Talk of a cooler housing market didn’t slow seven homebuilders at Irvine’s newest development.
Buyers snapped up 102 homes at the first phase of The Irvine Company’s Woodbury development. Homes of many types were sold, with prices from about $400,000 to more than $1 million.
More homes are set to go up for sale in coming months. Woodbury, near Jeffrey Road and Irvine Boulevard, is set to include 4,270 houses, condominiums and apartments.
A buildup of unsold homes in Orange County and slower sales in recent months suggest the market has peaked for now. But there still is an imbalance between houses (too few) and jobs (too many), according to Joe Davis, president of Irvine Co.’s land planning arm.
“We had more than 10,000 people attend that weekend,” Davis said, referring to last month when model homes opened to the public and sales began.
The seven Woodbury builders are: Irvine’s Standard Pacific Corp., Miami’s Lennar Corp., Newport Beach’s William Lyon Homes Inc., Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Pulte Homes Inc., Del Mar-based Brookfield Homes Corp., Irvine’s California Pacific Homes Inc., and John Laing Homes, part of Newport Beach’s WL Homes LLC.
Woodbury is part of an even bigger development,the Irvine Co.’s massive Northern Sphere, one of the largest housing developments left in OC. It could include more than 12,000 homes and apartments as well as businesses north of the former El Toro Marine base.
OC’s other major landholder, Mission Viejo-based Rancho Mission Viejo LLC, is pursuing a sweeping development along the county’s southern foothills. The developer plans 14,000 homes and 5 million square feet of shops and offices on 23,000 acres.
Residential developers are going ahead with big projects even as housing data shows the market has slowed.
In October, sales fell 25% to 3,508 houses and condominiums, versus a year earlier, according to La Jolla-based market tracker DataQuick Information Systems. Sales began slowing in early summer.
Still, the county’s median home price was up 21% in October to $532,000, though slightly off a peak earlier this year, according to DataQuick.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the slowdown is impacting homebuilders more in select markets. New homes are staying on the market longer and some builders are offering special deals in South County, sources said.
Builders in popular, more central cities, such as Irvine and Tustin, still are seeing strong demand for the most part, sources said.
On Woodbury’s opening weekend, Standard Pacific sold 10 homes for more than $1 million each at its Mille Fleurs community, according to Todd Palmaer, the homebuilder’s OC division president.
Standard Pacific expected to sell out its next phase, which was scheduled to go on the market last weekend, Palmaer said. The company has a list of several hundred people interested in the homes, he said.
Sales were brisk at all price ranges, according to the Irvine Co.
Plans for Woodbury also call for 400,000 square feet of shops and restaurants and 13 neighborhood parks.
Woodbury is planned around a 30-acre central park and community center, dubbed The Commons. It’s set to have tennis and basketball courts, an elementary school and other perks.
A large section of Irvine’s planned Jeffrey open space spine,a swath of greenery stretching along Jeffrey Road,is set to border Woodbury.
Cities bordering the former El Toro Marine base are embracing home construction near the base, now that there is virtually no chance it will become a commercial airport.
Irvine has accepted plans for homes on part of Northern Sphere previously in military flight paths,as well as on the base itself.
Lake Forest, for one, is working with local property owners to allow for 5,700 homes near the base.
