Selling and Buying. (Irvine, Orange, Laguna Niguel: for sale, real estate market, foreclosures)

[SC_resident]

We own a condo in a 'not-so-good' school district in LA County. But very desirable neighbourhood.

With the children approaching school-age, we are hoping to buy into a good school district in Orange County now.

But the real estate market seems to be all stalled up...

Homes are hanging around in our area for longer times.. well they dont seem to be quite selling at this time.

Also, the areas we are looking to buy into... seem to have declining house prices... makes us worry if it is a bad time to buy ? What if the Price drops another 100k after we buy ?

Or does it really not matter as we are both selling and buying ??

We do plan to live in the New property for many years (atleast 7 ). Even if there is a dip... will we ride it out in the end ??

[martinez4]

The housing market is cyclical. This happen before the the 90's...huge drops, a lot of homes on the market and it took a few years to work itself out and came back even stronger. If you are intending to live in the house for at least 5 to 10 years, I think you will be fine.

Just one caveat.....do not "overbuy"...many people did and that is what caused a lot of the problem now. We have owned quite a few times, selling and buying up but we were always careful not to over buy no matter how much we loved the house. We sold out in summer of 04 and moved to Texas and have never looked back. But even when moving to an new area we were still cognizant not to buy more than we wanted/needed.

Just a thought....good luck:-)

[kturbe]

Hi SC

If you want specific test results for schools you can check out the California dept. of education web-site and goggle California API scores. But briefly some of the top schools in the OC are in the Irvine School District, Saddleback Valley and Capostranio and further east in Brea.

Regarding home prices, overall the pricing for the year is up in OC. The number of sales are down. This is overall, some areas are having declines which make it a great time to buy. It is a buyers market as you want to buy when it is down and if you conservativly plan based on the history (avg. 6% appreciation) you will be pleasently surprised. Plus interest rates are still historically low, but requirements have tightened so you will need to keep this in mind. Orange County generally does better then the rest of the Calif. market as the job demand, land avalibility and income is higher.

Keep in mind you can't have a sellers market and a buyers market at the same time.

Should you have any questions regarding details of an area, etc. please do not hesitate to contact me direct.

Blessings,

[vance]

I'm selling my house in Laguna Niguel if you're interested? How much are you looking to spend?

[LivingLikeAGradStudent]

If you manage to sell your place, good going. Then take your good fortune, put it somewhere calm but accessible for a few years and rent in the school district you find appealing. With the market(s) as complicated as this, there's no hurry to do anything on the buying side.

[Axiom]

I'd get the condo on the market now, and if you're really serious about selling, price it competitively from the start.

Yes, if you're buying a house you can legitimately afford as your primary residence, you plan to stay in it long term, and you're not necessarily looking at it as an investment tool (or a personal equity bank ) you can most likely ride out any market cycles without too much pain.

That said, I'm not sure I'd consider 7 years long enough given current market volatility. Since prices in OC spiraled up at unprecedented rates the past few years, it's possible that the declines could be just as significant; though that's not a given, as many folks here will argue vehemently.

As for school districts, I'd just add that even in well respected districts you really need to do your homework. There are some startling differences in the performance of individual schools within the same district.

[SC_resident]

If we don't move to a new Home, we may not give up the condo. We really need a roof to stay in at this point. I dont know if we are ready to go through the hassle of renting.

Either way, it may just become another 'Sale sign' in the neighborhood.
( I agree, we will never know until we put it up for sale. )

But I see what the general opinion is ... It is a RISKY market to buy. Will have to wait out a few more months to see what happens.

We had our eyes on Pricy 'Irvine'. But there is an increasing amount of inventory in Irvine with slowly declining prices.

Probably my best bet is to start sifting out Private schools in the area for now.

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by SC_resident

)But I see what the general opinion is ... It is a RISKY market to buy. Will have to wait out a few more months to see what happens. .

Remember: RISK=OPPORTUNITY

[killer2021]

I'd wait until the wave of foreclosures and liquidity issues are resolved. The RE market has seen nice gains in the last 7-8 years and most people are priced out. Most markets will continue to see declines until the buyers come back. The only reason we saw such gains was because of easy financing and unrealistically low mortgage payments. Now the bills are comming due and most can't pay. So they foreclose which is causing major pressure on the markets since now it is very difficult to get a loan and if people can't get loans they cannot buy. That is just the facts.

http://www.bubbleinfo.com/storage/ivy%20arm%20reset%20schedule.png (broken link)

I would strongly suggest you go read some blogs on OC housing and see what those bloggers are saying. They spend hours looking at the numbers and reading articles on the subject.

This is a good one:
Irvine Housing Blog

[OutOfSoCal]

is it possible to leverage the equity of the condo for the down payment on the new house and still rent the condo for the payment on the condo? That would be your bets resolution. You buy what you want and continue to build equity in the condo, of course the rent covers that form you. When the market corrects you can sell and cash out. You may find you don't want to sell and keep it for retirement later in life.

If not as long as you stay in the new property for more than 6 years you will be fine. I read somewhere in the past you always made a profit if you stayed at least 6 years, regardless of what price you bought at. Sounds like a rate cut coming on the 18th, that will help the market a bit