For those of you who sold their Irvine home between 2007 - 2009

[panda]

For those of you who sold their Irvine homes between 2007 - 2009 (IHO, Trojan, IPO etc.) hoping to buy back a lower price point. Any regrets at this point for selling when you did? Can you get more for your home if you were to sell today? I believe that 99% of us on IHB back in 2007 thought that prices would correct by 40% to $421,000 due to fundamentals, but most of us underestimated the purchasing power of the Chinese and Koreans buyers.

The conclusion is that 99% of the so called IHB experts were all wrong in predicting where Irvine home prices would end up. You know who was correct ??... there was a very nice Irvine REMAX agent named Linda Spears whom I met in 2007 who told me that home prices in Irvine will correct 15-20% at the most from the peak while the rest of OC would correct more and I laughed at her. She would of been also laughed at by all the so called experts from IHB. Today, she couldn't have been more right... and the so called IHB experts couldn't have been more wrong.



 

 

[stuffit]

For those of you who sold their Irvine homes between 2007 - 2009 (IHO, Trojan, IPO etc.) hoping to buy back a lower price point. Any regrets at this point for selling when you did? Can you get more for your home if you were to sell today? I believe that 99% of us on IHB back in 2007 thought that prices would correct by 40% to $421,000 due to fundamentals, but most of us underestimated the purchasing power of the Chinese and Koreans buyers.

The conclusion is that 99% of the so called IHB experts were all wrong in predicting where Irvine home prices would end up. You know who was correct ??... there was a very nice Irvine REMAX agent named Linda Spears whom I met in 2007 who told me that home prices in Irvine will correct 15-20% at the most from the peak while the rest of OC would correct more and I laughed at her. She would of been also laughed at by all the so called experts from IHB. Today, she couldn't have been more right... and the so called IHB experts couldn't have been more wrong.

No regrets - sold Jan 2007 and I can now buy for 15-20% less

 

[ajw522]

No regrets, but it's amazing how high the 2010 WB collection prices are.  I sold in July '08, and yet, I purchased for more than what I sold for.  But, I sold my house which had an Irvine address but was Tustin school district, so that is a contributing factor to the lower selling price. (West Irvine). 

 

[usctrojancpa]

No regrets at all because that provided me most of my liquidity which I've been able to leverage in my day trading.  Wish I would have sold in 2007 because I would have walked away with $100k+ more cash.  The same unit condo today can be bought for 5-10% less than what I sold my condo for.  Besides, I dumped my $3,400/mo payment.

 

[irvinehomeowner]

We have some but we really can't blame anyone because all the signs pointed to a sizeable crash.

I remember when the Dow first dropped Oct 08 and I think we just went into escrow to sell and were worried because we were told our buyer was funding some of their down with 401k money. We hoped they wouldn't fall out and they actually had to switch lenders and at the last minute, were able to secure a loan and close.

Then when the next drop hit in March, we were so glad to be out of that house but worried about our buyer and if they would end up being upside down (which we were afraid of).

A year and half later, prices have actually gone up and if we would have held on we could have either a) refinanced into a smaller paymernt or b) sold now and not lose as much of our original down. But there was no way to predict that... especially when past cycles have usually lasted about 7 years and we didn't want to be caught in a home where the monthly keeps us from saving very much and we had problem with the house (mostly street noise).

Sometimes we think we should have stayed because we can't find a reasonably priced 3CWG (as the frustration is seen in some of my posts) but at least this ordeal has taught us quite a bit about not settling for certain things (we will never live off a main road again), the pros and cons of renting and what is really important to us when it comes to a home.

I doubt we will ever want to put 20% down again which is why it's even more important we can find a home that costs less or the same as our 80% mortgage from the home we sold in '08. Losing that much money just sours you on doing it again.

On the plus, we don't worry about financials as much. We are saving more and if it doesn't go into a home, at least our kids have their educational future set for the next XX years. I'm just glad we decided to turn our former home into a rental just in case something like this happened and we needed to move back. It's funny, but some of our regrets are probably aimed at not buying a nicer home in a better location when we bought this one in the late 90s... but again... without a hot tub time machine... we're stuck with the choices we make.

It's just a bit upsetting because I know that there are people like us who took the responsible way out, selling (at a loss for some) and as a side effect taxpayers wouldn't have our burden if we were to foreclose in the future. Sometimes we wonder if we would have held and if it got as bad as we thought it would, we could always just took the "immoral" way out and just went through one of those "Lengthy Foreclosure Free Rent Can Kicking" programs... but our conscience just couldn't let us do it. So while we realized a huge loss, which we can't deduct on our taxes... the "lucky" others are just living rent-free and are probably in a better position to buy since they have more cash. Bah.

It's not over yet, I still think 2013 is going to be pivotal in all this... I just wish TIC, the Fed and Arnold would stop messing with the benchmarks.