The late Budge Brown was by all accounts a smart farmer, an entrepreneur and visionary.
But it is doubtful that man that built the Manteca Waterslides after he ended up with a big hole in the ground selling dirt for the elevated portions of the nearby Interstate 5 and the 120 Bypass could have seen this one coming.
Land he once planted before replacing orchards and crops with waterslides is now dotted with homes reselling for $1 million plus.
Currently, the gated community of Oakwood Shores on the western end of Woodward Avenue nestled against Manteca’s city limits has a 3,204-square-foot home in the 1200 block of Como Drive in escrow for $1.3 million.
The home built in 2015 initially sold for $575,000. It’s an amount that will buy you a home in a 1980s Manteca neighborhood and have perhaps leftover money to buy custom blinds.
It sold again in June 2020 for $729,990. That’s a 78 percent increase in 23 months.
But that price increase for what at their heart are production tract homes won’t be that impressive if a seller of 4,300-square-foot home with six bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms on a 7,971-square-foot lot in the 2500 block of Enslen Avenue that’s part of River Islands at Lathrop gets their asking price.
They want $1,650,000 for the home that sold in December of 2020 for $867,500. If a buyer bites at that price, the value will have increased 110 percent in 17 months.
It’s all part of the shifting landscape in the South County resale market where a selected group of large tract homes on large lots or premium locations near the water’s edge are commanding significantly more than brand new homes with compatible square footage and — in some cases — even comparable features.
And while being on a manmade lake at Oakwood Shores or River islands with ramp access can add a couple hundred thousands of dollars in market value, resale homes in the niche market of large lots and ample living space are commanding $1 million plus even if they are a block or two from water or a serious drive away.
The Manteca hot spot for such $1 million plus homes are the neighborhoods south of Woodward Avenue between South Main Street and Pillsbury Road.
There are currently four homes pending that have accepted offers of $1 million or more.
Topping the list at $1,150,000 is a 6 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom home with 4,098 square feet on a 9,947-suare-foot lot in he 2300 block of Stephen Robert Lane. It last sold for $568,000 in August 2017 as a new home.
There are three other pending sales with accepted prices north of $969,858 in Oakwood Shores. The includes a 3,284-square-foot home on Comogli Court for $1,099,958 and another 3,204-square-foot home in the 3600 block of Castellano Lane for $1,249,000.
Not a bad outcome after the original developer of the 480-hoome project of luxury tract homes went belly-up in the housing crash of 2008 to claim the dubious honor of the largest housing-related foreclosure of the era in San Joaquin County.
Ironically, the financial troubles were more to blame on complications growing out of the developer initially not engineering the manmade lakes to state standards.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
