buying snow blowers in July

In the Tucson Foothills we have our in-seasons and our out of season seasons. January through May is our in-season in the Foothills.
Snowbirds and second home owners are here en masse, and showings and sales of homes are at their busiest time for the year.

As June arrives and temperatures head into the triple digits, winter visitors and second home owners have left town and everything slows down, including home sales. It's like clockwork, it happens every year.

But if you can take the heat, it's the best time of year to make a deal on a home in the Tucson Foothills. It's like buying a snow blower in July, there's not much competition. Home sellers realize that sales are slow and are not going to really pick up again until next January.
And when it's 100° in June and the showings are few and far between, January can seem like an agonizingly long way off.
Your offer is the bird in the hand. 

In addition to the regular seasonal slow-down that summer usually brings, this is now the third year in a row of slower home sales overall in the Foothills. Because of that we have a relatively large inventory of homes for sale, and quite a few of those homes have been sitting on the market for a long time.
So our regular summer slowdown, combined with higher inventory and the continuing overall sluggishness of the market has created a situation that heavily favors buyers, and should enable buyers to make even better deals this summer than in summers past. 

Here's what to look for and what to do to give yourself an edge when buying a home in the Tucson Foothills this summer.
The more of these conditions that your subject home meets, the better your chances of making a great deal.

-Make sure to search the market thoroughly and try to find at least two homes that you'd like to buy. The point is, you don't want to fall in love with a house, and then find that the seller's not negotiable,
and have nowhere to turn. You want to be able to walk away and move on to your next choice. 
 
-Make sure that your target homes are priced roughly in the ball park of where they should be. If the seller is way off in the stratosphere on their list price, that's probably not a good starting point to making a good deal. 

-The home should have been on the market for at least four months, and longer is better. It's less likely that the owners of a home that's been listed for just a month or two are going to be very motivated to make a great deal.
 
-If the home is vacant that's a big plus. If it's been vacant for a long time that's an even bigger plus. But it needs to be a primary residence, or what was their primary residence. If the current owners use the house as a second home, it's probably always vacant in the summer, so that's not much of a plus.

-If it's a new builder spec home, that's a big plus.
And if it is, then it's almost certain that it's priced at $1,000,000 ++, and in the $1,000,000++ market there are a lot of homes for sale, both new and resale. And quite a few new-vacant-builder-investor homes. And many of these builder/investor sellers are super motivated to do what it takes to sell ASAP. They're probably holding a big note on the cost of building that big expensive home, and they want out from under.

-If it's an older home and it was purchased in the last two years or so, and it's now advertised as having a new kitchen, baths, flooring, etc, and at a much higher price than the last sale, it may well be a home that was bought to fix & flip, and there may be an opportunity here too, particularly if it's vacant.
 
-If the home has had two or more meaningful price reductions (3-4% or more) that's a good sign that the sellers want to sell and will adjust their expectations to get it done. Little token price reductions, $1000 here, $2500 there, they don't count. As a matter of fact, they're a sign that the seller is into playing games and/or they don't understand or don't care about the reality of the current market.

-If there is a large inventory of similar homes for sale in that area of the Foothills or that price range, or both, that's a very useful bit of negotiating ammo.

Once you find your target homes and you're ready to move forward, you'll have to evaluate each one individually to decide how much to offer and how best to structure a winning deal. There are too many variables to offer specific advice beyond the following generic tips.

-if you're financing the purchase, have that all lined up, signed, sealed and approved ahead of time

-make your offer as clean as possible with only inspection and financing contingencies and limit the offer to just the house and grounds, the real property. Forget about the potted plants, the furniture and the other personal stuff that you'd like to include.
The seller may have a particular fondness or sentimental value for that do-dad that you've included as part of the offer, and now they're agonizing over that item, rather than concentrating on the main deal. Don't complicate the offer.
 
-if possible, make it a cash offer, and if the property is vacant, make it a cash offer with a fast close - two weeks, start to finish.
The combination of a cash offer and a fast close is hard for a home seller to resist. Boom, two weeks and they're out from under.

-If you've done your best, negotiated diligently and in good faith and still can't make a deal, walk away and move on to your next choice.
Sometimes walking away causes the home seller to reconsider.
If not, just stay cool and keep walking.

see my web site thefoothillsToday.com
to search for and learn more about Tucson Foothills Homes

Comments

[RP]

It seems logical that activity should drop off in the summer, both in the Foothills and in Tucson as a whole. Yet, the TAR statistics show, year by year, relatively high unit sales for Tucson in July and August (as well as June).

[John Schneider]

For the greater Tucson metro, sales are still relatively high in the summer. As in many places, much of that is driven by the school year- moving after school's out and before it begins again. Foothills sales involve a higher percentage of snowbird, second & retirement home purchases, than other areas of Tucson, & therefore sales are slower in the summer than in other areas of Tucson because those people (the buyers) are gone.
(though I'm no expert on other areas of Tucson)
Also, when you're looking at stats of closed sales, remember that those sales were initiated 30 to 45 days before COE. So the homes that closed escrow in June were put under contract in April & May, and the activity that I'm referring to is the point at which a buyer makes an offer & the home goes under contract.

[John Schneider]

RP, one more point, and I should have clarified this in my post. the months with the smallest number of closed sales in the foothills are traditionally september & october, which indicates that those sales were initiated in July & August - very slow months for showings and deals.