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Assessed Value vs Market Value in Tucson

February 12, 2010

Got a call from a client the other day when he received his notice of valuation in the mail from the Pima County Assessor.  He was very concerned that the full cash value of his property, at least according to the tax assessor, was far less than the amount he just paid for it last year.

Generally, the value according to the assessor has little to no resemblance to what the home might sell for on the open market.  The assessor uses a set of equations, does sampling to try to determine value, and doesn’t evaluate each home individually.  Plus, they use the last 3 years worth of information in their evaluations.

If someone were to purchase a home today, they certainly aren’t going back through 3 years of sales to try and figure out what your home is worth!

When the assessed value is less than your home’s market value, that’s a nice thing.  You’re being taxed on an evaluation less than what your home is actually worth – you pay less in property taxes, which most people appreciate.  When the assessed value is greater than your home’s market value, then it is time to challenge the assessment in order to not pay taxes on an amount greater than true value.

So keep an eye on that property evaluation from the Pima County assessor.  But don’t confuse it with true market value.

Grant Road Community Character Workshops

January 19, 2010

We’re getting closer to some major widening work on Grant road!

First improvements will be down at Grant and Oracle in 2011 – some two years before construction was originally scheduled to start.  Then they’ll do the Stone/1st Ave area in 2013, jump over and do the Swan Road area in 2014, and work their way back thru the Alvernon, Campbell, and Country Club intersections in 2017 and beyond.

There’s a fairly comprehensive Grant Road Widening Project Milestone report here, all in one handy PDF file.

If you want to be heard about the Grant Road widening project, now’s the time.

There are community character and vitality workshops coming up starting January 20th, public art workshops on February 10th and 11th, and a design report due mid March 2010.

RSVP for the workshops by emailing information@grantroad.info.  The schedule is as follows:

• Jan 20th, 5:30-8:30pm, at College Place, 1601 N Oracle Road to discuss Oracle Road – Stone Ave
• Jan 21st, 5:30-8:30pm, at College Place, 1601 N Oracle Road to discuss Stone Ave – Park Ave
• Jan 25th, 5:30-8:30pm, at Doolen Middle School, 2400 N Country Club to discuss Tucson Blvd – Palo Verde Rd
• Jan 26th, 5:30-8:30pm, at the Sheraton Sabino Ballroom, 5151 E Grant Rd, to discuss Palo Verde Rd – Swan Rd
• Jan 27th, 5:30-8:30pm, at Tucson Association of Realtors, 2445 N Tucson Blvd, to discuss Park Ave – Tucson Blvd

Bags on Cactus

January 11, 2010

Remember cups on cactus?

That’s so 2008.  2010 is all about bags.  Bags on cactus.

 

 

It’s a Tucson thing. Some people put cups (or in this case, bags) on the delicate growing ends of their cactus during the winter to protect them from freezing. It’s the first sign of winter in Tucson!

Downtown Tucson – A Year in Review

January 5, 2010

There’s nothing quite like talking about Downtown Tucson to stir up some heated opinions among the locals.  Rio Nuevo, the downtown revitalization project, often feels like an enormous sinkhole of time and money.  So let’s take a look back and stop to appreciate the progress that has been made!  Sometimes, we get caught up in all the politics and hoo-ha that we miss some of the lovely improvements to downtown that have occurred.

From the Downtown Tucson News:

• The Scott Avenue Street improvements were completed between Broadway and 13th Street (on time and on budget).
• One North Fifth’s new retail building was completed and its first tenants moved in.
• The Depot Plaza parking garage is in the final stages of completion and construction of the new MLK Building on top of the garage is well underway.
• Renovations to the MacArthur Building were completed and Madden Media moved in.
• Maynard’s opened in the Historic Depot and a new plaza was built on Toole. Avenue in front of Hotel Congress.
• The new 4th Avenue Underpass was completed and the Old Pueblo Trolley line was extended into Downtown.
• Construction of the Downtown portion Interstate 10 was completed.
• The new Cushing Street Underpass (which will accommodate the Modern Street Car when it is built) was completed.
• MEB acquired, renovated and moved into the Hittinger Building on Congress.
• The Screening Room façade renovation was completed and a new marquee added to the building.
• The 64 E Broadway façade renovation was completed.
• The Rialto Block façade renovation was begun.
• The Carrillo Placita at St. Augustine Cathedral was completed.
• Construction began on the new entrance to the Tucson Convention Center, which will accommodated future construction of the convention hotel.
• The new Fire Headquarters was completed and opened with fanfare.
• The Museum of Contemporary Art leased the old Fire Hall and began work to reopen it as their museum.
• Tucson Electric Power acquired the Santa Rita Block. The Santa Rita Hotel was razed to make room for a new TEP headquarters.
• Construction of street improvements in front of the Julian Drew Building at Broadway and 5th Avenues began. O2 Modern Fitness and Fitworks Cycling Support open in the building.
• Sixth and Stone Avenues south of Broadway were converted to two-way traffic.
• ParkWise launched one hour of free parking in the Pennington, Library and City-State garages.
• Mrs. Tiggy Winkles moved into the Tucson Children’s Museum.
• A host of new restaurants and clubs opened including Jimmy John’s, Zen Rock, A Steak in the Neighborhood and Xoom Juice.
• Skrappy’s reopened on Toole Avenue.
• Meet Me at Maynards started and became a greater success than anyone imagined.
• The inaugural Downtown Tucson Latin Jazz Festival was held in September.
• The inaugural Flamenco Festival was held at Casa Vincente in September.

I Always Knew Tucson Was Better Than Phoenix

December 10, 2009

Just because I can’t pass up an opportunity to taunt my Phoenix friends…

Forbes thinks Tucson is better than Phoenix.  As if we didn’t know that already.

Okay, so Tucson only ranks 62nd on the list, but at least Phoenix is lower than us at 82nd.  Points in our favor were for the percentage of homes that are actually occupied, which is a sign of stable inventory.  Tucson also ranked better for having a lower percentage of foreclosures of total housing units. 

Travel time weighed in Tucson’s favor as well, saying commutes were generally shorter here than in Phoenix. 

AND – U of A beat ASU this year in their annual football rivalry.  That makes Tucson’s superiority conclusive, right?

The Tucson Food Dude

November 30, 2009

Ever since I figured out Google thought this blog was about Mexican food instead of real estate in Tucson, I stopped writing about my many favorite restaurants here.  But I discovered someone else has started writing about and reviewing local Tucson eateries!

Enter the Tucson Food Dude. 

Kevin is a self-proclaimed regular guy who likes to eat and drink.  And if that doesn’t qualify him to write about food, then I don’t know what does.    If you read back through his archives, there’s reviews of Candela, 1702, Cici’s Pizza Buffet, local wineries, and most recently – the new Azul at La Paloma.  I love that he covers a wide variety of places, and not just the high end stuff. 

Check out his blog – it is an entertaining read with fair reviews of local joints and thoughts on food and life in general.

Cheapest and Most Expensive Homes in Tucson by Price/SqFt

July 30, 2009

Just for fun – and contrast – I found the cheapest and most expensive homes in Tucson if you judge by price per square foot.

Cheapest home in Tucson is $9.69/sq ft, at $22,900 – see it here.  I’ve been in this one.  I know it says major fix-up, but I’d call it a tear-down.  With the different levels and holes carved out of the foundation, it’d be easier to start all over than to put any money into rehab, in my opinion.  Coincidentally, this is the cheapest home for sale in Tucson just on price alone.

Most expensive home in Tucson is $1,078.80/sq ft, at $6.9 million – see it here.  Very nice – I like the brick and beam ceilings.  Comes with a Canyon Ranch membership as well.  The sleeping porch is an interesting item.

Of course, if we go strictly by dollars, the most expensive home in Tucson is here at $13.5 million.  15 seat theater, 15 auto show garage, 3 car day garage (naturally), and 3 kitchens, if I count correctly.  Wow.

Rainy or Dry? The Future of the Monsoon This Year

July 24, 2009

Okay, so I’ve been talking about the Monsoon a lot this year.  But I do love the rain!  Maybe you have to grow up in the desert to be so obsessed with monsoons.

I ran across an article on the KOLD weather blog written by their meteorologist Erin Jordan.  It’s an excellent explanation of how the rainy season in Tucson might boom or bust.

An excerpt:

Basically more warm water, means more tropical moisture for us to tap into.  Often times this even means more tropical storms and hurricanes in the East Pacific.  If our monsoon high sticks to our east, then the clockwise circulation around it helps push some of that tropical moisture right into southern Arizona.  That means we may have a great monsoon!  But it also means, with a ton of tropical moisture and possibly the left-overs of hurricanes and tropical storms heading our way, flooding downpours could be more common.  If that high pressure moves into northern Mexico, which sometimes happens when an El Niño strengthens quickly in the summer, then our moisture would be cut-off, driven to the north.  Our monsoon storms would have little chance to overcome the warm pool of air sitting over us.  Right now the high is sticking to out east. We are watching it very, very closely for movement.

Most of us hope for a strong rainy season – but too much and it can flood and cause damage.  Too little and our supply and plants don’t get replenished.  It’s an excellent article, I think it explains the potential of the monsoon this year very clearly.  Check out the full KOLD weather blog here.

Photo via Flickr, courtesy of limulus

Arizona Wines as Reviewed by Gary Vaynerchuck

July 15, 2009

I don’t know if you guys have heard of Gary Vaynerchcuk or not – he’s built a reputation as an incredible businessman, with sort of an exuberant raw personality that turns the somewhat fancy wine business into something anyone can understand and enjoy without being worried about what wine goes with what meat and temperatures and whatnot.  He does a show on wines over at Wine TV.

Anyway.  I follow "Gary Vee" over on Twitter and tonight, he let everyone know about a new episode where he reviews wines from Arizona.  The first 3 minutes are a bit of silliness, skip to about minute 3 to get to the Arizona wine parts.

Now, we’re not a gigantic wine producing region, but Southern Arizona has a couple of wineries. 

The three wines reviewed:

• Kokopelli Private Reserve Shiraz (He gave it 68 points. Seems he’s not a big fan.)
• Pillsbury Roan Red (He gave it an "okay" at 78 points.)
• Callaghan Z5 ("A fruit bomb that tapers and calms down as you drink it." 80 points.)

Check them out for yourself!  The Callaghan Vineyards are just an hour south of Tucson, in Elgin, AZ, open Fri-Sat from 11-3pm.

Tucson Monsoons

June 25, 2009

It’s raining!

Or it was, for a few minutes.

Those of you that aren’t familiar with Tucson might not understand the glee with which we greet an overcast cloudy day, pressing our noses to the window to see if it is sprinkling outside or not.

Technically, Tucson should be in the midst of Monsoons – our summer rainy season that officially starts on June 15th and ends September 30th.  However, the rains don’t typically start until closer to 4th of July, in my experience.

When the real rains do start, they are these incredibly powerful, violent storms that move from the Southeast part of town, and rip across towards the Northwest, usually in the late afternoon.  Our monsoon storms are quite impressive to watch – lots of wind and lightning, lots of fast flooding.

Sprinkles, however – like today – are for fun.  Tiny little previews of what is to come.

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