TheTucsonFoothills

9 fast facts for Tucson Foothills homes

1. 558 homes for sale

2. 291 sold since 1/1/08 vs. 355 same period last year = -18%

3. 97 sold in gated communities, 194 sold in non-gated areas

4. 234 single story homes sold & 57 two story homes sold

5. 154 homes sold had a pool, 137 did not

6. The average sale price is $649,091 vs $706,452 last year = -8.1%

7. The median sale price is $535,000 vs $551,480 last year = -2.98%

8. Avg sale price=$662,788 in District 16, $629,011 out of District 16

9. Avg $/sq.ft. = $220.91 vs $239.11/sq.ft. last year =  -7.6%

**this data is for single family homes only - no town homes, no condos - sold in the Tucson Foothills Jan 1 - June 29, 07 & 08.
All data was gathered from the Tucson Association of Realtors® Multiple Listing Service.

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

short sales in the Tucson Foothills

This morning I did a thorough search in the MLS for short sales, REO's, bank owned, auction or foreclosure properties that are For Sale in the Tucson Foothills. I found 14. (**single family homes only**)

Most of them are listed as short sales, one REO, and none were listed as going to auction.

Under those same distressed sale categories I found eleven homes that are under contract, and six that have sold in the last six months.

Including those for sale, under contract and sold, the prices range from $257,500 to $1,195,000. 

Then I checked out Realty Trac, and they show more distress sale properties in the Foothills that don't show up in the MLS.

Using their data I entered the addresses in the MLS, and found that in some cases there was a home for sale at that address, and in some there wasn't. But of those that I checked that are for sale in the MLS, there was no indication in any of the listing data that the property was a bank owned, auction or short sale.

And that's odd. Because it's usually not something the bank wants to keep secret. They want to sell the house, and people are attracted to short sales because there may be an opportunity for a bargain.
But I suppose it's possible that with some of these properties, the short sale or foreclosure action is in the works and on the horizon. 

Amongst the 14 properties that are for sale is one that is a new builder spec home, and a nice one too.

Contact me for more info on any of these homes.

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

prices are up, prices are down

In a post the other day (we've had our ups and downs in the Tucson Foothills, but) I reported that average sale prices in the Tucson Foothills are down 6.9% this year vs. same period last year, and median sale prices are down 2.3%. And that's not too bad, considering.

But that's just the average for all 286 single family homes that have sold in the Foothills this year, priced from $195,000 all the way up to $3,100,000. And with such a wide range of prices, you can bet that different price ranges are feeling the pinch, or not, to different degrees.
So here's a look at the # of homes SOLD, plus Average & Median Sale prices, and the % increase or decrease, for single family homes SOLD in the Tucson Foothills, for the period of 1/1/08 - 6/25/08 vs same period last year, for different price ranges. 

Price Range	2007	2008	% +/-
0 - $500k # SOLD Avg SOLD $$ Med SOLD $$	127 $393,602 $400,000	126 $374,630 $373,500	- .7   -4.8   -6.6
$500 - $1.0m # SOLD Avg SOLD $$ Med SOLD $$	154 $672,912 $652,500	127 $694,986 $660,000	-17    +3.2    +1.1
$1.0 - $1.5m   # SOLD Avg SOLD $$ Med SOLD $$	29 $1,239,090 $1,235,000	19 $1,179,539 $1,100,000	-34     -4.8     -11
$1.5 - $2.0m   #SOLD Avg SOLD $$ Med SOLD $$	14 $1,678,643 $1,617,500	7 $1,752,857 $1,700,000	-50      +4.4      +5.1
$2.0 - UP   # SOLD Avg SOLD $$ Med SOLD $$	8 $2,409,375 $2,312,500	6 $2,591,667 $2,575,000	-25      +7.5      +11.3

The only real pattern here is that the # of homes SOLD is down across the board. Prices on the other hand, are up and down in an almost hopscotch-like pattern. And only the high-high-end is solidly up.

And because of very high inventory,(150 homes for sale at $1.0 & up) and significantly slower sales, I keep expecting the high end of the market to show a substantial decline in prices. Yet it hasn't, yet.

There are a couple of things that occur to me as to why the high high-end is holding up here in the Foothills, despite high inventory, slower sales and all the other negative influences chipping away at real estate values.
First off, the obvious, many of these homes are bought for cash.
No mortgage.
So the dismal state of the mortgage markets is often not a direct factor. While at lower price points buyers are routinely having a harder time qualifying for a mortgage, and when they do, it's often a smaller mortgage than they would like, and they're required to put more money down. So in the end they have less to spend on a home.

But also, like never before, we now have two classes of high-end homes in the Foothills, based solely on where they're located and the lots they're built on. (if you're having a deja vu as you read this and the next paragraph, it's because I lifted them from an earlier post I did on the same subject)
Before 2005, homes that were priced at about $1.5m and up were built in gated communities or on well located lots in non-gated areas of the Foothills. Since then, good lots have become an endangered species in the Tucson Foothills, and builders have responded by putting up very expensive homes on less desirable in-fill lots, lots that would not have been considered for building 4 or 5 years ago.

And in doing so, they've crossed the line of buyers tolerance. 
Buyers of high-end homes are opting to purchase only those homes that are on good lots in good locations, and bypassing the others. And for those, prices are holding up. Because unlike others who are less well off, many of the very wealthy just don't need to sell, so if you want what they have, you've got to pay the price, for now.

But I don't think that's how the story ends. Because by and large, the owners/builders of those $1,000,000+ vacant spec homes sprinkled throughout the Foothills, are not of that very wealthy class. And they can't hold out forever. And eventually, that will effect the market, negatively.

I believe that many of those $1,000,000+ spec homes can be gotten at a deep discount, right now.

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

the Tucson Foothills is a local housing market

I came across an article from Bankrate.com that offers some good common-sense advice about how local real estate markets often perform very differently from what's happening nationally.
Just so happens that the article also fits in nice 'n neatly with my post from yesterday, we've had our ups and downs in the Tucson Foothills, but
 
From Bankrate.com
When will YOUR housing market recover?
' Pundits love to make predictions as to when home prices will stabilize in U.S. housing markets. But even well-respected forecasters and analysts may disagree, and even if a forecast proves true nationally, your local market may behave in a wildly different way. This disconnect between broad-stroke forecasts and small-scale local markets presents quite a puzzle for homebuyers and home sellers, who need to make major financial decisions on the basis of facts, not fiction.'

' ...the national housing market is more than large enough to encompass a wide variety of trends in different places and on different timelines '

Read it here, When will YOUR housing market recover?

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

we've had our ups and downs in the Tucson Foothills, but

I can't help it, I always do this when Case-Schiller comes out with their numbers for home prices, which are then gobbled up and spit out by every media outlet across this country.
Case-Shiller says... Case-Schiller...Case-Schiller

Case-Schiller does not cover Tucson, and certainly not the Tucson Foothills. So I feel that I have to report the numbers for the Tucson Foothills, so people know what's going on here in the Foothills, in order to counter any misconceptions that may accrue from the blast of news that accompanies the Case-Schiller report.
(and by the way, I have no argument with the Case-Schiller report, I'm sure it's true, for the markets they cover)

But the rise and fall of home prices in the Tucson Foothills has been less dramatic than in the notoriously once hot markets reported by
Case-Schiller that dominate the news.

Nevertheless, as the following chart illustrates, we've had our share of ups and downs. 
 

Average & and median sale prices in the Foothills peaked in 2006 at $703,616 for the average, and, $571,000 for the median.

Then in 2007 it dropped 3.7% to $677,512 for the average, and, 5.4% to $540,000 for the median.
And this year they're down again.
The average sale price is down 3.6% to $652,519, and the median is down .93% to $535,000, from 2007.

So for the last two years, the average sale price in the Tucson Foothills is down 7.3% and the median is down 6.4%.

Over the last few days we've read, seen and heard that prices are down 15, 20, and 25% in just one year for many of the markets covered by Case-Schiller. It didn't happen here.

UPDATE: A few hours later.
Since posting this piece on Case-Schiller and how it's findings are reported in the press, whether applicable or not to your market area, and consequently often misconstrued by many listeners, readers, and watchers, along comes this headline on the front page of the business section of today's AZ Daily Star, to perfectly illustrate my point.

U.S. home prices are plummeting, still not close to bottoming out

This glaring headline, created by our own AZ Daily Star, was pasted above an AP story reporting on the findings of the Case-Schiller report.
The AZ Daily Star is a local paper, and anyone reading that headline would reasonably conclude that it's about Tucson. But it's not, and the Star damn-well knows that.
There's nothing in the Case-Schiller report about Tucson.
Unfortunately, our local paper The AZ Star makes no effort whatsoever to explain that, or to provide any perspective at all that would be of value to its readers.
Big glaring headline, Cheap, irresponsible journalism. 

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

the short sale of the week sells in 6 days

Last week I posted a piece called short sale of the week, in the Tucson Foothills
It featured a home that had been on the market for about 10 months, and during that time priced between $1.5m and $1.2m, and it didn't sell. Then last week it was re-listed as a short sale, for the
bargain-basement price of $850,000, or $186.53/sq ft.
A real deal.

With short sales it usually takes a long time for the lender to make up their mind about an offer, and then have a meeting to get the committee to approve it, and process the paperwork, and on and on.
This one went in six days, listing to accepted offer, and I'll bet there was a bidding war. Someone did very well. $186.53/sq ft is a steal for that house.

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

it's a condo, it's a town home, it's a ...

Bob, a reader of this blog emailed me asking how the town-home market is doing in the Tucson Foothills . 
This was in response to my post in the Tucson Foothills real estate market ... where I was asked readers to let me know, what they'd like to know about the Tucson Foothills market.

Ok, the town-home market. For single family homes this is usually a simple and straightforward task, and I do it regularly. But for
town-homes I knew that it wouldn't be quite as straightforward, and would involve a bit more sifting through the data.

Here's why.
Until early 2007 town-homes and condos were treated as the same type of property in the MLS, TH/CND, townhome/condo.
When an agent listed either a town-home or a condo, there was one box to check on the MLS listing sheet and that covered both
town-homes and condos, and as a result listings for town-homes or condos showed up as TH/CND. No distinction. They were all glommed together.
Then in early 2007 the Tucson Association of Realtors decided to
un-glom them and create two separate categories - Condo, and town-home, each to have their own separate designation. That makes sense.

And then, as a follow up, I'm told, they somehow would go back and
re-designate all the properties that had sold and were originally listed as TH/CND into the newly appropriate separate categories.
Condos were to be re-listed as condos, and town-homes as town-homes. Neat as you please. Or so the story went.
 
I don't track condo/town-home sales like I do single family homes, so I wasn't aware of the extent of this condo/town-home mash-up,
and assumed that the TAR had more or less straightened things out, so I could move ahead and answer Bobs question.

So I started pulling the data from the MLS;

I saw that in 2003, 326 town-homes sold in the Tucson Foothills.
That seemed like a very healthy figure for town-home sales in one year.
Moving on I saw that in 2004 272 sold, but in 2005, 429 sold.
How could that be, 429 town-homes sold in one year in the Foothills.  Up periscope, I started wondering, did I sleep through some game changing town-home event that occurred in 2005, or am I just losing it
OK, let's see what happened in 2006.
IMPOSSIBLE. DID NOT HAPPEN.
-according to the Tucson Association of Realtors MLS -
655 town-homes SOLD in the Tucson Foothills in 2006,
NO WAY! There's never been near that many town-homes for sale in the foothills in any one year, never mind 655 sold,

Now I had to find out what was going on and take a look at the details of where these alleged town-homes were located.
It took about a minute and it all fell into place.

In 2005 & 2006 there was a tsunami of condo conversions that took place in the Foothills - Tierra Catalina, Veranda, Pinnacle, the Villas at Sabino Canyon, Ventana Vista, etc, etc. And those condos were originally listed as TH/CND, townhome/condo. But later, when the MLS decided to separate the two categories, almost all the condos somehow got re-listed as townhomes. And because of that, the hundreds of condos that have sold since then, ended up being listed as town-homes that sold. Not condos. Hundreds of them.

So all the data on town-home sales is corrupted and useless, and all the data on condo sales is useless too.
The MLS data shows that 655 town-homes and 62 condos sold in 2006. Flipping those numbers - to 62 townhomes & 655 condos sold -though not completely accurate, would be a lot closer to the actual number of condos and town-homes that sold in 2006.

So in trying to answer a simple question from Bob, " how's the
town-home market doing in the Tucson foothills " I've instead opened a big can of worms.

So Bob, for now, it's hard to say how the town-home market is doing.

At this point, in order to figure it out, me, or anyone else, would have to go through each listing, one-by-one, in each of the last few years to determine whether each property is actually a condo or a town-home, and then separate them out, keep a list, check it twice, and add up the number of properties sold that are actually town-homes, plus the sold price for each, and then compute the average and median sold prices. Sound like fun yet.
If I only went back to 2005 it would mean going through about 1300 listings, one-by-one. Quick, where's my abacus.

Needless to say, I've got a few calls into the Tucson Association of Realtors MLS, hoping that they will figure out a way to untangle this mess. I'll let you know what I hear. 

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

in the Tucson Foothills real estate market ...

On this blog I try to post information and write about things that I think may be helpful, interesting or amusing to those of you interested in the Tucson Foothills real estate market - including sales statistics, trends, new developments, and my observations and opinions about what's happening in the Foothills market.
 
While I pick these topics because I think they'll be helpful or interesting, it's very likely there are other things about the foothills market that I haven't even thought of or touched on, that you'd like to know.
Something to do with home sales, prices, trends, an analysis or opinion of a particular segment or area of the market, or something else entirely, that I haven't thought of.
 
If you let me know what you'd like to know, I'll do my best to answer your questions and provide the information here on the blog.
 
Let's face it, it's summer, it's 108, the real estate market is slower,
and I'd like to keep busy, indoors.

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

sometimes people surprise me, and not pleasantly

This past Sunday was Fathers day, and my two daughters Margot and Jenna and my wife took us all out to lunch to celebrate.
We had a nice lunch and great time and got back home about 2:00. The plan was to spend the day lounging around the pool having a relaxing afternoon. No work, no open house, just a day to goof off and be with my family. It was really nice.

Just as I was getting into the relaxation groove I got a call from a woman, someone I'd never met, who wanted to know if I could show her a house that was for sale here in the Tucson Foothills, and do it that afternoon. During the week she worked and wouldn't be able to go until about 6 o'clock. It's not really what I wanted to do at that moment. 

So I wanted to know more. She was moving here from Dallas, and had already started work here, and her husband and kids would follow as soon as she found a house for them.
She briefly explained the kind of house she was looking for and that she was interested in this particular house because on a $/sq ft basis it was very inexpensive. I agreed that it was, but also wondered why it had been on the market for five months when it was priced about 20% under market. Seemed to good to be true.
I speculated that there might be some flaw, the kind of flaw that you can't fix or change, that was not apparent in the listing, but I didn't know for sure because I'd never seen the house in person.

I asked how she happened to call me for this showing and she said that she'd spent a lot time reading about the Foothills on my web site and blog, and found it all very informative and helpful and she really liked it too. 
Well, compliments will get you everywhere, and before I knew it I was making arrangements to meet her and show her the house.

It was a very nice house, but sure enough, there was a flaw that couldn't be fixed or changed, let's call it a location flaw.
So that was that. But we seemed to be getting along very well, and she asked if I could show her a few areas of the Foothills that she'd read about on my blog.
We cruised around and talked specifics about what she and her family needed in a house, and the fact that she needed to find a house relatively soon so the kids could get registered for school.
We talked about the Foothills, different areas, different types of homes, the current state of the market, etc.
All good stuff and a nice easy going conversation. And now and then we stopped to look at a few homes that were vacant, where we could just pop in.

When I brought her back to her car we sat and talked for quite a while and we seemed to easily and mutually get to the point where we agreed to work together and that I'd help her find the house.
We talked about how we'd proceed from there and made some loose arrangements to look at houses during the week after she was done with work.

OK, that was a very productive three hours, I learned what they need and she learned some stuff about the Foothills. We're off to a good start and I've got a new client that I like and that I know I can really help. But I had to get moving on this because they needed to find a home soon.

So Monday morning I went through the MLS and pulled some listings that fit the criteria. Then I went out and previewed the ones I hadn't seen before.

Later that day when I got back, I called her and left a voicemail to remind her to send me an email so I'd have her address to email her these listings. Tuesday I left another voicemail.
She never returned my calls, I can't reach her, and now I have no desire to. That's rude, really rude.
And not because she's apparently decided to not work with me, she doesn't have to work with me, no matter how swimmingly we got on.
But a simple phone call to say so would be common courtesy.

Next Fathers day I'm staying put.

short sale of the week, in the Tucson Foothills

this house just popped into the Tucson Association of Realtors MLS as a short sale here in the Tucson Foothills.
Listed for $850,000, or, $186.53/sq. ft. That's cheap, really cheap.

It's 4557 sq. ft, 2 story, 5 bedrooms/4 1/2 baths, built in 2006 on .80 of an acre in the heart of the old foothills.
Recently this house was for sale for $1.2, after having been reduced and reduced again from it's initial listing price of $1.5.



It has polished concrete floors, granite counters, cherry wood cabinets, ceilings that reach to 18', a pool, 2 fireplaces, 3 car garage,
even a koi pond & mountain views,

it sounds like a deal to me, if it's your cup of tea.
Call me if you're interested in seeing it.
John Schneider 520 271-4164

It's not my listing, it's listed by:
Jerry Andre Marbury
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
Tucson, AZ

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

beware of Comcast

I don't usually use this blog as my soapbox to vent about personal issues. But because of my extreme and long-term frustration with the poor service I've received from comcast, this time I'm going to make an exception. And bitch and moan and complain.

This has been going on for three or four months now, and getting worse as time goes by.
Constantly frozen images on the screen, then zap, no images,  everything's gone, nothing, then green pixilated images. 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, it depends.
And try watching an ON Demand Movie. As the name implies, you the consumer are (supposed to be) in control. That's a load of crap. There's no control whatsoever.
They don't start when you want, they don't pause when you want, and they don't stop when you want.

It's gotten to the point that we're reluctant to sit down and watch a basketball game or a movie, for fear that the evening will end in frustration, again, - me on the phone with comcast, again, and no game, no movie.
I've called comcast 8, 10, 12 times. I've lost track. I will say that I've been connected to a comcast person very quickly each time, and they've had three service techs out there in the last two weeks. They do get them out here. But they don't get anything done.

And they keep telling me 'everything checks out' and 'everything should work just fine now'. But it doesn't. This is like 3rd world TV service, it comes, it goes, hey I think the game's back .........
*^^%^&Y* soon, maybe,

I've asked them to fix it, so that it works like they promise it's supposed to work in their TV commercials and magazine ads, or when you sign up for service, or just tell me that they can't fix it.
So I can move back to DISH.

I had DISH in my last house - we couldn't get cable there - and in six years I never had a problem with DISH. It worked just great.
Stupid me, I thought cable would be even better, makes sense I thought, it comes in from that big fat cable instead of from thin air.

I live in 85718. I'd like to hear from you if you have issues with comcast.

the Tucson real estate market is Not the Tucson Foothills real estate market

The Tucson Association of Realtors has released residential sales figures for the greater Tucson Metro area for May 07 vs May 08.
This includes sales for all residential types; single family, single family new construction, condos, town homes and manufactured homes.

Here's the key data from that report
for the Greater Tucson Metro Area;

Home Sales Volume: Decreased 34.93% from $395,081,716 in May 2007 to $257,072,764 in May 2008

Home Sales Units: Decreased 27.71% from 1,418 in May 2007 to 1,025 in May 2008

Average Sales Price: Decreased 9.98% from $278,619 in May 2007 to $250,803 in May 2008

Median Sales Price: Decreased 9.86% from $223,000 in May 2007 to $201,000 in May 2008

And here's the same data (which I've gathered) for the Tucson Foothills area;

Home Sales Volume: Decreased 27% from $61,569,288 in May 2007 to $44,563,391 in May 2008

Home Sales Units: Decreased 26% from 128 in May 2007 to 94 in
May 2008

Average Sales Price: Decreased 1.4% from $481,010 in May 2007 to $474,079 in May 2008

Median Sales Price : Increased 10% from $355,000 in May 2007 to
$391,000 in May 2008

For the month of May the decrease in the number of homes sold in the Foothills was slightly less than, though comparable to, the decrease in the overall Tucson metro. Yet, while average & median sale prices in the Tucson metro have declined substantially, prices in the Tucson Foothills have held up very well.

If you've seen this sales report from the Tucson Association of Realtors on TV or read about it in the newspapers you might've concluded that Tucson is Tucson and that values are declining in all areas at about the same rate. But that's not so.
Real estate is very local.

The Tucson Metro area is made of up of many smaller market areas, each with their own strengths, weaknesses and vulnerability to the real estate slump.

The Tucson Foothills is a small niche market within the Greater Tucson Metro - the number of homes sold in the Greater Tucson Metro (which includes the Foothills) was more than 10X greater than in the Tucson Foothills.

The Foothills is a market that has been virtually built-out, there's no room for expansion - east, west, north or south - and virtually all the available land within the Foothills has been built on. In other areas of Tucson there's plenty of land to develop and build, and consequently thousands of new homes have been built, leading to a large increase in the housing inventory in those areas.
 
And housing in the Foothills is also more expensive than in other areas of Tucson - the average sale price is about 89% higher than in the Greater Tucson Metro - because many people find it to be a very desirable place to live, and because there is no more land available to expand. It's supply and demand.
And because of the higher prices and a lack of new builder homes to invest in, there's been less speculative investing here than in other areas of Tucson, and therefore less fallout from investments gone bad.

Because of those basic differences, homes in the Tucson Foothills have been more resilient to the slump in real estate prices, and I believe they will continue to be. Not immune, just more resilient.

Please note; for the foothills, short term sales figures (less than 3 months) are not necessarily indicative of the true direction of the market. A longer view is always more telling and true.

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

boring sales figures for million $+ homes in the Tucson Foothills

Yesterday in housing crunch in the million dollar market, or how do you crunch your numbers I went on about how easy it is to be mislead about the direction of home prices and price trends depending on how the numbers are crunched.

I said that in general comparing sales data for longer periods of time is more telling and more accurate than shorter ones, and that full year to year comparisons are best.
So as promised, here are the key sales figures for homes in the Tucson Foothills that have sold for $1,000,000 or more in each year since 2003.

Year	# Sold	Avg Sold $$	Med Sold $$
2003	27	$1,350,583	$1,158,745
2004	60	$1,387,072	$1,234,000
2005	98	$1,448,832	$1,290,000
2006	126	$1,456,776	$1,240,000
2007	91	$1,484,404	$1,300,000
08, thru 6/11	30	$1,590,617	$1,462,000

From 2003 thru the first half of this year, (well almost the first half) the average sale price of million $+ homes in the Tucson Foothills have risen a total of 17.7%, while the median sale price is up 26%.
Averaged out that's about 3.5%/year for the average price and 5%/year for the median. This is not the stuff of a bubble or a bust.

On the contrary, we've had slow, steady and boring price increases at the high-end of our market, year after year. And those increases have held through thick and thin.

And surprisingly, so far this year, prices are up more than in any of the previous four years - though still at a fairly slow & boring pace -despite the gloomy state of the financial markets, the economy, mortgages, foreclosures, my own cautious outlook for the high-end market, and closer to home, slower sales and higher inventories of high-end homes here in the Tucson Foothills.

If these results are surprising to you, you're not alone, I'm surprised too. It's been a while since I've looked at price data for just the high-end of the market, and given the circumstances, I fully expected that average and median sale prices would be down this year, not up.
Then again, this year's not over.

But let's leave the glaring headlines to Greenwich and Palm Beach,
I'll take steady and boring any day.

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

housing crunch in the million dollar market, or how do you crunch your numbers

CNNMoney.com has an article about how wealthy neighborhoods across the country are faring under the real estate slump.
Housing crunch, 90210 
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Across the country, real estate agents and home sellers in wealthy neighborhoods who grew accustomed to seven-figure bidding wars during the boom are feeling the sting of the housing crunch.

Three of the nation's richest zip codes saw particularly steep home-price declines in the three months ending April 30, compared with the previous three months.

In Palm Beach, Fla. (zip code 33480), median home prices fell 38% during that period, according to the real estate Web site Trulia. Prices in Greenwich, Conn. (06831), dropped 15%, while homes in Wayzata, Minn. (55391), are selling for 28% less.

Those are enormous price swings for such a short period of time, so enormous that they're hard to believe.
 
Seeing that, I had to take yet another look the million $+ market here in the Tucson Foothills to see how it compares to what's happening in Palm Beach and Greenwich and the like.
Keep in mind that in Palm Beach and Greenwich virtually everything for sale is a million $++ home, and I mean +++, while here in the Tucson Foothills, sales of million $+ homes account for only about 13-18% of the overall Foothills market. So they're different markets.

But with that in mind, and pulling data for the same period as CNN reports, here's what's happened in the Tucson Foothills million $+ home market during that time period.
From January 1 through April 30th of this year the average sale price of million + homes in the Tucson Foothills was $1,731,500 vs $1,529,290 for the last four months of 2007, an increase of 13%.

And the median sale price fared even better, $1,575,000 for 2008 vs $1,177,500 for 2007, a whopping increase of 33%.
Prices Up 13% and 33% in that short time, that's just as hard to believe as the enormous price drop in Palm Beach.

And I don't believe it, not for a minute. This is not a true reflection of the price trends of million $+ homes in the Tucson Foothills.
And I bet it's not a true reflection of the market in Palm Beach or Greenwich either. But it makes a good headline,
Housing crunch 90210, cute.

A few very-very expensive homes did sell here earlier this year, and that's jacking up the numbers some, and maybe it's also a reflection of the seasonal nature of sales here.
September through December are slow months for sales of high-priced homes in the Foothills, while January through May is prime time.
So comparing those two very different periods does not make for an equitable comparison.

I think a better way to get a sense of price trends is to compare sales for the same time period from one year to another, and the longer that time period, the better.
So here's a look at sales of million $+ homes in the Tucson Foothills for the period of January through May, from 2004 through 2008.

Year	# Sold Jan - May	Avg Sold $$	Median Sold $$
2008	29	$1,609,259	$1,475,000
2007	41	$1,543,868	$1,400,000
2006	69	$1,542,674	$1,275,000
2005	42	$1,418,881	$1,265,500
2004	24	$1,539,292	$1,412,500

And though this presents a much more sober picture, it's a more telling and accurate reflection of price trends for million $+ homes here in the Tucson Foothills. 
2004 was a banner year for selling high-end homes, maybe even a year of irrational exuberance, and from then on prices were either down or remained virtually flat until 2008.
Between 2004 and this year the average & median sale prices are up just 4.5% & 4.4% respectively. Considering inflation, that's a net loss if you bought in 2004 according to these figures.
With about 100 to 125 million $+ homes selling per year, the high-end share of the Foothills market is relatively small, yet prices range from $1.0m all the way up to about $8.0m, so short-term sales comparisons can easily be skewed and therefore misleading.
Year to year is best, and I'll do that next.

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

sometimes it just takes a while to find the right price

like for this house in the Tucson Foothills that was listed for,

$950,000 in late 2004

then reduced to $899,000, then upped to $935,000, then $899,000 again, then $1,200,000 (makes sense, play hard to get), then $1,365,000 (when in doubt, up the ante) then $1,319,300 (that's an interesting number), then $1,250,000, then $1,190,000, then $1,250,000 again (that $1,250,000 must be a lucky number), then $1,150,000, then $1,130,000, then $1,120,000, then oops! $999,000, then $975,000, then $899,000 yet again (it'll work this time), then $825,000, then $769,000, then $667,000, and then it SOLD, for $585,000, three & a half years later.

This really happened, I'm not making it up. Don't let it happen to you.

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

January - May home sales in the Tucson Foothills

We're now at the end of the busy season for home sales in the Tucson Foothills and with five months of sales data, in a good position to gauge the direction of this market.

Last month in January - April home sales for the Tucson Foothills
I commented,
 This market has been very resilient to price declines, but it appears that rising inventory and slower sales may be catching up with us,... the near-term outlook would seem to point to yet slower sales and the possibility of further price declines.
Some of that has come true.
Sales are down again this month, but the pace of the slowdown has remained consistent with previous months and not accelerated, as I anticipated it might.  But now we are seeing a noticeable drop in the average and median sale price of Tucson Foothills homes vs last year and vs prior months this year.
While the inventory of homes for sale is falling rather than rising - it usually doesn't rise in the summer, and I don't expect it will until at least the fall - the slower summer sales season may very well continue to chip away at the sale price of homes in the Tucson Foothills.

The following sales data is for single family homes Sold in the Tucson Foothills from 1/1/08 through 5/31/08 vs the same period in 2007, through the Tucson Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

Price	Jan - May 07 # SOLD	Jan - May 08 # SOLD	+/-%
$0 - $250K	4	5	+25%
250 -$500K	102	109	+6.8%
500 -$750K	95	66	-30.5%
750 -$1.0m	37	37	0
1.0 -$1.5m	20	15	-25%
1.5 -$2.0m	14	7	-50%
$2.0 & UP	5	6	+20%
Total Sold	277	245	-11.5%
Avg List $	$722,744	$695,401	-3.7%
Avg Sold $	$690,987	$654,825	-5.2%
Median List	$569,979	$549,000	-3.6%
Median Sold	$547,000	$525,000	-4%
$$ Value of Homes Sold	$191,403,465	$160,432,211	-16%

If you're in the market to buy a home in the Tucson Foothills this summer, read buying snow blowers in July

For prior month sales data, see January - April home sales for the Tucson Foothills

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

days of inventory in the Tucson Foothills, 6/3/08

Following is a breakdown of days of inventory (DOI) by price range for single family homes homes in the Tucson Foothills.
I break it down by price range because as you'll see DOI varies wildly from one price range to another. Overall the DOI for the Tucson Foothills stands at 10 months. And while this is an improvement from the DOI for April, please note that at $2,000,000 and UP there are 39 homes for sale and none have sold in the last 30 days.
So the actual DOI is higher than 10 months, but not able to be calculated accurately because there have been no sales at that price range in the last 30 days.
OR, if I exclude the $2.01m and Up price range - we're left with
531 homes for sale ÷ 57 sales = 9.3 months of inventory. Take your pick!

Price Range	# For Sale	# Sold   last 30 days	Months of    Inventory
$0 - $400K	92	19	4.8
$401 - $600K	153	17	9
$601 - $800K	106	7	15
$800 - $1.0m	66	6	11
$1.01-$1.250m	35	5	7
$1.251-$1.5m	43	1	43
$1.501- $2.0m	36	2	18
$2.01 - $3.0	28	0	?
$3.01 & UP	11	0	?
Total	570	57	10

**DOI, days of Inventory reflect the time period required to sell all the properties on the market given the number of closed transactions in the preceding month provided no new properties becomes available.

For the previous DOI report see - days of inventory, in your price range, in the Tucson Foothills, 4/24/08

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to search for and learn more about Tucson Foothills Homes

home price declines nationally & in the Tucson Foothills

Last week the media was overflowing with news about record drops in home prices between the first quarter of 07 and 08.
From The Wall Street Journal 
Drop in Home Prices Accelerates to 14.1%
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index for the first quarter showed prices for existing homes nationwide declined 14.1% from a year earlier.
The steepest declines in home prices came in cities that had experienced the sharpest run-ups this decade; prices in Las Vegas fell 25.9% in March from a year earlier, compared with declines of 24.6% in Miami and 23% in Phoenix.

For comparison and to set the record straight, here's a look at how home prices have fared in the Tucson Foothills for
January thru May of 2007 vs 2008.

	2007	2008	+/- %
Average Sold $$	$690,987	$654,825	-5.23%
Median Sold $$	$547,000	$525,000	-4.02%

**these figures are for single family homes sold through the Tucson Association of Realtors MLS

Our prices have declined here in the Tucson Foothills, but very modestly, particularly when compared to both the national figures and to the most notoriously overpriced, overbuilt and over-speculated markets in the US - that always get all the headlines.

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