IRVINE
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Clipboards in hand, dozens of families volunteered to visit homes built by a variety of homebuilders on The Irvine Ranch in the mid-2000s and rated every aspect of each room.
In the end, what those clipboards contained was an “extremely detailed, treasure trove of data,” Young said.
Researchers found that today’s homebuyers are interested in more open entertainment areas, flexible rooms, bigger kitchens and functional outdoor living spaces, he said.
“The Irvine Co. is among the market leaders in terms of perceiving new patterns of demand that have been dominant in the housing market and in recognition of changed economic and environmental conditions,” said Kerry Vandell, director of the Center at the UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business.
“The success they are enjoying with this new product is evidence of the fruit that can be borne through cutting-edge environmental innovation,” Vandell continued.
Other design elements of Stonegate East homes are larger bedrooms and bathtubs, wider hallways, big kitchen islands, built-in desks, large windows, crown moldings and coffered ceilings.
“Most of the homebuyers at Capistrano and Los Altos are Gen-Y buyers …”
Daniel Young President of the Irvine Co.
Community Development
“Most of the homebuyers at Capistrano and Los Altos are Gen-Y buyers, young people that have either just begun or are going to start families, and are eager to live in a master-planned community with world-class schools, safe neighborhoods and abundant amenities,” said Young.
In fact, about 80% of the new homebuyers are younger generations, he said.
This large percentage was unsurprising to Vandell, who also serves as UCI’s dean of finance.
Citing the long-range effects of baby boomers, there is a bulge in the market of younger generation consumers who are coming into the stage of their lives when they are financially able to begin families, he said.
“It’s well-known in the market that [Irvine Co. homes] are doing especially well,” Vandell said. “That sort of configuration is beginning to be widely emulated.
Other [builders] are trying to do that same sort of thing.
“Some of it is driven by economics and cost-consciousness, and the other is to attract the proportion of buyers in younger generations with smaller families without high incomes who are looking for spaces that reflect their lifestyles.”
In total, the villages of Woodbury, Woodbury East, Stonegate East and Portola Springs have sold 840 new homes this year, far outpacing the sales rate experienced last year by local homebuilders in all of Orange County, according to a news release.
In 2009, about 1,500 homes sold in the year, an average of about 125 per month.
Other properties developed by Irvine Pacific in the early 1970s to the late 1980s, include homes in Woodbridge, Northwood and Turtle Rock villages.
Irvine Pacific also built apartment communities and served as a property management company.
“An Irvine Pacific home is more than a home; it represents a way of life that is uniquely attuned to the hopes, dreams, needs and goals of today’s homebuyer in Irvine,” Young said. “These homes are distinctively designed according to research, with a clear understanding of the needs and desires of today’s families.”
