Scary Real Estate
October 31, 2008
This is the second time I’ve been to this house to show it to clients, the first time being several years ago. And both times, this is as far as I’ve gone. Because the driveway is so steep, it disappears beneath the horizon as you sit in your car. So you edge your wheels up to the entrance and the whole world drops out from under you. It’s like the moment at the top of a roller coaster where right before you hurtle down the big hill, as you crest the top and sloooowly start to peek over the edge and downward and it looks like you’ll fall forever - that’s this driveway. And you have a choice to make: do you keep moving forward, or do you move on to the next house?
And I know, logically, that a driveway exists. I can see it if I get out of the car and look. And yet, as you sit there at the top of the driveway, and you can’t see any land under you from the car, that voice in your head is screaming for you to stop, and go no further.
I wasn’t driving today, and my client nearly drove down this thing. I’m glad his wife stopped him. And that no one saw me in the back with my eyes closed. That’s enough of a scare for this year’s Halloween, methinks.
I called the agent to let her know we wouldn’t be looking at the house, as originally planned. And she said she doesn’t drive down that thing either.
Yup. Good luck with that one.
Happy Halloween (early)!
October 29, 2008
Okay, I’m a few days early, but I’ve got a busy schedule and potential jury duty this week, so I wanted to go ahead and share now.
My friend Teresa Boardman over in St. Paul is hosting her 3rd annual pumpkin carving contest on her blog, and this is my submission. Rules are, you use the photo she provides and can only use the Windows Paint program to carve your pumpkin. But I like to have a little more fun than that. My submission - lest anyone accuse me of cheating - was created using Paint, as specified, but then I animated it with the help of Powerpoint and Camtasia, a screen capture program.
So without furher ado, I bring you Dancing Pumpkin 2008: 60’s Pumpkin
Last year, I did Disco Pumpkin, but Teresa said she didn’t like my song choice. This year any better, T?
Range Pricing in Tucson - Why?
October 27, 2008
Okay. I’ve talked about range pricing before. Admittedly, it isn’t my favorite, because I see it used incorrectly most of the time.
Range pricing was invented in a rapidly changing market where it was hard to pin down a value, but you knew it was somewhere between X and Y, with market value somewhere in the middle. Used properly, I’m okay with that. You can also use range pricing as a marketing tool, especially if you think market value for your home is just over a common limit that home buyers search for. For example, if I’m fairly sure a home’s value is between $255k and $265k, I might range price it from $250k-$265k to make sure that those people only searching up to $250k see that house when they search for homes online.
However, when I see a $50k price range spread on a $250k house, in a community of very similar homes with plenty of comparable sales, then there’s something very wrong. On that kind of house in that price band, you can narrow down value to a range much smaller than $50k.
All the seller is promising to do is accept or counter offers received within that range - which doesn’t obligate a home buyer to make an offer within that range. As with all homes, we’ll do our own market research, decide on a probable value, and make offers accordingly.
Long Days on Market - Good or Bad for Buyers?
October 23, 2008
Speaking of long days on market…
Question: Is a high days on market in Tucson good or bad for me as a home buyer?
Answer: It depends. A house that has been sitting the market forever could mean several things.
If the price hasn’t changed in a long time, it could mean that the Seller isn’t very anxious to sell, and is waiting for a fantasy buyer to snatch up their home at the fantasy price.
If the price hasn’t changed in a while, it could also be that the Seller is bumping up against their break-even point, and doesn’t have cash to bring in to sell at any lower price, and doesn’t want to short sell the place.
If there have been regular price adjustments, then that Seller is probably ready to get out of the house, and may be ready to make a deal. They may have started their price too high, or are in an area with lots of bank owned homes, and are chasing the market downwards to compete with those kinds of prices.
There’s always more to the story than just the days on market. A peek at the history and a call to the listing agent will usually give us better perspective.
The Camera Phone House
October 20, 2008
I showed a home the other day that has been on the market - continuously - for 899 days. Which begs the question: why hasn’t this home sold?
Two big reasons.
1) It’s overpriced for the condition of the home. It’s a partial remodel, with a bad paint job, missing baseboards, some original vinyl, with a brand new kitchen, new carpet, and some badly laid new tile. Please note: a new kitchen does not a ’stunning complete remodel’ make. The seller’s last price adjustment was in June 2008. So that house has been sitting there, at the same price, for 139 days. You know what happens when you do the same thing that isn’t working, over and over, and expect a different result? But that’s not the only problem.
2) The seller hired an agent - their second agent for this home, the first was a relative - who took 6 pictures with what appears to be a camera phone, wrote a 2 line description, and plopped it onto the MLS. This is the one that is so frustrating to me. Why, as a home seller, would you settle for someone who does a bare minimum - and doesn’t even do the minimum well? The pictures and description in the MLS are so very important. With around 80% of home buyers starting their search online, the representation of the home online has to be spectacular to stand out from the crowd.
Needless to say, we weren’t impressed. Next.
Homes without Kitchens
October 17, 2008
Every once in a while - more frequently this year - you walk into a home and there’s something amiss. In this home’s case, the entire kitchen is missing. Gone. There’s just an empty room with a forlorn gas pipe from where the range used to sit and a short drain coming out of one wall. Usually, these are foreclosed homes, and the owner has taken with them anything and everything that they think will be of value. Down to the cabinets.
Fun part about this house (and I use the term ‘fun’ loosely here) is that while a bank owns this house, that bank won’t originate a loan for it. Because the kitchen is missing. In fact, I haven’t heard of a lender that will lend for a house sans kitchen (unless you’ve got plans and a contract to replace it and a semi-construction kind of loan).
Hopefully, there’s some investor with enough cash to buy a home like this outright - and still has enough to make all the repairs this home needs. And given the price this one is listed at - there’s going to have to be some severe discounts.
Tucson Real Estate Market Statistics and Report - September 2008
October 15, 2008
The Overview via Podcast:
Download Tucson Market Stats for September 2008 here (MP3) or subscribe to the Tucson Market Reports podcast here.
The Quick Numbers:
- Single Family Home Average Sales Price: $233,893
- Single Family Home Median Sales Price: $190,000
- Single Family Home Units Sold: 714
- Single Family Home Months of Inventory: 8.7 months
- Townhouse Average Sales Price: $189,178
- Townhouse Median Sales Price: $164,000
- Townhouse Units Sold: 64
- Townhouse Months of Inventory: 9.5 months
- Condo Average Sales Price: $142,902
- Condo Median Sales Price: $144,500
- Condo Units Sold: 47
- Condo Months of Inventory: 9.9 months
- Citywide Average Sales Price: $225,240
- Citywide Median Sales Price: $185,000
- Citywide Units Sold: 825
- Citywide Months of Inventory: 8.8 months
Wow. September was a funky month, to say the least. The average sales price took a nosedive, the number of homes sold went up, and months of inventory went down. Talk about mixed signals.
Here’s my take: Sales in the over $600k price range were down 42% compared to last month and sales in the $0-$250k range were up 11%. Combine those two things with a citywide slowly declining average sales price, and you get the massive citywide drop. That’d also help account for the downward shift in the median sales price over the last 2 months as well.
Check it out for yourself: look at the change in Average Sales Price in North Tucson and Northeast Tucson, typically the priciest parts of town. Huge drops in both those areas. The South and Southwest continue a faster decline than the rest of the city as large number of foreclosures in those areas continue to pull down prices. But then look at the Average Sales Price for Northwest Tucson - didn’t really go anywhere from last month. Neither did Southeast Tucson’s average sales price.
Months of Inventory citywide was 8.8 months, a small drop over last month, when typically we’d see this figure start to rise during September. Also atypical, the number of sales usually drop month over month in September, but they ticked up a handful of sales to 825 units.
Looking again at the South and Southwest, the number of sales in those areas are up and inventory levels are down - both positive indicators for those hard-hit areas. The question now is how much lower can prices go in that region?
Tucson is a big place, and the real estate market varies widely from one side to the other. Don’t forget to check out the market conditions for your part of town in the link at the top of the page. Click on Stats by Area, and you’ll see the 9 areas of Tucson as links underneath.
Data gathered from the Tucson MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Figures quoted here include only single family homes, townhomes, and condos in the 9 areas that make up the Greater Tucson Area: NW, N, NE, W, C, E, SW, S, and SE.
tags: market reports, market statistics, tucson, tucson real estate
Grant Road Widening Project - Proposed Alignment
October 13, 2008
The Grant Road Widening Project folks released a proposed alignment yesterday, which includes a map of which side of Grant Road will be taken for the project in each section of the road.
While some of the acquisitions of land on either side of Grant Road are likely to be painful for some (Keep an eye on the homes on the North side of Grant, just West of Campbell in the upcoming years…), the road design itself looks promising. Check the 5th page of the map in the link in the first paragraph - there are nice landscaping buffers between sidewalks and the road, and between the two sides of the road. Generous bike paths, wide sidewalks, some local access lanes, better integration with public transit, more and better bike and pedestrian crossings, water harvesting, some exciting things in that plan.
Now that the Grant Road alignment proposal has been released, don’t miss your opportunity to weigh in on the alignment by attending one of the Grant Road Improvement Plan open houses October 15th, 16th, and 18th. Each day is about a different section of Grant Road, so be sure to check the web site and attend on the proper day.
And remember that although construction isn’t due to start until 2013, the time to get your voice heard is NOW.
Canadians Financing Investment Homes in Tucson - Not So Much
October 10, 2008
Been hearing it for a while, but my friend over at the Arizona Mortgage Guru posted today about financing for Canadians purchasing homes in the states drying up. Whereas at the start of the year, our lovely Canadian friends could purchase investment property - vacation homes here in Tucson, rental property - and finance it here in the US, this is no longer possible, to the best of my knowledge.
Anyone knowing otherwise - please speak up!
Negotiating and Real Estate
October 7, 2008
Question from the audience: What’s your negotiating style?
Answer: Whichever way you’re most comfortable with.
I like to discuss negotiating styles with my clients before we get too far along in either the home buying or home selling process. Some folks are very aggressive, and aren’t happy with the result unless each party has gone back and forth several times with counter offers. Some folks want to make one offer and be done with it.
For you to be happy with the outcome of your home negotiations, I need to make sure that I know how you want me to negotiate on your behalf. You want to be hard-line aggressive? We can do that. Is this the one you have to have and you’re prepared to step up and take it? We can do that too. It’s all your choice.
You’ll still get my advice and my take on the situation, of course. Over the past years as a real estate agent here in Tucson, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading the situation, and usually have some kind of idea as to what will or will not work. But I think it is important that you’re happy with the process, regardless of the outcome. Just another thing you ought to be discussing with your agent.
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