The face of real estate success sure has been changed in the past few years. Until foreclosures and short sales started to dominate the market in the past few years, the elite real estate sales agents in Tucson were those who sold a few dozen luxury homes.
Now the heavy hitters are the real estate teams who focus on handling bank-owned properties. Last year, the sales volume top producer was Bob Zachmeier, who had a mind-boggling 492 sales averaging $112,568 each, followed by Marsee Wilhems with 350 sales averaging $121,600.
Agents number 3, 4 and 5 in sales volume were the traditional sales leaders: Janell Jellison, Rob Lamb and Russell Long. Their number of sales and average sale prices were 44 and $693,011; 116 and $214,705; and 37 and $656,677, respectively.
The agents in positions 13 through 17 each had over 300 sales averaging under $50,000. The thought of doing all that paperwork makes my head hurt.
The old saw that 10% of the agents do 90% of the work is still true. More than half the 4,600 agents in Tucson last year made two sales or fewer. I don't do foreclosure management, and I rarely sell a luxury home, but I still managed to be in the top 10% in sales production, as I have been since before the real estate boom and subsequent bust. I enjoy doing business the old-fashioned way. I help people, rather than banks, achieve their real estate goals.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Dirt Road Blues
Have you ever thought it would be nice to live way out in the desert on a dirt road? If you are contemplating such a move, be sure to find out who is responsible for maintaining the road. When a summer monsoon turns the only route to your house into quick sand, who will put it right? Do you think it's 1) Pima County, 2) A helpful neighbor who likes to play with his Bobcat 3) A contractor hired by the people who live on the road or 4) Nobody?
If you assumed it wasn't number 4, you may have a hard time getting home. I just got this from loan officer extraordinaire Catherine Ellinwood with Fairway Independent Mortgage:
If a property is on a dirt road, you’ll want to know whether the road is county-maintained or has a private road maintenance agreement. Recent lesson learned: it’s not enough for the seller to say the county goes by once in awhile and grades the road, as the road in question turned out NOT to be county-maintained. Conventional, VA, FHA, and USDA loans will require some type of road agreement. So if you’re buying a property on a dirt road, you’ll want to know in advance if the road is not maintained. This was not really an issue before 2011, but now all dirt roads must be county-maintained or have a maintenance agreement on the preliminary title report if it’s a private road.
Pima County has a website that shows all the roads they maintain. Determining the maintenance status of a particular road seems like a pretty byzantine process, so call Catherine (520-954-1907) if you want her to walk you through it.
Why do I say Catherine is a loan officer extraordinaire? In order for one of her customers to buy a house on a dirt road, all the homeowners on the road had to sign a road maintenance agreement. Catherine and the buyer's agent went door to door to get the signatures and saved the deal.
Safos Dance
This weekend Safos Dance will perform a modern ballet, "Caroline's Story: Le Plus Beau Jour de Ma Vie". The theme of the ballet is a woman's journey through post partum depression. The music was composed by my fabulous client Jordane Lafitte.
Friday, March 9, 2012
February Residential Sales Statistics
The Tucson Association of Realtors has released the Residential Sales Statistics for February.
It's looking pretty good. Average sale price was $164,513 and it has increased in four of the last five months. That sure hasn't happened for several years. We are now back to where prices were in 2002.
The really good news is that 1,019 properties were sold, a 16% increase since February 2011, and a most heartening improvement over the pitiful 615 sales in January 2009.
Number of listings are down, too, bringing supply (listings) in balance with demand (sales). With only 4,560 active listings, we are way down from the bad old days of April 2010 when we had 10,387 active listings, in large part due to banks flooding the market with foreclosures. Listing inventory is down a whopping 34% since February 2011.
With 4,560 listings and 1,019 sales, we have a 4.5 month supply of listings. Anything below a six month supply is considered a seller's market. My colleagues and I are seeing multiple offers and bidding wars, but it's mostly in the under $150,000 range, where most of the sales are still concentrated.
Half of the properties were distressed sales. 36% of the sales were foreclosures and 14% of the sales were short sales.
It's looking pretty good. Average sale price was $164,513 and it has increased in four of the last five months. That sure hasn't happened for several years. We are now back to where prices were in 2002.
The really good news is that 1,019 properties were sold, a 16% increase since February 2011, and a most heartening improvement over the pitiful 615 sales in January 2009.
Number of listings are down, too, bringing supply (listings) in balance with demand (sales). With only 4,560 active listings, we are way down from the bad old days of April 2010 when we had 10,387 active listings, in large part due to banks flooding the market with foreclosures. Listing inventory is down a whopping 34% since February 2011.
With 4,560 listings and 1,019 sales, we have a 4.5 month supply of listings. Anything below a six month supply is considered a seller's market. My colleagues and I are seeing multiple offers and bidding wars, but it's mostly in the under $150,000 range, where most of the sales are still concentrated.
Half of the properties were distressed sales. 36% of the sales were foreclosures and 14% of the sales were short sales.
Friday, March 2, 2012
One of My First Clients from Grad School at UofA
Donna Moulton ROCKS! She is the reason we found our house, and we love it dearly. :-)
Martha Whitaker
Martha Whitaker
Thursday, March 1, 2012
A Long, Strange Trip with These Sellers
I can't believe it. Donna, thank you for your incredible work over the course of nearly a year. What a time we've been through together. You are a real estate goddess, and the Don Quixote of real estate agents; you wouldn't give up even when we thought it was hopeless. We will forever be grateful to you. And we hope all your future sales will be easier.
Laura Briggs and Jennifer Nye
Laura Briggs and Jennifer Nye
Monday, February 27, 2012
Residential Sale Statistics
The Tucson Association of Realtors has released the Residential Sale Statistics for January.
After three consecutive months of slight increases, the average sale price was down a little to $157,059. We are back to the average prices of 2001.
Part of the reason the real estate market has been so haywire is the supply (number of listings) has greatly exceeded the demand (number of sales). The good news is that there were 4,840 listings in January, which is about the same as in January 2002 when the market was normal. This less than half the 10,387 listings we saw in 2007 when banks were flooding the market with foreclosures.
The banks are now releasing their foreclosures more slowly, and of course the number of foreclosures has declined, now that all the people who shouldn't have bought houses have lost them. We are now working through the inventory of foreclosures caused by unemployment combined with the depression of property values that resulted from banks selling houses for incredibly low prices. In some neighborhoods, all the comparable sales are still foreclosures and short sales. People who did everything right--got mortgages they could afford, made significant down payments, and paid on time--are finding themselves with negative equity, which results in more short sales and strategic defaults.
The other good news is January saw 915 sales, more than in January 2003, the last normal year. This is so much better than the 621 sales we had in January 2008 and the 615 sales in January 2009.
Today the MLS shows 969 sales in January, perhaps the result of listing agents turning in the sales data after the January 31 deadline. Foreclosures accounted for 390 or 40% of the sales, and short sales were 16% of the sales. The banks continue to prefer foreclosure over short sale, even though foreclosures appear to net the banks less money.
37% of the properties were purchased with cash. Many of these buyers were investors who purchased houses that were in such bad condition, owner-occupant buyers would have difficulty getting a mortgage to buy them. Fortunately, these investors are renovating the properties and reselling them a few months later at prices that will help boost the value of the surrounding houses.
FHA and VA backed 29% of the sales, and 30% of the buyers obtained conventional financing.
78% of the sales were under $200,000, and 58% of the sales were under $140,000.
With 30 year fixed interest rates at all-time lows, and lots of bargain-priced houses, home buyers are becoming very motivated.
After three consecutive months of slight increases, the average sale price was down a little to $157,059. We are back to the average prices of 2001.
Part of the reason the real estate market has been so haywire is the supply (number of listings) has greatly exceeded the demand (number of sales). The good news is that there were 4,840 listings in January, which is about the same as in January 2002 when the market was normal. This less than half the 10,387 listings we saw in 2007 when banks were flooding the market with foreclosures.
The banks are now releasing their foreclosures more slowly, and of course the number of foreclosures has declined, now that all the people who shouldn't have bought houses have lost them. We are now working through the inventory of foreclosures caused by unemployment combined with the depression of property values that resulted from banks selling houses for incredibly low prices. In some neighborhoods, all the comparable sales are still foreclosures and short sales. People who did everything right--got mortgages they could afford, made significant down payments, and paid on time--are finding themselves with negative equity, which results in more short sales and strategic defaults.
The other good news is January saw 915 sales, more than in January 2003, the last normal year. This is so much better than the 621 sales we had in January 2008 and the 615 sales in January 2009.
Today the MLS shows 969 sales in January, perhaps the result of listing agents turning in the sales data after the January 31 deadline. Foreclosures accounted for 390 or 40% of the sales, and short sales were 16% of the sales. The banks continue to prefer foreclosure over short sale, even though foreclosures appear to net the banks less money.
37% of the properties were purchased with cash. Many of these buyers were investors who purchased houses that were in such bad condition, owner-occupant buyers would have difficulty getting a mortgage to buy them. Fortunately, these investors are renovating the properties and reselling them a few months later at prices that will help boost the value of the surrounding houses.
FHA and VA backed 29% of the sales, and 30% of the buyers obtained conventional financing.
78% of the sales were under $200,000, and 58% of the sales were under $140,000.
With 30 year fixed interest rates at all-time lows, and lots of bargain-priced houses, home buyers are becoming very motivated.
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