The Housechick Blog

I’m working on a new and improved (hopefully) version of the Tucson market statistics page, so I’ve been considering what kind of information would be helpful to include and at what level of detail, and balance that with not having statistic generation become a full time job.

By the way - if there’s something you’ve been dying to see on that page, or some other metric you’d be interested, leave a comment and I’ll put it on the list for consideration.

Anyway.  So I was perusing the latest market statistics put out by the Tucson MLS, and at the end of the president’s introduction, she says that the ratio between list price and sales price averages at 95.34%.

The list to sales price ratio is a figure that hasn’t been included in those reports for a while, at least not in a prominent manner, like it used to be.

So I’m looking at that 95% sales price to list price ratio, and I’m thinking - of my most recent buyers and sellers, no one paid 95% of list.  Most of my buyers found very well priced homes, moved quickly, and got those houses.  My last few listings haven’t closed yet, so I can’t disclose specifics, but we’re pretty darn close to list price on those too.

What all the averages and numbers don’t take into account is individual pricing.  Sure, maybe we can use average numbers if the house is average and the price is average.  But sometimes, we’re looking at a new listing, with a fabulous price - and there’s no way you’ll get it for 95% of list.  Heck, I’ve been in bidding wars and multiple counter offers several times this year.

There seems to be a perception that buyers can get sharp discounts off of every house.  And I’ll gladly agree that there are still vastly overpriced homes out there where that applies.  But it isn’t a hard and fast rule.  You can’t just take 5% off every list price and expect that to be accepted.  Some sellers ARE pricing very well, are demonstrating clear value, and their houses are selling fast.  You’ve really got to analyze each home individually, on it’s own relative merits, before making a decision as to value.

Back to my numbers now.  I wonder - if you track the rate of change of, say, average sales price or active listings, would there be too much bounce in the data, especially on a per area basis?  And would smoothing it take away any value that data might have had?  Anyone?

Today I finished up the last little chores at my old house, gathered up all our spare keys, and took home all the towels and fancy soaps and the candy jar from my home that I’m selling, due to close a bit later this week. 

That’s a good house, and it was a little sad today, taking my last stuff out.  I remember when we first bought it, all the terrible orange sponge painted walls, the pink vertical blinds, the nasty carpet, the lawsuit-waiting-to-happen stairway and deck on top of the roof.  The scary dark kitchen.

I remember digging out the clay sewer line to replace it, being hip deep in my front yard with my hat and a variety of shovels.

I remember taking a sledge to the kitchen, learning to make eggs and toast on the barbeque, and discovering it was when the mini-fridge coils touched the gas line, the house power shorted out.

My father taught me how to use a table saw when we built new kitchen cabinets on the back porch.  I remember renting a concrete mixer, hauling 20 bags of quick-crete into the yard, mixing it all up, building forms for concrete countertops on top of those newly built cabinets.  Most of all, I remember my husband wheeling the first load of concrete into the kitchen - my father and I both stuck our shovels in, stopped, and he looked up at me and said, “Are we really going to do this?”

Yup Pop, we are, and we did.  And they turned out beautifully.

I remember painting a random series of horizontal stripes of varying colors and width in the hall bathroom.  Not my finest idea.

That’s the house where I learned to change a light fixture, to install blinds, to install doors, to paint and stain and finish, to build with wood, to lay flooring and baseboards.  To pick paint colors and lay gravel.  To dig long, deep trenches.  To snake a drain.  To troubleshoot a swamp cooler.  To destroy a kitchen and tear down walls.  To tape and texture drywall.  To hang a microhood and install a dishwasher.

It’s where I learned not all walls are square, not all floors are level, and that there are solutions to both.

Bye-bye, home.  I’m going to miss you.

Although that’s a redundant title, as ‘monsoon’ generally means ’season.’

I must not have been paying attention.  This year, the national weather service declared monsoon season to start on June 15 and end on September 30.  It’s good to know the national weather service can declare weather. 

They have all sorts of Tucson monsoon season statistics and maps and whatnot over on the National Weather Service Monsoon page for Tucson.

We used to declare the monsoons had arrived when the dew point was at over 54 degrees for three consecutive days, I believe.  The days would get muggy and people would check the news - it it monsoons yet?  No?  Oh.

But no more.  Dates have been set.  Welcome, monsoon.

Now if only the rains would start…

I have clients right now that find themselves in a less than desirable situation - through entirely no fault of their own.  On our part, we’ve acted in good faith and honored the various obligations and promises made in the contract.

I won’t go into details here because everything is still pending, but I’ve been reviewing the whole situation in my head to see if there was some little thing that I could have done to avoid this whole mess.

And quite honestly, there was no way to anticipate or avoid it on our side.  But I have a feeling I know exactly what happened on the other side of this deal, and I can make sure that I don’t make that kind of mistake. 

Here’s what I can take away from this situation, so far:

Whether it’s your first home sale (or purchase) or your fiftieth, you always need to review and read everything.  It sounds so basic, right?  Read what you sign. 

What I’ve learned in 5 years in this business is there is a large segment of people that - if you put a pen in their hand and a form in front of them, they’ll sign it without really reading it.  Those are the folks you’ve got to slow down, refocus, and make sure they understand what they’re getting into.

There’s many times that I’ve sat and had long discussions with my clients, deciding how to negotiate, what to offer or counter, and then at the end, we write it all up.  That’s why I sit there and take notes during our discussion so that we don’t forget some small important item.  And then when I put a form in front of you to sign, we need to review it again and make sure that it is exactly what you want it to say.

Now, if EVERYONE practiced real estate that way, my clients wouldn’t be in this mess.  Nevertheless, here we are.

Oh, and I know a good real estate attorney, should you find yourself in need of one…

Summer has spung (or does Summer sum?).

The weather man says it’s going to be 107 this week.

And I don’t mind the temperature, really.  You live in the desert long enough, you learn how to deal with it, how to keep cool.

However, it is time to issue my annual summer complaint about people trying to sell their home in the Tucson summer while leaving off their air conditioner.

I can’t tell you how many vacant houses I’ve walked into over the past few days where it was 90 degrees.  Inside.  I tell you, no one wants to spend time in and contemplate a home when you’re slowly roasting.  It’s exhausting.

Please, those of you selling your home here in Tucson, vacant or not - let’s turn on that air conditioner.  Give yourself a fighting chance to keep someone in your home long enough to possibly consider purchasing it.  You don’t have to set it to 72, somewhere in the low 80’s is acceptable.

Your potential Buyers will thank you!

Now THAT’s a novel idea! 

I had a nice conversation via that little Plugoo chat box on the sidebar with someone who is saving to buy a home, thinks they’ll be ready to buy in about a year.  They were asking whether prices would remain steady or fall, as they missed the bubble before and don’t want to be priced out again.

They were nervous about missing an opportunity but didn’t want to get into a mortgage that they couldn’t afford.

I like these people already. 

I tend to be on the conservative side when it comes to money.  I don’t ever want to be a slave to my mortgage, and tend to buy well under my approval limits.

Oh, and as far as prices go, in the next year?  I can’t see the future, but I would guess we’re not going to see any huge run-ups very soon.  In my humble opinion, I would expect prices to continue along their current trend at least through 2008, if not well into 2009. 

And to who ever that was on Plugoo - good luck to you!  I hope when you’re ready to buy, you have every confidence in your savings and your finances so that you can make clear, comfortable choices.

Whenever I help someone buy or sell a home, there’s a lot of research to be done about the property and the area.  There are a lot of cool resources out there, but one of my favorite are the GIS maps from the City of Tucson.

Check them out at the City of Tucson map center.

Floodplain maps, neighborhood maps, maps of the washes, street mileage maps, maps of lights and traffic signals, all sorts of good stuff.  There’s even links to the Oro Valley and Pima county mapping sites too.

Don’t forget to check the Tucson police department site, they have Tucson crime density maps too.

But as always - even the maps have a disclaimer.  Information found there is deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.

A quick note on a busy day:

Being the nicest home on the block is really not the best thing in term of your home’s value.

Think about it this way: would you rather pay for a $200k home in an area of $100k homes, or would you rather buy a $200k home in an area surrounded by $400k homes?

The fancy name for that is the Principle of Regression: basically, all the homes around your home are either helping you or hurting you.  So if you’re the best home around, every one else is keeping you down!

And a nice desert vista from North Tucson:

Spotted this Guadalajara Grill Coming Soon sign over near Prince and Mountain in Central Tucson.  I’m guessing they’re moving to new digs soon, given the existing location is near Prince and Campbell.  Still - the best tableside salsa.  I hope there’s a good patio space in this new location.

More and more, as the local MLS becomes merely one option as a place to list your home for sale, it becomes important to check other sources when you’re trying to value a home for sale or find comps to write an offer.

Especially in the high end market, many of those sales happen from word of mouth, are not listed in the Tucson MLS, or may have been listed in other services where it can get more exposure to that high end buyer.

In the regular folk price range, there are always sales that aren’t entered into MLS by the agent, or were sold by owner.

If we want to get a full picture of the value of a property, I think it’s important to check all sources - not just the local Tucson MLS. 

One of those important sources is the Pima County Recorder.  Hopefully, anytime a property transfers ownership, that Buyer and Seller had the sale and the deed recorded.  Luckily, I have pretty easy access to that through a system called CRS, which aggregates public data from sources including the recorders office.  Now, it may take a little bit of time for CRS to get updates from the Recorder’s office, but usually, I can see recorded sales within a few weeks of them happening.