Lofts selling at 42% discount
September 30th, 2010
By Jeff Collins
The Orange County Register
A developer is selling lofts near the Santa Ana Artists Village for a fraction of what similar lofts fetched at the height of the housing boom.
During the boom, units in the neighboring Artists Walk Lofts sold for more than $600,000.
The Santa Ana Lofts, now under construction by newly formed City Ventures, will sell from the low $300,000’s to $390,000, the developer said.
Why so cheap?
Prices on work-live housing units built nearby have dropped as much as 42%.
“They’re the prices they should be going for today,” said real estate agent Stefanie Meurer, who owned one of the Artist Walk units and sold about a dozen more. “If you put 20% down, you have a $1,500 payment. And if you can put a business in there, it will really make sense.”
For example, Meurer sold her unit at 215 N. Main in 2005 for $635,000. Today, it’s listed as a short sale for $370,000, or 42% less.
Two other units in the complex are selling for $249,000 and $275,000, or at least 12% less than the original owners paid six or seven years ago.
“That’s a good buy, too,” Meurer said. “The people who are getting in now are getting in at the right price.”
City Ventures now is building 16 units at the corner of North Sycamore and West Third streets, offering live-work spaces with 10- or 12-foot-high ceilings, exposed ducts, banks of windows and an open floor plan. Units range from just over 1,400 square feet to 2,400 square feet.
The biggest unit has 40 windows on its upper level, three stories up, with views of the Artist Village and the Ronald Reagan Federal Building.
“Look at all the lighting,” said John Koziara, sales manager for the new Santa Ana Lofts project. “It’s a big, beautiful plan with a nice size balcony.”
Orange County Loft Guide - OC Loft Guide
