Orange County CA Home Renovations: Spending Exceeds Construction Value

Orange County CA home renovations, in general, now exceed the dollar value of expenditures on newly constructed single family homes.

This trend is not only in Orange County CA, according to federal estimates, but it is having a profound effect on real estate markets all across the country.

Housing Scenarios

Maybe you can say you fit one of these scenarios.
?You’ve been reluctant to sell because you don’t think you can get what your house is worth…
?Buying a home seems out of reach because it’s so difficult to qualify for a mortgage…
?You’ve decided it may be smarter to improve the house you already own and just stay put for a while…

The National Association of Home Builders’ remodeling market index recently hit its highest level in five years, which only underscores this home remodeling trend.

Many Orange County CA home renovations companies are seeing a significant jump in interest in renovating, especially from owners who have been in their houses for years, have built up some savings and managed to get through the recession without falling behind on their mortgages.

Orange County CA Home Renovations No Longer About McMansions

Orange County CA home renovations are generally the projects where people are no longer thinking along the grand, McMansion show-off scale; they’re smaller, more modest, less costly efforts than five to seven years ago, with more emphasis on finishing details and quality than square footage.

Many of the Orange County CA home renovations being made are not ones where the owner worries about immediate paybacks from their improvements. Most owners understand that the boom-time expectations of 100 percent immediate returns on their investment are gone.

Most people are happy with modest returns, which is right in line with what’s happening overall in the Orange County CA real estate market: a slow, modest recovery, spurred by modest and realistic expectations about where we’re headed and how fast we’ll get there.

California Estate Valued at $87 Million Sells at Auction

A bankrupt real estate agent’s hilltop mansion, conceived during Southern California’s property boom and once given an estimated value of $87 million, was sold at auction.

The unfinished Italianate villa on 12.5 acres (5.1 hectares) in Newport Beach comes with a man-made lake, horse stables, vineyard, tennis court, 17-car garage and views of the Pacific Ocean and Santa Ana Mountains.

“We have a successful bidder,” Rob Giem, an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty, which had the listing, said in a text message last night.

The highest bid and identity of the winner aren’t being disclosed because the deal is in escrow, Giem said. Last night’s sale was conducted by Irvine, California-based Auction.com after the estate failed to find a buyer on the open market with a $37 million asking price. The minimum bid required for the property to sell at auction wasn’t disclosed.

Originally named Villa del Lago, the estate was conceived by John McMonigle, the No. 1 U.S. sales agent for Coldwell Banker in 2004 and 2005, at a time when Orange County’s real estate market was fueled by wealth from locally based — and now defunct — subprime lenders, including Ameriquest Mortgage Co. and New Century Financial Corp. (CYFL)

McMonigle and his investors paid $3.2 million for the land in 2003. Six years later, the property had an expected value of $87 million, according to the Orange County Register, a local newspaper. The estate was first placed on the Multiple Listing Service in May 2010 for $57 million. The asking price dropped to $37 million in January 2011, after OneWest Bank FSB cut off construction funding and as McMonigle tried to avoid bankruptcy.

McMonigle lost the estate, now known as One Pelican Hill Road North, to a group of investors who put $10 million into the project. The property also has a $20 million construction loan held by OneWest, which acquired the debt after the original lender, La Jolla Bank, failed in 2010, according to bankruptcy court documents.

O.C. March bankruptcies highest in 7 months

In March, 1,529 Orange County individuals and businesses filed for bankruptcy, down 18.7% from a year ago but the highest number in seven months, according to data from the Central District of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The monthly filings had been edging downward after a spike to 1,670 in August, according to court data. The Central District stretches from San Luis Obispo County south to Orange County and east to the Arizona border.

The monthly filings were the lowest for any March since 2009 when the 1,156 filings almost doubled from the 585 filings in 2008. (The number had plunged in 2006 after Congress reformed the bankruptcy law effective October 2005).

The number of bankruptcy filings have been falling faster in surrounding counties and in the central district as a whole than in Orange County.

In Riverside and San Barnardino counties, hard hit by the real estate crash, March bankruptcies fell almost 30% from a year earlier. And in Los Angeles County, bankruptcies fell almost 22%.

California always leads the nation in bankruptcy filings, but its first quarter filings dropped 19% from the same period in 2011, and central district filings declined 19.3% for the first quarter, according the American Bankruptcy Institute, based on EPIQ Systems Inc. data.

However, when population is considered, California fell to 8th among the states in number of filings per 1,000 residents.

Mission Viejo listings: 36% distressed properties

The housing market in Mission Viejo sped up 33 days vs. a year ago as roughly one-third of its listings were distressed properties.

Real estate for sale in Mission Viejo appears chilled by one set of statistics.

Every two weeks, Steve Thomas of ReportsOnHousing.com publishes a study of the supply of local homes for sale. Here’s what the latest report — as of April 13 — details about Mission Viejo …
•178 residences listed in brokers’ MLS system with 165 new deals opening in the past 30 days.
•By Thomas’s math, this community has a “market time” (months in would take to sell all inventory at current pace of new escrows) of 1.08 months vs. 1.08 months found two weeks earlier vs. 2.19 months seen a year earlier. Countywide, latest market time was 1.63 months vs. 3.36 months a year ago.
•So, homes in this community sell — in theory — in 34% less time than the countywide pace.
•Of the homes listed for sale in this community, 65 were either foreclosures being resold or short sales, where sellers owe more than the home’s value. So distressed properties were 36.5% of supply of homes for sale vs. 25.2% countywide.
•Homes for sale in Mission Viejo represent 2.8% of Orange County inventory — and 4.1% of all the distressed homes listed for sale in Orange County. New escrows here are 4.2% of all Orange County’s new pending sales.

Compare these trends to countywide patterns:
•Cities with highest level of distressed properties among their listings? Portola Hills was tops — 66.7% — followed by Stanton at 65.5% of listings and Anaheim at 54.4% of listings.
•Fewest? Seal Beach was tops — 1.7% — followed by Corona Del Mar at 2.6% of listings and Laguna Beach at 7.3% of listings.

I Highly Recommend Annika Godfrey

April 12, 2012

Friends and Family- for those of you considering purchasing property I highly recommend Annika Godfrey for your realtor and Rene Suarez from JMJ Financial for your lending. They made what can at times be a seemingly overwhelming process – painless and easy – even for a first time house buyer. Check ‘em out!

Sincerely,
Greg Hanway
buyer-24772 San Pedro, Laguna Hills, CA

#1 Team-Coldwell Banker Orange County and Desert Companies/#6 NRT Team-Gross Commissions awards 2011

March 2012

Tim Smith Group
Tim Smith
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
Newport Beach Fashion Island

Dear Tim:

Congratulations on receiving the #1 Team-Coldwell Banker Orange County and Desert Companies and #6 NRT Team –Gross Commission awards for 2011. While many have struggled, to adapt during the most challenging real estate market, your hard work, dedication and unwavering commitment to service have set you apart. Against a backdrop of significant market challenges, you’ve responded with an outstanding performance-one that makes you a standard bearer of professional excellence.

On behalf of the NRT family, please accept my gratitude and heartfelt wishes for your continued success in 2012 and beyond.

Sincerely,

Bruce Zipf

Top 10 Teams in North America!

March 2012

Tim Smith Group
ATTN:Tim Smith
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage-Newport Beach Fashion Island

Dear Tim:

Congratulations on achieving a rank in the Top 10 Teams in North America in the category of ADJUSTED GROSS COMMISSION INCOME.

This is one of the greatest honors bestowed upon a team and the hard work and dedication of you and your teammates have put your team on top. It is teams like yours that have built the trusted and revered Coldwell Banker® reputation, which has lead the real estate industry for over 105 years.

We are honored to have you and your teammates in the Coldwell Banker family and are proud of your success. To show you our appreciation, your team is being awarded with the Eagle’s Ledge statuette to display in your office.

Congratulations again and thank you for a job well done. I wish you and your team the best in the upcoming years and look forward to your continued success.

Sincerely,

Jim Gillespie, GRI, CRS
CEO

He did what 2 other realtors couldn’t do!

To the Smith Group/Coldwell Banker,

The purpose of this letter is to voice my absolute pleasure and gratitude with the services rendered to myself and my wife by an outstanding realtor in your employ, John Yasko.  My wife and I had 2 prior realtors working with us and became very familiar with what was the norm in regards to what is expected from a realtor in Orange County.  From this experience, I can unequivocally pronounce Mr. John Yasko an absolute star!  He went above and beyond what is normally provided by Orange County realtors.  His tenacity to find us the perfect home was unmatched and we felt like through the entire process, we had a true friend to rely upon and that had only our interests at heart.  It was truly a pleasure working with John and we know we would not be the happy homeowners we are, without his assistance.  He did what 2 other realtors couldn’t and he did it with a level of professionalism and compassion we had never seen before, or since. 

I have wholeheartedly referred him to friends and family alike and will continue to do so.

With great respect and gratitude,

Steven and Angie Bloom

Tim Smith to Speak at AREC Australia Real Estate Conference

Click Here to View More about AREC Australia Real Estate Conference!

Cristi Ulrich — Sold in Less Than 30 Days!

Hi Cristi,

Thought I’d send you an email and thank you for your wonderful job in marketing our condo in Huntington Harbour. We had it listed for over a year with another realtor, and you with your professional marketing and professional staging sold in less than 30 days! So like to give you this fine testimonial; hope you’re having a great New Year’s Eve. Thanks again!

– John
12/31/2011