Lake Forest called O.C.’s hottest housing market

October 14th, 2008, 4:20 am · 36 Comments · posted by Jon Lansner

Lake Forest

The number crunchers at Real Estate Economics in Irvine have their third-quarter local housing market rankings out. The results parallel what we’ve been reporting: Strength has moved inland!

Here’s the REE rankings — based on a host of data in 12 slice of our orange — for the third quarter and how they same dozen slices did in quarter #2 …

Lake Forest/Foothill Ranch (10)
Westminster/Garden Grove/Stanton/Los Al/Buena Pk/Cypress (3)
Huntington Beach/Seal Beach (1)
Orange/Anaheim/Villa Park (6)
Fountain Valley/Santa Ana/Costa Mesa (4)
Brea/Fullerton/Placentia/Yorba Linda/La Habra (7)
Laguna Niguel/Dana Point/South Laguna (5)
Newport Beach/Corona Del Mar/Laguna Beach (8)
Laguna Hills/Aliso Viejo (12)
San Juan Capistrano/San Clemente (9)
Mission Viejo/Rancho Santa Margarita/Coto De Caza/Trabuco Canyon (11)
Irvine/Tustin (2)

REE says of the winner, which jumped from 10th place …

This area benefits from spill-over demand from Irvine and more expensive areas of Central Orange County due to its close proximity to a broad and varied employment base in Irvine, Lake Forest and Foothill Ranch. Among the lowest priced and most affordable, this submarket offers stronger values relative to most other submarkets. Its high ranking is attributed to a 28% annual decrease in its average value ratio to $284 per square foot (the second largest drop in the county), driving resale volume up a phenomenal 184% over last year, for the highest increase in the county. Despite the high ranking, the Lake Forest/Foothill Ranch submarket is one of the lowest volume housing markets capturing just 3.7% of the county resales. As such, this tends to cause greater fluctuations from smaller performance shifts.

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Dina says:

October 14, 2008 at 7 am

Does that mean the most sales per 100 homes? Most in escrow? Cheapest prices? Host data of what? More information please?

NationalBubble.com says:

There are always some knife catchers out there.
This video will give you an idea of how bad things are going to get in California.

Helen Highwater says:

October 14, 2008 at 8 am

Our New Multinational Globalist Anthem

If you want it, here it is come and get it
Mmmm, make your mind up fast
If you want it, anytime I can give it
But you better hurry cause it may not last

Did I hear you say that there must be a catch
Will you walk away from a fool and his money
If you want it, here it is come and get it
But you better hurry cause it’s going fast

If you want it, here it is come and get it,
Mmmm, make your mind up fast
If you want it, anytime I can give it
But you better hurry cause it may not last

Did I hear you say that there must be a catch
Will you walk away from a fool and his money

Sonny, if you want it, here it is come and get it
But you better hurry cause it’s going fast
You’d better hurry cause it’s going fast
Fool and his money

Sonny, if you want it, here it is come and get it
But you better hurry cause it’s going fast
You’d better hurry cause it’s going fast
You’d better hurry cause it’s going fast

This is interesting from Housing Predictor
http://www.housingpredictor.com/bottoms.html

VoiceofReason says:

Helen,
You’re setting yourself up for some real bad finger pointing. What are you , some kind of magic statistian? There will be no recovery talk here, no matter what!!!!

rants says:

helen high bs er / thoughtful/ provider/truthiness/mulliphony-
spare us your housingpredictor crap- those people are more
clueless than you are- if someone couldnt see that this was
a huge bubble YEARS AGO- why the hell would you listen to them
now after its been PROVEN beyond a doubt– its the equivalent
of gary watts coming on here with more predictions– he’d get laughed
off the blog

Jimmy2 says:

Usually, I disagree with the doom and gloom crowd. However, in this case, I am negative on Lake Forest. Inland real estate may be weak for a while. If you can’t get in a beach location at a decent price, don’t get in at all. This is a long held theory that held in this real estate cycle, as always.

pdu says:

October 14, 2008 at 9 am

Jimmy,
One can buy a home in LF for less than the drop in asking prices on many CdM homes.
Regardless of your blindness, many people have lost equity in the beach areas.
Good luck, but don’t expect the impossible - beach area properties not being impacted by the rest of the marketplace difficulties.

jimmy2 says I usually disagree with the doom and gloom crowd-

great dimmy that assures me I’m right in this debate– thanks for
re-confirming it

jimmy2 aka my granmas trustfund baby- dude if you do
in fact live on the beach and you supposedly bought in
the ninties why the hell do you even waste time on this
blog? what the hell is your friggin point- why do you care
what the bears think? youre already set for life right?
why are you trying to convince the rest of the world that the beach
is impenetrable to the deflation thats hitting everywhere else on planet earth? go watch wheel of fortune with granma

Good rant, rants:)

tyler durden says:

WHO CARES, Lake Forest sucks. It’s old, dirty and a bunch of white trash, mexicans, and hoodlums reside there.

Housing Market Conditions for Lake Forest appear to be trending upwards.
http://www.altosresearch.com/research/CA/LAKE+FOREST

The Money Pit says:

October 14, 2008 at 10 am

And the beat goes on. But wait, the median is only at 437K, we still have a long way to go to hit that bottom at 350K.

And 350K, that is still gonna be twice the real value of this crap out there. Have you seen most of the homes in OC, garbage, just garbage.

150Kis fair value. The real joke was thinking that a 200K home was worth a million bucks. That was the insanity of the RE bubble.

Steve says:

Actually, LF have been great for me. I bought 2 homes in LF
in 94 & 95 for around 200K each then sold one of them in 2003
for 225K profit and the other one in 2004 for 280K profit. Now I am in
market again, planning to buy 2-3 this time around. I guess there
are great value homes in LF right now.

honky says:

rant is on steroid today.

omg, just when we thought there was a little bit of light at the end of tunnel, mortgage rates are going back up. 30 yr fixed is back up to 6.23% and going higher. Jumbo loans are at 7.58% Ouch!!! What a mess!!
This will put additional pressure on the housing market. Another leg down for real estate is “in the bag”. I feel sorry for the people who are trying to sell now. Horrible position to be in.

NATIONAL OVERNIGHT AVERAGES TODAY +/- LAST WEEK
30 yr fixed mtg 6.23% 5.80%
15 yr fixed mtg 5.90% 5.52%
5/1 ARM 5.95% 5.82%
30 yr fixed jumbo mtg 7.58% 7.15%
5/1 jumbo ARM 6.19% 6.15%

hwood says:

TO LIAR LOAN BUY FXP
I BOUGHT FXP AT 84.50 STILL TIME TO BUY
BUY IT NOW

YES SIR RANTWOOD.
LIAR LOAN’S BROTHER.

HEY HONKY

IF U HAD ANY MONEY U WOULD FOLLOW AND BUY BUT SINCE U ARE A MULLIGANHEAD U WONT
BUT IF U WANNA TASTE OF THE GOOD LIFE U SHOULD BUY
BUT U ARE A MORON SO NO WORRIES I UNDERSTAND

Jenifer Weigand says:

October 14, 2008 at 11 am

Tyler Burden,
Is that kind of nasty post really necessary? Be careful or people will conclude that you are more declasse than the innocent people you are bashing.

LeeLee says:

Tyler,
that’s really only the area around Rockfield. Most of LF is nice.

Mulliganville says:

October 14, 2008 at 12 pm

rants, at least watts puts his face and his name where his mouth is. He admitted he got it wrong. You sir (used lightly), continue to “thrust your chest out” through your computer.

Reason says:

Tyler and LeeLee,
Anywhere EAST of Jeronimo is great. The areas of El Toro and Muirlands, as well as along Rockfield, might as well be TJ.

Liar Loan says:

October 14, 2008 at 1 pm

HWOOD-

Your call on MS worked out quite well. It jumped about 200% in 2 days.

Why are you expecting FXP to pop?

James says:

LF isn’t bad, but right next door is a big step up (much cleaner, more landscaping, etc) Mission Viejo. MV & LF have always ranked well with schools. I see both of those improving in home sales and values, with Mission Viejo having the better home values. I’d love to live there - right now I’m in Fountain Valley where it’s all flat and gray and we are fighting all the gang activity from Huntington Beach.

Crystal Balls says:

Money Pit are you insane? At 150K, a family earning 30K a year could afford a Lake Forest Home. (I think the median income is above 80K) You can’t build a house in Orange County for that price, to say nothing of the cost of the land. I know you want to afford that beautiful beach house on your 50K salary, but it isn’t going to happen.

bpsqwerty says:

October 14, 2008 at 2 pm

define “hottest”

October 14, 2008 at 4 pm

James,

Nat Bubbs does not want to live in MV…it is boring, boring, boring. Like running nationalbubble.com. Does anyone EVER comment on that site? Posting vids and links from cnbc is, well, um, BORING.

But he seems to give NB its reputation…weekly right here on these pages.

Greg in OC says:

October 14, 2008 at 5 pm

What part of FV is fighting gang activity. I’ve lived in FV almost my whole life and would love to purchase, namely in the Green Valley area (south of Mile Square).

LIAR LOAN
JUST DO WHAT I SAY DONT ASK QUESTIONS
JUST MAKE MONEY AND ALOT OF IT
DO THE TRADES THAT I SAY U WILL BE A HAPPY CAMPER
THAN U CAN HAVE MULLIGAN HEAD MOW UR LAWN…..LOLLL

Tiki says:

October 14, 2008 at 6 pm

Lake Forest is a terrific community with primarily well-educated families. The schools are all blue ribbon or distinguished schools except for one off of El Toro. It is one of the best kept secrets as most of the community has Lake privelages and Lake Forest was named one of the safest cities in the country (in the top 10 with MV and Irvine) so whomever mentioned white trash and mexicans in Lake Forest should get his/her facts straight. It’s a great place to live.

liar– FXP is an ultra short china eft- the logic is simple
when our market goes down theirs will follow- today
the dow went down so the bet is chinas markets will go down
as well- you could do the same with EFU- which shorts
europe or EWV which shorts japan-

i did your trades too hwood…thx. I will mow your lawn if you pay enough.

doublechin says:

October 14, 2008 at 8 pm

Lake Forest is hot and Hawaiian Gardens is just like Hawaii!

Delores says:

October 19, 2008 at 10 pm

Greg,

I live near the FV / Santa Ana border (Edinger / Newhope / Harbor). The walls along Edinger are graffitt’d at least once a month. Also, I’ve been told that there are gang “problems” at Los Amigos High School. However, it’s still Fountain Valley, so I’m not sure what standard such “problems” are measured against. Even though the homes are well maintained and the neighborhoods look nice, if you stay away from Edinger / Newhope / Harbor, you’re better off.

PPP says:

November 2, 2008 at 10 pm

We lived in Dana Point (Monarch Beach area) moved south OC inland where the weather is great and the days are sunny. We do not miss living by the beach and having many days of gloomy weather.

So, Jimmy2 not everyone wants to live by the beach, even if they could afford to. Inland OC has the best of two worlds-the sun and the beach in 5 to 10 minutes.

Slice	Price	Ch.	Sold	Ch.
House	$500,000	+18%	1,833	+11%
Condo	$290,000	+7%	881	+22%
New	$617,500	+24%	171	-17%
All OC	$435,000	+10%	2,885	+12%

Orange County Register