Hindsight Bubble Regrets

irvinehomeowner

irvinehomeowner

Well-known member
Now that we can see how everything is shaking out, would you have done thing differently in 2004-2008?

Would you have sold your home at peak?

Would you still have bought your home if you bought at peak?

If you sold/left your home during/after peak, would have stayed in it?

For us, I think we would not have minded purchasing near peak had we bought in the right location. Especially now with interest rates so low, we could have refinanced and made our monthly much lower. Prices are still inflated in the desired areas where we want to live but where before we were impatient, I think we can wait.

I feel anyone who bought in the mid 2000s, if you have been able to refinance or can handle your payments and you bought your home to live in.... you should be okay. Just don't expect to have some huge appreciation any time soon.

If I did have a hot tub time machine... I probably would have bought in QH in 2004/05... no 3CWG but it turns out that location does rule.
 
LAtoOC said:
Curious - Why do you think that location rules?
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Well... I didn't really mean "that location" in regards to QH rules (because opinions differ) but that "location" is more important than other stuff (I know it's an old adage but we've compromised with other considerations like price, newness, features etc).

In our case... we've finally decided that while home features and a low price are nice, in the end, where you live, even within a certain city or tract is more important.

Especially now, where if you are going to buy you could be staying longer than the normal 6-7 years so you need to keep in mind things like noise, location on the street, what schools service your area, proximity to work etc etc. It's easy to change interior features, not so easy to go from interior lot to corner lot... or noisy street noise to quiet view location.

We used to do a trade-off on price and features for location but are not so flexible on that anymore. A 3-car wide garage used to be on the top of my list, now I can settle for a 2-car garage if the area is quiet or if it has a view.

As for QH in particular, it's central to where we work/play/etc. It's accessible to both our sides of the family, newer and we like the elevation. Back then, I wasn't a fan of QH, I thought it was a bit secluded, didn't like that it only had 2 ways to get in (was worried about traffic congestion) and wasn't really interested in a "view". But after renting there for a while and touring homes that had the view lots, I realized that was something I could enjoy more than having a 3-car wide driveway, a larger lot and extra storage... especially with the street noise. And yes, I do realize there is some 405 noise even in the higher areas of QH but that's nothing compared to being right next to the freeway, main road or train tracks.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
LAtoOC said:
Curious - Why do you think that location rules?
Click to expand...
We used to do a trade-off on price and features for location but are not so flexible on that anymore. A 3-car wide garage used to be on the top of my list, now I can settle for a 2-car garage if the area is quiet or if it has a view.
Click to expand...

It is funny after reading your post post how screwed up RE is in Irvine. The TIC monopoly has pumped out so many postage stamp lot homes with high prices that we should feel *lucky* to find a newer home that has a driveway, yard, in a quiet location and does not cost us an arm & a leg. In a majority of the country that would be the norm. Affordability has improved but still has a ways to go.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
But after renting there for a while and touring homes that had the view lots, I realized that was something I could enjoy more than having a 3-car wide driveway, a larger lot and extra storage... especially with the street noise.
Click to expand...

Who are you, and what have you done with IHO?
 
@iacrenter:

I agree with you... the funny thing is when stuff was affordable, we were more picky about features and price when we should have been more picky about location. Now that things are so expensive... that "luxury" of pickyness isn't even available.

And seeing how low interest rates are and how undesireable (to us) the new products are, it would have behooved us to not worry so much about $50k-100k in price to get a quiet location.

But this IS hindsight, QH wasn't even on my radar then although I could also blame that on the fact I didn't want to pay the "new home tax" of high Mello Roos and higher HOA.

Would any of you guys do anything different back then or am I the only one who likes to play coulda-shoulda-woulda?
 
IrvineRealtor said:
Who are you, and what have you done with IHO?
Click to expand...
Living in a 2-car garage home for the last several years has changed me. The memory of 3-car wide goodness is fading... I've passed that on to Pat Star.

But I find it very easy to fall off the wagon... whenever I see a well-priced 3CWG outside of Irvine... it makes me call my realtor. :D
 
we play the coulda-shoulda-woulda but generally speaking, i try not to be a regrets kind of person.  we got married in 2003 and had tremendous pressure from family and friends to buy.  i was only 23 and prices didnt make sense to me in 2003.  imagine how little the made sense at the peak :)

we looked closely at QH in 2004, albeit townhomes and not SFRs and if i could do it all over again, i probably would have purchased one of those and it could have been a nice rental now and still be more than what we paid for it.  but realistically, not buying allowed us to experience orange, mission viejo, irvine, and santa monica.  yes we moved every 2 years but its been fun and owning probably wouldnt have let us do that.

now we are past the "starter" home stage and only looking for that final house
 
i bought in early 03 and sold in the summer of 06...

in 03 i could have bought a new in fullerton townhome (ameriage heights) for 300k but i wanted to stay within my 275k budget (i had 70k saved up so the dp wouldn't have been a problem), instead, i got a condo in placentia... a city "almost as good", schools that were slightly below the two very good hs in fullerton and cheaper.  i ended up buying a condo in placentia for 240k,  but in those three + years, i (and later we) lived there, we drove across the 57 to hang out in fullerton all the time.  By the time we sold our condo in placentia the townhomes in ameriage heights were going for about 100k more.

that is one of the reasons why we decided on buying new, and in irvine over resale in aliso this time, even though aliso was "just as nice", schools are almost as good and homes were a lot cheaper, we didn't want to do what we did before (not so much for the appreciation part... but because we knew we would be doing the same thing and driving out to irvine to do stuff or visit family... )
 
Looking back My only regret is that i didn't buy the biggest place i could in 2002 or 2003 with 0 down when
I was getting million chances to do so, because i was waiting to save up 20%.


irvinehomeowner said:
Now that we can see how everything is shaking out, would you have done thing differently in 2004-2008?

Would you have sold your home at peak?

Would you still have bought your home if you bought at peak?

If you sold/left your home during/after peak, would have stayed in it?

For us, I think we would not have minded purchasing near peak had we bought in the right location. Especially now with interest rates so low, we could have refinanced and made our monthly much lower. Prices are still inflated in the desired areas where we want to live but where before we were impatient, I think we can wait.

I feel anyone who bought in the mid 2000s, if you have been able to refinance or can handle your payments and you bought your home to live in.... you should be okay. Just don't expect to have some huge appreciation any time soon.

If I did have a hot tub time machine... I probably would have bought in QH in 2004/05... no 3CWG but it turns out that location does rule.
Click to expand...
 
Hindsight is always 20:20.

For us, we fell out of escrow (seller did not agree to change $10K windows) from South County SFR in 2006 - now its $150K less. So, thats good.

Now, Interest rates are making the houses a little affordable, not the prices. Back then, both (prices and rates) were awfully high (for us).
 
almost sold home at peak...  but people kept telling us, DONT.. home is where you live...  so we didnt (ouch).. but who cares. 

at the same time, i wished i had upsized... thankfully we didnt...  SO  we ended up somewhere in the middle with a decent chunk of equity in our home (bought 2001). 

Now, I've decided I am only going to move ONE MORE TIME in my life.... this next house is it.    I hate moving, I hate selling, I just want to be home.    Looked at QH back then, but I couldnt afford the homes...  so be it.    I look at QH today....  I STILL cant afford it...  so I lie in wait, hoping the Irvine housing Gods will drop a new(er) construction, 2500 sq ft, detached SFR w/ driveway on my lap for $750 ($781 will do)...     

 
waitin4ever said:
Looking back My only regret is that i didn't buy the biggest place i could in 2002 or 2003 with 0 down when
I was getting million chances to do so, because i was waiting to save up 20%.


irvinehomeowner said:
Now that we can see how everything is shaking out, would you have done thing differently in 2004-2008?

Would you have sold your home at peak?

Would you still have bought your home if you bought at peak?

If you sold/left your home during/after peak, would have stayed in it?

For us, I think we would not have minded purchasing near peak had we bought in the right location. Especially now with interest rates so low, we could have refinanced and made our monthly much lower. Prices are still inflated in the desired areas where we want to live but where before we were impatient, I think we can wait.

I feel anyone who bought in the mid 2000s, if you have been able to refinance or can handle your payments and you bought your home to live in.... you should be okay. Just don't expect to have some huge appreciation any time soon.

If I did have a hot tub time machine... I probably would have bought in QH in 2004/05... no 3CWG but it turns out that location does rule.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

That is my regret also.  I should have bought properties and flipped them instead of sitting on my big equity pile (bought first home in Irvine early 2000) and been a good little boy paying down my loan and not buying any toys.  But timing was key in this market. 
I had friends do the flip-o-rama and some made it out of the game with big $$$ in the bank and a nice big home as their primary.  The flip side is others I know who got caught at the bubble bust with properties in tow and chased the market down.  They lost all their 'flip/rental' properties to the bank, have a little cash left and are trying to work out a loan mod on the home they live in.
 
With the recent upshot in prices... I guess hindsight says we should have lived with the road noise until now and then sold for... PROFIT.
 
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