Brightwater in Huntington Beach

Looks like somone is giving Brightwater the Big Eye.

http://huntingtonhomes.freedomblogging.com/2009/12/07/investor-buys-up-stock-in-troubled-developer/73995/

The builder of the 356-home Brightwater development may be in bankruptcy court, but a private equity investor is betting on a successful outcome.
Hedge fund manager Eric Hovde has acquired 1.48 million shares of stock in California Coastal Communities, buying at least 280,000 shares in the last month.

Hovde now owns 13% of the company's stock.
 
This thread is the best example of life getting back to normal. Is there an OC Housewives thread yet?
 
Major BUMP.

I was thinking of checking out this development "the Trails"...apparently only have 6 homes left, but as I searched this thread (thankfully I did), the developer was in a bit of a financial pickle. Anyone have any details about this? This development seems much better than Pacific Shores (which is right next to a ginormous factory)...

 
As a new member having gotten so much good advice and insight, I wanted to share my experience with Brightwater in Huntington Beach. The builder is Hearthside Homes. The entire development has been there for several years and they had a rough patch (well a couple of them actually) where they had to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. They recently emerged in March 2011. There has been a lot of protests about the location too...apparently bone fragments were found and this is believed to be an ancient indian burial.

LINK: http://www2.ocregister.com/articles/site-remains-developer-1988296-homes-commission

In an effort not to publicly badmouth...please PM me if you are seriously considering this development. I had a mixed-experience with them and definitely would love to share my experience so you can do with it as you please.

Just keep in mind that although it's close to beach, that comes at a price and always consider the stability, credibility and integrity of a builder. They are building the most important purchase you'll ever make... If you'd like more details, contact me.

For what it's worth, the salesladies were relatively nice. I think something isn't quite "right" with their corporate bosses.

Happy hunting!
 
Hmm... maybe you can slightly publicly badmouth them?

As long as you aren't lying and you are talking about your own opinion... I think it's okay to post it here. And maybe the builder might run across this and learn from their mistakes.
 
@freedomcm - Thanks... goodlink--I read those too! (on IHB)...I figured I would give a more "updated" post. While none of those issues/analysis has changed (except for the fact that they emerged from bankruptcy in March of this year).

@irvinehomeowner - I suppose I can offer some additional insight. I hope they (corporate) read this and realize that although young, they didn't "pull one past me." I know exactly what they were trying to do, and frankly their "story" did not make sense.

Before I get into my observations, I'll state it again that these are my opinions and my recollection of my experiences.

  • Sales agreement was very one-sided. My dad is retired and has been reading contracts and negotiating multi-million dollar deals for 35 years and he straight out said, they have some damn good lawyers and all the risk and liability is on the "Buyer." Sure, certain things are standard across all builders and my dad has seen other builder's agreements too, but i won't get into those details here. Lesson learned: READ every page of everything before you sign and be comfortable with the level of risk the builder is putting on you.
  • I felt that I didn't know about all the disclosures until pretty far down the road. I also understand they are salespeople and need to make me emotionally attached, but okay, all said in done, I was interested and wanted to get everything out in the open. I didn't feel that it was freely offered, but rather, "hey, if this kid doesn't ask for it, we don't have to give it to him until the day that he comes in to sign the agreement and we are legally obligated to give the disclosures." Lesson learned: Ask for preliminary title reports and ALL community and property/lot disclosures. Find out who has easements on your property and to what degree (e.g. SCE for underground electrical wires, or AT&T for telecommunications, etc..)
  • We had an issue with the front door lining up with the back door (bad feng shui). They assured me it wouldn't be a problem because other asian buyers requested it through the builder and they approved SLIGHT modifications to the back wall to accommodate them. We put in our request of having the back door shifted over and turned into a sliding door. They obliged and told us (via email) it would be $1k to do the change and we would have to put a $3k additional deposit in case we fell out of escrow and they had to convert it back. (all conditions we were okay with). a few days after, when I went in, they had a "sales meeting" that morning and corporate said nope, nevermind. we have another backup offer and they're willing to take the house as-is (usually builders don't use the whole "back up offer" bit when they have someone so close to contract). i'll get into that later... but lesson learned: get everything agreed upon in writing. If it's not in the agreement, chances are, you're not getting it no matter what they "said" to you.
  • So back to the "back up offer"...at this point, I had put a check down to hold the lot for 7 days. in addition to claiming they had a backup offer, they also told me, they were going to have to close escrow by the end of 2011. They knew this was a sticking point because i made a big deal about having a close date of Feb/March 2012 (as stated on their literature) when i first walked in. So I felt that they picked the two "deal breakers" to get me to withdraw my offer and there is no back up offer. Why? Well right now, the lot I would have gotten is currently their parking lot to their sales office. So, playing the dumb, young person I am, I asked "So if your backup offer is willing to close by the end of the year, will you have the home in time (it was the 2nd week of August when this went down)??" She said, "yes." I had to probe more..."Well, that means you're going to tear down this parking lot and start grading today and still that would only give you 3.5 months to build a 1700 sq ft home AND pass inspections...hmm..that's fast."  after an awkward silence, "yes, we can build a home in 4 months." [FYI, it's almost the end of August and they haven't moved as much as a pebble] Lesson Learned: when you encounter something shady and what sounds to be stories that don't match up and are untrue in your opinion, walk. It's not worth it and your gut is usually always right.

So that's exactly what I did; walked. Because of the lack of transparency, integrity, credibility, financial instability, ancient burial grounds, numerous registered sex offenders within a 1-2 mile radius, and protests from the wetlands conservation groups, for 800k-ish, it's just too much to take. And my gut was telling me no. So i picked up my check and walked right out. This was my experience and maybe it was isolated, but if you're going to go in there, bear in mind my lessons learned and ask the right questions. I did also always feel chastised for asking questions (esp about their agreement). So always do your due diligence and homework and be sure that this LARGE purchase is the right one for you and your family.

That is all. Any further details (not sure what else you could want), just PM me.



FWIW, I did find another place and went into contract yesterday. I'll post that, much more positive, experience later. My wrists hurt from typing that essay.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
Yeah... something about the land it's built on if I remember correctly.

Crazy... feels so bubblelicious.
Click to expand...

Well, it's being built on an ancient Indian burial ground.  See the movie Poltergeist to learn about some of the "extras" that come with these new homes.

On the bright side, Brightwater offers superior protection in the event of zombie apocalypse:
http://www.ocreader.com/?p=1275

P.S.  Doesn't living on top of a cemetary violate Asian home buying guidelines, or is that only if somebody actually died inside of the home?
 
daedalus said:
Bumping this thread.  I happened across a story about families camping out for a week just to buy a Brightwater home.  Is this the same development that was trashed on IHB?  This is the Capri release or something like that.  I recall on IHB folks lit this development up for being pricey jewels inside a large pile of poo.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/02/26/home-buyers-camp-out-to-bid-on-new-huntington-beach-homes/
Click to expand...

Here is your link to the old IHB thread on Brightwater--brings back memories.
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/forums/viewthread/1188/
 
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