219 E 13th St

Do you love history? Oak floors and claw foot tubs?
High ceilings and big sunny windows?
A fireplace and spacious formal dining? An urban lifestyle? This is the home for you.
Living just half a block from Amory Park, you won't miss any of the fun as downtown Tucson revitalizes herself. The Children's Museum, Temple of Music and Art, 17th Street Market & La Placita Village (Tucson Meet Yourself! Folk Festival! Outdoor Movies!). Many hip new restaurants are nearby. One block to the planned 4th Avenue Trolley to University of Arizona.
Have you seen the fabulous griffin on Scott Avenue? She's only two blocks from this sweet home.


Three bedrooms and two baths in the main part of the house.
The kitchen has been updated with stainless steel appliances and tile counters, but still retains its antique character.
If you need a home office to impress your sophisticated clients, you'll love the two room suite with private entrance, storage and bathroom.
Maybe you would like some rental income? The previous office tenant paid $420 per month for five years, but left when her lease expired in December 2011. Or you could use the suite as a master bedroom or guest quarters. The floor plan is here. This is the vintage home of your dreams. This home sold for $267,000 on March 1, 2012.

May Residential Sales Statistics

The Tucson Association of Realtors has released the Residential Sales Statistics for May.

Average sale price was $168,453. Median sale price was $127,000. There were 1,257 sales in May, only slightly below the 1,270 sales a year ago. Fortunately, number of listings is down to 5,795, down 14% from last May.

3.8% Sales Tax on All Real Estate Sales!

Have you received a chain email like this:

This should help stimulate the Real Estate market! UNDER THE NEW HEALTH CARE BILL – DID YOU KNOW THAT ALL REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS ARE SUBJECT TO A 3.8% “SALES TAX”? YOU CAN THANK NANCY, HARRY & BARACK (AND YOUR LOCAL CONGRESSMAN) FOR THIS ONE.
IF YOU SELL YOUR $400,000 HOME, THIS WILL BE A $15,200 TAX.

Please, settle down and don't shout! The purveyors of this email can only wish the health care bill were this evil. According to factcheck.org and snopes.com, this tax only applies to people with income exceeding $200,000 per year. If the seller has lived in the house for two of the last five years, the first $250,000 in capital gains for a single person and $500,000 in capital gains for a married couple is tax free. Only the capital gains in excess of those amounts will be taxed at 3.8%.

Sales of vacation homes and investment properties are not exempt from this tax.

Most of us can't even dream about $250,000 in capital gains on the sale of our homes. This bill will generate so little tax revenue, and it has predictably created so much rumor fodder, I don't see why it was ever tacked on to the health care bill.

Vote for Tucson, The Best Town Ever!

Tucson is one of the top ten finalists in Outside Magazine's Best Town Ever contest. Voting for Outside Magazine’s “Best Town Ever” ends Sunday, June 26th at 9:00 p.m. Arizona time. The Old Pueblo needs your vote every day until then! Tucson is slowly gaining ground on Chattanooga, TN but we are running out of time and will not catch them unless you participate directly.

Today, Chattanooga is leading the pack with 6,019 votes. Tucson is in second place at 4,790 votes. This is probably because most people in Tucson are outside enjoying Tucson's fabulosity instead of sitting in front of their computers, but come on, take a minute and vote for Tucson!

Please cast your vote every day at facebook.com/OutsideMagazine. You will need to ‘like’ their page before you’re able to vote. You can vote until Sunday, June 26th at 9:00 p.m. MST.

This is So Wrong

Something is seriously wrong with Arizona when wonderful people like Laura, Jennifer and Jackson have to leave, but Senate President Russell Pearce, Sheriff Joe Araipo and the Wasilla Hillbillies get to stay.

I wish Baja Arizona actually had a chance of seceding from Maricopa County and rejoining the United States.

"C'est la Vie," Say the Old Folks

We bought a souped-up Hyundai, it was a cherry red GLE. Drove it down to Bisbee to celebrate the anniversary.

Steve and I met 20 years ago this month, and we decided that milestone deserves a celebration. We stayed at the beautiful vacation home of our friend Cynthia. She bought her sweet vintage home high on the hill overlooking Old Bisbee 33 years ago, before anyone knew that Bisbee would become such an artsy community. She was in Bisbee when Bisbee wasn't cool.

We had three days of being tourists. We checked out the Shady Dell airstream trailer court and diner,
and took the Copper Queen Mine tour.
We looked in galleries, were awed by the stained glass at St Patrick's and admired the art deco Cochise County Superior Court Building. Ate no fewer than three delicious meals at High Desert Market and Cafe on Tombstone Canyon, and had some good Mexican chow at Santiago's in Brewery Gulch. Cynthia proudly gave us a tour of the impressive Copper Queen Hospital where she works.

Believe it or not, list prices of small historic homes are higher in Bisbee than they are in Tucson. However, the amazing 10,615 square foot, 11 bedroom, 9 bathroom Loma Linda mansion in Warren can be had for only $672,000. Designed by the architect Henry Trost, it was built for a mine executive in 1907, and was known as a rock star party house in the 70s. Many of the homes in Bisbee were demolished when the Lavender Pit opened, and Loma Linda lost its extensive orchards. You will have to overlook the towering mine tailings that now come almost up to the back porch, but it's a steal, marked down from its 2007 list price of $2,000,000.
C'est la vie, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell.

It's a Good Time to Invest in Tucson

Inman News ranks Tucson as the fourth best place in the country to buy investment property now.

"The analysis considered markets with high affordability, low and dropping prices, a high market share of foreclosure sales, high population growth, an improving unemployment rate that is close to or better than the national average, high projected return on investment (ROI) over the next decade, and a low total cost of ownership-to-rent ratio."

While Tucson is great for long-term investors, the short term investors are also doing well by paying cash for foreclosed and distressed properties that don't qualify for traditional mortgage financing. The investors make the needed repairs, which may be as minor as replacing broken windows or replacing heating and cooling systems, and then selling the property for twice or more what they paid.

Not all these investors are actually paying cash. They may purchase the house with "hard money", meaning they get a loan at high interest rate from a private lender who, unlike the traditional sources of low cost mortgages, doesn't care about the condition of the property. The investor doesn't plan to keep the house more than a few months, so he isn't very concerned about the high interest rate he is paying.