More Reasons To Pick Your Tucson Agent Carefully
July 30, 2010
I showed four houses yesterday.
Well, I tried to, anyway.
The first house, the door, ah… broke when I opened it. Suddenly, the door and the hinges – not so much connected anymore. But these things happen. I could still get the door closed and locked, so we took a peek around, locked it up, called the agent to let her know, and went on our merry way.
House two was unremarkable. Well, other than the do-it-yourself acoustic ceiling made entirely of foam and the creepy dead bug filled basement.
House three was a thinker. You have to get into the courtyard to get to the lockbox and to the front door. But the directions said to open the gate to the courtyard… from the inside. Because the courtyard gate was locked. Once we got through that brainteaser, I opened the lockbox and there was no key inside.
Whoopsie. Guess we’re not going into that one. Quick call to the agent, and back in the car to house four.
House four was another riddle. Four doors, all in one corner: two wooden doors, each with a metal screen door. That’s 8 locks, for those of you counting at home: one for each doorknob and deadbolt. This lockbox had a key inside, so that was nice. Except it only unlocked one screen door, and not the wooden door behind it. Guess we’re not getting into that house either.
It really isn’t that hard to be a good real estate agent. Put a key in the lockbox. Make sure it works. Visit occasionally and make sure the place isn’t falling apart. Etcetera.
People, pick your agent carefully. Demand competence, some common sense. At a minimum.
The Effect of Great Marketing – And Good Pricing
July 26, 2010
I have this listing that I sold in 31 days in an area where the average market time is 145 days. I’m pretty proud of that one. I was very careful in my marketing approach – that could have been a very difficult home to sell. So I picked an approach, made a cohesive plan, and then marketed the crap out of it.
And it worked. We got a great price on it, and it sold quickly.
But there’s only so much that my marketing can do. If my seller had listed it at a higher price, I’m certain we’d still be sitting here, trolling for a buyer.
Great marketing can only do so much if the price is wrong. I do believe I got my seller more money than some other agents would have because of my efforts. I mean, I could be wrong, but I know I blew the pants off of the marketing on similar homes for sale in the area.
But if they hadn’t priced appropriately, all my efforts would have been for naught.
Buyers aren’t stupid. They’re looking around, they’ve become educated in houses and values after touring lots of homes. I can make them pique their interest in your home with my marketing, but without that proper pricing, we’re wasting everyone’s time and money. And I promise you’re gonna get real tired of keeping your house clean as it sits day after day on the market…
Transportation Costs based on where you live in Tucson
July 23, 2010
The Center for Neighborhood Technology – a group that promotes urban sustainability – just released a tool that can help you discover what your transportation costs might be in a given neighborhood. It’s called Abogo. Click on the Abogo link and type in your address, and the site spits out transportation costs for that area plus the CO2 impact for the area as well.
They use regional averages from the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index to determine those values, so your mileage may vary, but it is an interesting tool nonetheless. Often, we don’t factor in transportation costs when thinking about our housing budget, but certainly it has an impact.
The Abogo site is still in beta – it will be interesting to see what else they develop.
h/t @crtweet
Five Guys Comes to Tucson
July 22, 2010
Look what I spotted!
That’s the old Hollywood Video at the Northeast corner of Campbell and Glenn being turned into a Five Guys! The first Five Guys in Tucson. I assume the potty will be replaced with one inside, um, eventually.
Five Guys is a delicious burger joint that I’ve only run into on the East coast, which makes sense given the original location was in Arlington, VA, and branched out from there. It’s not fancy – the menu is basically burger, hot dog, and fries – but there are 15 free toppings so you can create your own delicious burger noms at will.
Find Utility and Service Providers at your Tucson Home
July 19, 2010
Ever wondered what utilities and services are available at your home? Or maybe you are about to close on a new home and need to put utilities into your name. It can be a pain to track down the service providers – until now!
Found this site called AllConnect – you enter your address and it spits out everyone who services the property. So now you know whether Cox or Comcast provides the cable. And if the property has City water or a different service provider. Which is kinda sweet.
AllConnect is trying to sell you bundled services, but over on the left hand side they give you a list of the service providers. Which makes it easy to then find and call and establish service. Voila!
Tucson Real Estate Statistics – June 2010
July 15, 2010
The Quick Numbers:
- Single Family Home Average Sales Price: $207,554
- Single Family Home Median Sales Price: $160,000
- Single Family Home Units Sold: 910
- Single Family Home Months of Inventory: 6.5 months
- Townhouse Average Sales Price: $146,990
- Townhouse Median Sales Price: $134,500
- Townhouse Units Sold: 80
- Townhouse Months of Inventory: 7.6 months
- Condo Average Sales Price: $94,564
- Condo Median Sales Price: $80,000
- Condo Units Sold: 49
- Condo Months of Inventory: 9.5 months
- Citywide Average Sales Price: $197,562
- Citywide Median Sales Price: $154,000
- Citywide Units Sold: 1039
- Citywide Months of Inventory: 6.7 months
- June brings us the last of the tax credit bump in activity. Okay, so they extended the close period a bit longer, but my gut says the vast majority are closed and done with. The extension might help a few, but I would guess most closed and are done as scheduled by the end of June.
- Because of that, in my humble opinion, we’re going to start to see everything decline. Yes, sale levels were fairly consistent with previous in June, but I’m betting that is about to change. And I think the number of pending sales we saw in June backs my theory.
- Seasonally, we should be peaking now – there should be more sales than ever right around this time. The tax credit made everything skew early, so seasonal trends are going to be off for a while.
- In June, there were 1039 homes sold in Tucson – pretty much the same sort of levels we’ve seen for the last 3 months. But – the number of pending sales has dropped to 1774 units. That’s the kind of pending sales levels we see over our winter slump lately.
- What may temper the decline is that the number of homes for sale, the active listings, isn’t going up yet. Inventory levels usually reach their lowest point right about now. We expect sales sales go down, as the low number of pending sales indicates. If the number of active listings starts to increase at the same time that sales decrease, then that just triggers even more of an oversupply and prices drop. Or drop faster. Only time will tell.
- Speaking of prices, the average home in Tucson cost $197,562 with a median of $154,000, which is nearly the same as last month. Last year at this time, the average home in Tucson was $214,926 with a median of $167,750.
- There were121 sold short sales and 327 sold bank owned homes in March, making distressed property 43% of the market. Last month, distress sales were 42% of the market.
- If you’re buying in this market, be prepared to look at a whole lot of distressed property, as that’s nearly half of what is actually selling. And if you’re selling in this market, you’d best be pricing competitively and making all your small repairs and final cleaning before buyers come through. There’s no second chances for sellers in this market.
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.
How’s the Luxury Tucson Home Market?
July 9, 2010
I showed this enormous home yesterday up in the Tucson foothills. I mean, HUGE. At some point, it just gets silly. When you approach 10,000 square feet with an indoor pool, well, I think you’ve reached that point. But then again, I’m not a house-as-status-symbol kind of gal. Other people have the funds to do that kind of thing, so more power to them.
This particular home is around $900k and is bank owned. My client and I were touring the house and started talking about what it might have sold for back in the crazy days 5 years ago. The house has been listed as high as $3.4mil – at which price it didn’t sell. The price went down and down since then, and finally the bank foreclosed mid 2009.
So how many high end Tucson homes are selling these days?
Not many, turns out.
- In 2005, there were 356 homes sold over $800k.
- In 2009, there were only 141 homes sold over $800k.
- To date this year, there have been 76 homes sold over $800k.
With an average of 12ish homes selling a month and 377 homes listed over $800k, that’s about 31 months of inventory. Not a pretty market segment to be in if you’re trying to sell. Of course, if you’re trying to buy a high end home in Tucson, you’ve got choices aplenty…
It’ll Be All Right
July 7, 2010
I was interviewing for a listing the other day, and as we chatted, I mentioned that I don’t do dual agency as a Realtor – I won’t represent both buyer and seller on the same transaction. The home owner was surprised – out of the 4-5 agents he had interviewed, I was the only one who said I didn’t do that. The other agents got to that part and somehow said dual agency would be okay, that “it would all be all right.”
Yeah. It’s not all right in my book.
I don’t double-end deals – I won’t represent both the buyer AND seller on the same transaction. The law allows me to do so, but – in my humble opinion – there’s no way to do so and provide what I believe is appropriate representation to both parties.
When I represent only one party, they get all my fiduciary duties: confidentiality, accountability, reasonable skill and care, loyalty, obedience, and disclosure. It’s the same duties that a lawyer has to his client – it creates an agency relationship.
When you represent both sides in the same transaction, things get murky. I know confidential information about both people, but I can’t let the other parties know what I know. In fact, the agency disclosure explicitly states:
There will be conflicts in the duties of loyalty, obedience, disclosure, and confidentiality.
So why would a buyer or seller ever agree to less than full representation where conflicts of those agent’s duties are expected?
Happy 4th of July Weekend
July 2, 2010
Have a safe and happy 4th of July weekend!
photo via Flickr by willow&monk
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