This is a tale of two neighbors.......
The first one lives at 18365 Berry Rd in Riverside. His house would fall under the classification of mini mansion or baby estate. It's a 4000 s/f house with 5 bedrooms and 4.5 baths. It sits on an expansive lot nearly an acre in size. It has fully landscaped ground, although nothing to fancy. The kitchen is actually rather basic looking for a house in this area. Purchased in 1999 for $430k the owner should be able to get out of this without losing any money (assuming he didn't tap the equity). Unfortunately the owner has been smoking the dream pipe and he thinks he can still get the peak price for his little chateau. He has it listed for $999k. The home looks empty so he has either moved or it may have been a rental, who knows. The listing does not indicate it's a pre-foreclosure or short sale.
Neighbor 2 lives right next door at 18383 Berry rd. This poor fella bought his mini mansion right near the peak in 2005 for $900k. It originally sold for $407k in 1999. His place is a little smaller that the pad next door. At 3400 s/f with 5 bedrooms and 2.5 baths it's a little easier to clean. The lot is about the same size although this one looks to have had a little nicer landscaping. Much of that is in serious need of water though but nothing a few thousand in plants wouldn't fix. This fella hasn't been hitting the happy pipe though. He's in trouble and he's looking to short sale this turkey. His price..... a more reasonable $499k. That's probably a fair price for this area right now. I've seen a few sell in this price range in the last few months. I think there is a good chance this will fairly quickly.
Neighbor one put his place on the market first. But his realtor should have told him there is no chance of getting a million bucks for it. Now his next door neighbor list his house for 1/2 his asking price. Maybe that will act as a reality check.....nah, he will just rationalize that because his house is a little bigger and his grass isn't dead it's worth an extra $100 s/f. These two homes sort or typify the marker right now, overpriced turkeys and short sales. That seems to sum up the current inventory!