Bressi Ranch in retreat

[Bugs]

And they said it wouldn’t happen in Carlsbad. Tsk tsk.

I’ve been looking through some of the recent sales at Bressi Ranch and comparing the sale prices by date. I do this by running the assessor parcel numbers and then sorting the lists by recording date, in reverse chronological order. This results in the sales presented in the order they closed starting with the most recent sales first. If you do it this way you can clearly see when each of the releases sold because there will be a cluster of closings jammed in during a 3-week span and then nothing for a month.

I’m sure that most of you will be not at all surprised when I tell you that the current prices are lower than the sales from a year ago. Depending on the price ranges, the lower end homes are on average selling for about $40,000 or so less than they were last year, and the upper end homes are off by $80,000 and possibly more.

Now it’s kinda tricky to compare prices like this because of the wide range of options/upgrades the sales staff has been packing onto the older sales; and there are also some site premiums for the “view” sites (and I use that term with toungue in cheek) that would have sold earlier. Another complication in this type of analysis is that Lennar switched over to “all inclusive” pricing that included a lot of features that were formerly packed on at substantial costs as options and upgrades.

Not very precise, but the trend is still pretty obvious if you look at it this way. It’s sobering to think of the buyers from a year ago already being upside down already even if they didn’t make any landscaping improvements in the interim. Think about it – how much would it suck to lose $80,000 in a year?

[masayako]

My friends (husband and wife) bought their new SDH a@ Carmel Valley last year(Oct). With upgrades and stuff cost them a total of $890,000. This year, similar unit with the included upgrades sell for $799,000 as I was told. Losing $91,000 in 8 months. How about that?!

[novice1027]

I looked at the homes in Bressi Ranch back in January. It was my first experience looking at new homes, so hence the stupidity in giving out my phone number, but I have received 2 phone calls in the last 3 days, with “very exciting offers, but hurry, because they are going fast!”
HAHAHA!

[ocrenter]

I think Lennar will be able to escape Bressi just fine. They are willing to cut the prices and they are far enough along with the project that I think they may make the November exit deadline they set for themselves.

The homeowners? be prepared to stay there for at least 10 years. Hopefully they will find small aircrafts fun to watch and listen too. Otherwise, it really isn’t a bad place to live.

[powayseller]

Was Lennar’s shoddy construction practices unearthed in Florida, with hundreds of building code violations per home, also prevalent in CA? How will the lawsuits and rebuilding of thousands of homes in FL, affect their bottom line? Has anyone followed Calculated Risk and Mike Morgan’s stories of Lennar? I’m wondering if Bressi was built better than their FL subdivisions. It seems like Lennar has shady management.

[balasr]

According to Realtor-Jim, at least one of the lower priced sales was the one with the “view”. See:

http://www.bubbleinfo.com/journal/2006/6/28/bressi-boondoogle.html
http://www.bubbleinfo.com/journal/2006/6/29/bressi-boondoogle-part-2.html

[Bugs]

The residential areas of Bressi Ranch are situated on a “mesa” created by a canyon that runs north-south down Alicante Road to the west, and another canyon that runs east-west along Poinsettia to the south. There is a natural drainage course or creek that parallels the west side of Alicante and wraps east to parallel the south side of Poinsettia. Because of the topography and the city’s desire to maintain the drainage course/creek, the Alicante portion of the creek will be a public park and Poinsettia portion will be a 200 yard wide open space easement.

What is not addressed by “view amenity” permiums being paid by those buyers is that the area west of the Alicante canyon and east of El Camino Real is being developed with 300,000 SqFt of office and industrial buildings; and the downslope area on the south side of the mesa but north of Poinsettia is already being graded for another residential subdivision featuring smaller homes.

The views from inside the homes on the west side of Bressi Ranch will be limited to industrial buildings along El Camino Real because of the setbacks of the structures from the edge of the terraced lots; and the views on the south side of the project will be limited to the narrow open space easement on the south side of Poinsettia. Everything else east of Alicante and north of Poinsettia will be built out with homes. There are a few homes along Keeneland that will have a diagonal view from almost 1/4 mile of the northern tip of the La Costa golf course, but on the bottom floor of the house you have to be standing and looking through the slats in the metal fencing to see it, and you wouldn’t recognize it if you weren’t looking for it – it ain’t much.

I don’t think it’s an accident that the development of the industrial lots didn’t start until after almost all of the Alicante canyon view homesites had already been sold. Or that the upper mesa homes were built out prior to the lower slopes. This would be a little different if the project only included residential projects and the industrial projects were offsite on an adjacent parcel – then the developers could claim they didn’t know and had no control on what was happening on the other parcels. This development was planned this way from the start and the master developer has control over both parts. In my personal opinion the developers have clearly manipulated the development to max the pricing on the homes knowing that they wouldn’t have gotten that pricing if the industrial buildings had been built first.

I truly wonder how many of those buyers realized what they were getting for their money.

All this really calls into question the resale value of these view amenities a couple years down the line. $150,000 is a lot of money for the folks on the west side of Alverton to have paid to look at industrial buildings. As an example, I know of examples of older homes in other areas of Carlsbad with comparable price ranges where such limited “open” views might be worth around $20,000.

[Carlsbadliving]

Bugs,
A good chunk of the industrial development along El Camino Real actually is a different development. It’s part of the La Costa Greens project. However, you’re right it’s probably not an accident that the residential within Bressi was built first. However, you still have to put the blame on the homebuyer. If I’m about to drop $800,000 on a home next to some vacant land you’d bet I’d be finding out what was going there. It’s all public information. And actually the new La Costa Greens industrial lots will be right in front of the residential estate lots within Bressi.

[novice1027]

That’s interesting. That was one of the things I told my husband when we were looking at those homes, was I would never buy a house next to an empty lot without knowing what would be there in the years to come.
I keep learning more everyday about this real estate world.
Thanks.

[powayseller]

I also inquire about the vacant lots before purchasing. When we bought our last property, in rural Poway (but with the Lakeside zip code hahaha), we were surrounded with open space. I checked it out. I found out about the County’s zoning plan, and that my area was zoned for minimum 4 acre parcels. I was surrounded by preserves. So far, so good.

I found out the view to my west was an open space preserve. The vacant parcels around me could be built out, and they were, with one house every 4-6 acres. I found out I was in the unincorporated area of the County, with no fire department having jurisdiction. Schools are Poway, post office is Lakeside, fire service from the CA station in Ramona, and police service from whoever could get there first.

At the time, I didn’t know that just a few years prior, Scripps Poway Parkway was completed to go to my main cross street, Highway 67, and that Highway 67 was widened. I thought those roads had been there forever. I also didn’t know that the county has contemplated continuing Scripps Poway Parkway through my neighborhood, to continue to Barona Mesa. I didn’t know that a few years before my purchase, the residents defeated an offroad vehicle park just 1/2 mile to the south. If built, the noise would have been bothersome.

I didn’t know that the County did not maintain brush control, had inadequate fire protection and an underfunded fire department.

So even if you check out your property, I think you can still miss lots of things.

In the Bressi Ranch case, the homeowners could check the zoning, and hope it is not industrial. If it is residential, they would need to find out if the city has a history of changing residential to other uses.

Anytime you have a view of vacant land, you take a chance of losing that view, unless that land is a Preserve.

[Carlsbadliving]

In the case of Bressi Ranch, it’s a pretty quick and easy investigation. All you have to do is look at the Master Plan and you’d find out all the land uses. No secrets there. But I’m sure most of the people had no idea. They had to hurry and get into the market. No time to mess around.

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