The Housechick Blog

Today we explore Broadmoor, in Central Tucson.

Broadmoor is one of my favorite little neighborhoods in Central Tucson.  It is bounded by Broadway Blvd, Country Club, Tucson Blvd, and Stratford Drive, which means it sits right beside Reid Park, is about 1.5 miles to the University of Arizona, 2 miles to UMC, and roughly 3 miles to Downtown Tucson. 

Reid Park has a Zoo, dog parks, summer concerts, a community center, two golf courses, tennis courts, and a huge walking/cycling path.  Plus, there are myriad restaurants and shopping right along Broadway Blvd.  It’s really a fabulous location.

While you can’t beat the Broadmoor location, the pricing is even better.  Broadmoor is surrounded by neighborhoods like Colonia Solana, El Encanto, and Sam Hughes, who all have typical home prices of a half million and more.  Broadmoor homes go from the low $200,000s to the high $300,000s (as of 12/2007). 

Broadmoor has a relatively low turn-over rate, and is largely single family homes.  This makes it a rather stable neighborhood, with an active neighborhood association.  There is no mandatory Homeowner’s association, rather, it is a voluntary neighborhood association, to which a $15 annual payment is appreciated.

Broadmoor was created on the site of a former golf course in 1944, and the houses there were built between then and roughly the mid 1950s.  Most homes are brick, or are brick with an exterior stucco finish.  Given the age of the homes, most were originally built on the smallish side by today’s standards, but have been added onto to create larger homes. 

The average home is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1700 sq ft house, although there are plenty of 2 bed, 1 bath homes in the area.  Pricing varies widely, based on size and condition, but will generally run between $200,000 and $400,000.

You can see the homes available for sale in Broadmoor here. 

Broadmoor is in the TUSD school district, and is serviced by Robison Elementary, Mansfeld Middle School, and Tucson High.

So that’s Broadmoor in Central Tucson, one of my favorite little places, tucked away in one of the best locations in Tucson, with charming older homes.  Want to learn more?  Send me an email and we can chat.

I would post pictures, but I’m not allowed to single out offenders.

I received a call from my sign in the yard of my Fayette listing.  A woman was looking in the area, and requested to see my listing.  We looked at the Fayette house one day, and then at some other homes in the area a couple days later.

We were entering our third home of the day, when she stopped about 5 feet into the house, turned around looking perplexed, and asked, “Do you have to take a listing if someone asks you?”

Well, no, I explained.  I can generally pick and choose.

“Then why,” she asked, “would someone put a house like this on the market?”

“Wouldn’t you be embarrassed to put your name in front of a house that looks this bad?”

Well, yeah. 

That’s why my listings don’t look like that. 

We had just walked through three filthy houses - vacant houses, mind you, so it’s not about a Seller having trouble putting things away before a showing.  We’re talking about messy, dirty, nasty little homes that showed terribly, places you leave and long for hot water and soap to wash your hands because you accidentally touched a wall while inside.  All three are the same floorplan as my listing, and are priced higher than mine.

Mine with the new carpet and paint and countertops and fixtures and clean as a whistle.

I understand her frustration.  It was a waste of time, looking at homes in no condition to be seen.  Her comments made me think about my past and present Sellers.  I do have high expectations for the people that I represent, as I think they do of me.  We’re working together to achieve their goal of selling, so I expect my Sellers to put in the work needed to make a home competitive.  And hey, I’m happy to help.  There’s many a Seller that I’ve helped manage clean-up, paint, flooring, or other odd jobs.  I’ve opened doors for contractors, coordinated handymen, I’ve even been at a Seller’s house, tools in hand, making it ready to sell.

I’ve a past client who will be selling soon, and bless her heart, she is anything but plain and that is reflected in her home.  She has personality to spare, which endears her to me to no end, but we’ve got to make her home vanilla before she sells it. 

It’s not about changing her or her personality, it’s not me being embarrassed to list a home with a gigantic dragon out front.  It’s about getting her to where she wants to be: getting her home sold and her moved to another state to be closer to family.  It’s a mutual goal, one we have to work towards together. 

As expected due to the season, unit sales dropped a bit in November. MLS stats report 759 sales, but searching today yields 776 closed transactions for November 2007. Typically, we’ll see this number hold fairly steady until March.

Average sales price, citywide, is at $269,968, which - again - hasn’t moved significantly since about mid-2005. We’ve been wavering between the low $260,000’s and the high $270,000’s for quite some time. If you look at average sales price by area, you’ll see some areas that have taken local hits, notably the Southwest and the Southeast. No big surprise as there is a good amount of new construction in these areas, who are undercutting resale homes.

The median sales price for Tucson is $213,000 this month. We’ve been wavering up and down here as well - same story as the average sales price. It’s up a small $3000 tick from last month.

We’re at roughly 12 months of inventory for November, but this varies by area.  Northwest Tucson wins this month’s largest months of inventory award, at 14 months.  The Southeast records the lowest months of inventory of the major areas of Tucson for November at 10.2, but this is a month and a half increase of inventory over October, which would indicate things are worse in that area, and not better.

Pending sales typically peak around April, and fall slowly towards the end of the year. Peak this year was June, and we’ve been slowly falling off since then. The peak shifted, but the pattern remains the same, for now.

Units sold are still a little low for my tastes, but traditionally level off in the last few months of the year. Another item to keep an eye on.

Active listings ticked down slightly from last month. I anticipate the same trend for December, and another ramp up in January.

As always, you can see the most recent stats by area by clicking on the Tucson Market Stats link at the top, and than on any of the 9 major regions of Tucson. 

I have no idea what that means.  I spotted that bumper sticker on an old Toyota Tercel that I was stopped behind yesterday.  Ideas, anyone?

I’m sure you’ve seen something similar online, but this is my buddy Keith’s house, a friend and past client.  The man likes his Holiday Light Show!

This is the second year Keith has gone all-out with his lights.  There’s another video from last year when he made the local news, but I’m having trouble finding it on YouTube. 

Their family was nice enough to host a little party over the weekend to watch the light show, complete with hot chocolate and a snow machine.

The lights at Winterhaven just started - their 57 year old tradition, and the Zoo Lights are on too.  Grab your warm coat and hat, it’s chilly out there!

My closest Fry’s Foods grocery store just finished remodeling, and they have a spectacular produce section now.  As I walked into that section, they had a whole row of fresh chiles, with the vibrant greens and yellows and reds, made my eyes water a bit from the bite in the air the chiles were producing.

Around the corner I spotted nopales:

Nopales are pads of the Prickly Pear cactus.  Note the grocery store provides tongs so you don’t have to pick them up with your bare hands!

I’ve never made nopales, but I’ve eaten it several times.  You’ll find it mixed in with eggs, in soups, or otherwise as part of a filling.  The flavor has been described as a “lemony cross between asparagus and green beans” and “somewhat tart green bean flavor.”

If you don’t prepare it properly, it can be, well, a bit slimy.  That, and they come with cactus spines attached, so removing those can be a bit of a chore, or so I’m told.  You can buy them sliced and canned in the local grocery stores, but you loose a lot of the flavor.

But aren’t they beautiful?  Those are sitting beside chayotes, by the way, a kind of squash.

I was out looking at houses with a Buyer, and one home had a nice big park next door.  My Buyer mused that he would enjoy having a place to play Frisbee with his dog.

Ah - hold on a second there.

The City of Tucson has laws that if your dog is outside of your home, it must be on a leash no more than 6′ in length.  In fact, the Tucson City Council recently contemplated raising the fine from $50 to $100 for the first offense of that law.

The good news is that Tucson has several Dog Parks where your canine buddy can run around off-leash, socialize with the other pups, and play a little Frisbee with you.

Palo Verde Park, 300 S Mann Ave - near Broadway and Kolb on the East side of Tucson.

Northwest Center Off-Leash Dog Park, 2075 N 6th ave, in Central Tucson

McDonald District Off-Leash Area, 4100 N Harrison Road, in Northeast Tucson

Jacobs Dog Park, 3300 N Fairview, in Central Tucson.

Reid Park Off-Leash Area, 900 S Randolph Way in Central Tucson (North of the duck pond)

Christopher Columbus Dog Park, 4600 N Silverbell, in West Tucson

Anamax Off Leash Dog Park, 17501 S Camino de las Quintas, in Sahuarita

Udall Dog Park, 7290 E Tanque Verde, in Northeast Tucson

Good news and bad news.

Good News: I found a termite tube and took a picture of it to share with you.

Bad News: It’s in my own house.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: get a termite warranty and renew it every year.  Luckily for me, I’ve followed my own advice.  They’ll be out to treat on Wednesday at no cost to me.

I wonder how long it will be by Wednesday.  I noticed this one yesterday afternoon and it’s nearly doubled in length since then.  It’s fascinating and disgusting, all at the same time.

If you should find yourself in a similar situation - finding new evidence of a subterranean termite infestation, warranty or no - leave the tubes for the termite company so that they can see where to treat. 

Termites are a fact of life around here.  The question is WHEN not IF you will get them, especially if you never bother with a termite warranty.  And, as proven here, sometimes you get them even if you do have the warranty.  I just purchased this house a year ago, had it treated and got a warranty at that time.  But if these little critters have been munching the wood in my attic since before I owned the house, they were probably not affected by the ground treatment.  We had all new lumber and exposed timber treated as they were exposed during the remodel, but missed spraying down the attic area.

Wednesday, my termite guy will crawl up there, do a spot treat, and we’ll make sure the supports are still sturdy.  My home inspector was up there before I bought it, and it all looked good then, so I imagine everything will be just fine.  A little treatment, a little tube clean-up, and we’re good as new.

I am asked quite frequently if installing a swimming pool will increase the value of a home. 

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the swimming pool because I hate to maintain the thing.  Most Buyers are fairly sharply divided on the issue.  I’d say 45% of Buyers absolutely do not want  a pool, 45% absolutely must have one, and 10% don’t really care either way.

The cost to have a pool installed starts around $17,000 and goes up quickly from there, but your typical Tucson home with an average pool may only gain an additional $5000-7000 on an appraisal for having a swimming pool (in my experience).  So if you really want a pool, and will enjoy having and using it, then go install one.  But don’t expect to recoup your installation costs!

For high end properties, the million plus crowd, pools are almost universally expected, and a nice one at that.  For that type of property, NOT having a pool could be the difference between your home selling and it sitting on the market forever.

There are other aspects to consider as well.  If you’ve got a small lot, and put in a big pool, then most Buyers aren’t going to like that.  If you put a tiny pool on a tiny lot, well, that may just be a waste, as most people who want a pool are going to want something more than 4 people can be in at the same time without running into each other.

Placing a pool in a side yard where it isn’t visible from the patio or main living area of the house can be the kiss of death for a home sale as well.  This one I know from experience!

Also, families with young children are usually very concerned with pool fencing while home buyers without kids may not want to see tall iron fences around the pool.  So even among the pool-wanting-buyer crowd, there will be very different concerns.

In the end, I think the choice to install a swimming pool is a personal one, and not a question of improving the home’s value, unless you’re dealing with a luxury home. 

Via Dave Brownell, Second Opinion Home Inspections.