample is the medoid.

At most half the population have values less than the median and at most half have values greater than the median. If both groups contain less than half the population, then some of the population is exactly equal to the median. For example, if a < b < c, then the median of the list {a, b, c} is b, and if a < b < c < d, then the median of the list {a, b, c, d} is the mean of b and c, i.e. it is (b + c)/2.

When we see a article with a title saying something like “Home Prices are Rising”, or “Home Prices are Falling”, it is our responsibility as readers to understand what we are reading.  (Cuz, the author most likely won’t tell us).  We have seen articles in the OC Register and other MSM with titles like this, and while I hesitate to point and say they are intentionally misleading, they are misleading.  There are some areas in Orange County, (Irvine and maybe Santa Ana), in which some homes have appreciated since 2009, but it is not the majority of areas, and it is a small percentage of the total number of OC homes.

Most of the time, a change in the median home price will indicate a trend in individual home prices, but not always. Median home prices in the OC have risen.  Individual home prices have not, or in other words, home values are not appreciating.  And the fundamentals affecting home prices have not improved .  Is household formation increasing? Are wages and income increasing?  Is employment increasing?

Every method for analyzing data only reflects exactly that data which is used and does not always fit our notion of what is important.  Personally, I think that over time, the median price is the best number to use to keep track of home prices, but I have to remember what I am looking at.  For me, Case-Schiller is the bible of home price statistics and I get a little uppity whenever I read someone questioning Case-Schiller results or methods, but it is dangerous to get complacent and never question that which we take for granted, and even Case-Schiller should be examined.

Jim the Realtor at bubbleinfo.com, takes on Case-Schiller in “August Sales Revisited.”

from Jim Klinge

We’ll take a closer look at the Case-Shiller Index, but if I were you, I wouldn’t be betting in their futures parlour based on what you see on the street.

6 Via Presea

6 Via Presea, the topic of much reader discussion on our post “Shadow Inventory Sees The Light, (And It May Not Be So Pretty)” just listed n open house for this Sunday, September 5th from 11am – 3pm.  It also comes with this warning:

SHOWING AGENTS AND BUYERS: ACKNOWLEDGMENT REGARDING TOXIC MOLD DISCLOSURE & RELEASE MUST BE SIGNED *PRIOR* TO ACCESS. ENTRANCE ACKNOWLEDGES RECEIPT OF SAID FORMS (POSTED).

If any of our readers are brave enough to go check this out, we’d love to hear your thoughts.  $166/sqft for 6038 square feet and 5.5 acres of land sounds like a potential “Blue Light Special” in the making… of course, it could also be a candidate for “Extreme Home Makeovers”.

If you go see it, please reply to this thread and give us the low down… what did you think?  What did you find out?  Did they have cookies?