TheTucsonFoothills

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 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

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

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

a million here a million there

There's a very special house for sale here in the Tucson Foothills that had a $1,000,000 price reduction today.
And that's on top of a $1,000,000 price reduction just two months ago.

It went from $4.9m to $3.9m, to $2.9m today.
I think these people mean business. 

See it here> Rose Peak Pl

It's listed by Janell Jellison, Long Realty

It's one-of-a-kind,

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

going through changes with a Joesler in the Tucson Foothills

Named Diez Vistas, Ten Views, this grand old home built in 1937 by Josias Joesler & John Murphey in the old Tucson Foothills has changed hands three times in the last four years.

The latest sale was just the other day, on May 16 when
it sold for $1,022,000. While just over two years ago, in
March of 2006 it sold for $1,900,000, almost $900,000 more than it did today. 
And before that, in August of 2004 it sold for $1,325,000.

At first glance you'd think WOW! prices in the Foothills are all over the place, and
by the way, why does that Joesler keep turning over.  
But there's more to it than meets the eye. Each of these buyers/sellers had a particular goal in mind when they bought and sold this Joesler, and each contributed to its transformation.

The earliest, and only other recorded sale of this home (that I could find online) was in 1993 for $575,000. So the people who bought it in 1993, owned it until August of 2004 when it sold for $1,325,000.

At the time of that sale in 2004 for $1,325,000, the property details were given as follows;
4690 sf, 6 bedroom/7 baths, including a 1200 sf 3 bed/3 bath
guest house, + a greenhouse, on 4 acres of land.

and it looked like this,

and then there's the kitchen,

These new owners promptly set about renovating this old Joesler, and when they were done,
the listing agent aptly described it as-
John Murphey and Josias Joesler's stunning Santa Fe on a hill on 3.97 acres with 360 degree views. Lovingly restored over the past yet yet retaining all of the original charm and character.
And put it on the market for $1,995,000 with the property details given as follows;
4752 sf, 6 bedroom/7 bath, including a 1200 sf 3 bed/3 bath
guest house, + a greenhouse, on 4 acres of land
(same as the previous listing, give or take)

but now the kitchen looked like this,

along with other nicely done restorations & renovations,

And it sold in March of 2006 for $1,900,000, that's about a year and a half after they bought it for $1,325,000. So it's apparent that these people bought it to renovate it and flip it.
And they did a nice job of it, and quickly too. I think Joesler would be smiling at this one.

Now with this next owner, more radical changes were on the drawing boards.
Having paid $1,900,000 they promptly set about dividing up the four acre parcel into four one acre lots,
with one lot for the Joesler, which they promptly put up for sale, and with plans to build a new home on each of the other three lots, as well as making some other changes to this beautiful old Joesler estate. 

In the aerial view below you can see the four lots stacked vertically.
The three lots circled in red are the one's that were carved out of the original four acre property, and the one in the middle is the remaining one acre lot that's left for the Joesler. The guest house, pool and greenhouse which appear on the southern-most lot were bulldozed to make room for a new home. And the pool was rebuilt on the main lot alongside the Joesler, but the greenhouse and guest house are gone forever.

 

 

So now the Joesler has sold for the third time in just four years, for $1,022,000 on 5/16/08,
with the property details as follows;
3509 sf, 4 bedroom/4 bath, on one acre of land.
(so from the previous sale, it's now minus 1200 sf, -3 beds/3 baths &
-3 acres, with no guest house & no greenhouse)
PS, Nevertheless, I think these buyers got a really good deal at $1,022,000.

And now there are three new homes on those three other lots circled in red, priced from $1,245,000 to $1,595,000. So it's obvious that this owner bought the property to divide and build. It's one of just a few ways to come up with buildable land in the Tucson Foothills these days. And while the Joesler now seems a bit crowded in, thank goodness they didn't knock it down too.

And it's interesting, but not really that surprising, that the Joesler sold before any of the new homes that now surround it. While the new homes are very nicely designed and executed, there are quite a few new or newer homes for sale in the Tucson Foothills, but great Joesler's continue to be a very rare and special find.

For a different slant on building homes in the Tucson Foothills today,
see teardowns in the Tucson Foothills

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

quick update on the $1,000,000+ home market in the Tucson Foothills

Today there are 159 homes for sale in the Tucson Foothills priced from $1,000,000 up to about $8,000,000, and since January 1st,
22 $1,000,000+ homes have sold in the Foothills, priced from $1,075,000 to $3,100,000.
And with a majority (16) of those homes located in gated communities, it's apparent that buyers of high-end homes continue to show a strong preference for gated communities in the Tucson Foothills.

Of the 16 sold in gated communities- 4 in Pima Canyon, 3 in Ventana Canyon Country Club, 2 in Catalina Foothills Estates 10, 2 in Cobblestone, and 1 each in The Canyons, Skyline Country Club, Ventana Vista, Sabino Mountain and Pinnacle Ridge.

The other 6 are in non-gated communities scattered throughout the Foothills, in Alta Vista, Catalina Foothills Estates, Coronado Foothills Estates and Flecha Caida. But whether they're gated or not, one thing they all have in common is that all 22 are located on good lots in established communities in the Tucson Foothills.

And although there are quite a few $1,000,000+ homes for sale on less desirable, or what I call in-fill lots in the Foothills - almost all of these are  spec homes built in the last couple of years -
not a single one has sold so far this year. 

But that's no surprise. With a large inventory of homes located on good lots in sought after areas throughout the Tucson Foothills,
why would anyone choose to ignore the first rule of real estate,
location, location, ...

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

teardowns in the Tucson Foothills

Well located build-able lots are an endangered species that are fast becoming a nearly extinct species in the Tucson Foothills.
There are very few good lots available, and those that are, are very expensive.

Some builders/investors have responded to this situation by carving out lots in places where no one would have considered building a home a few years ago. What I call in-fill lots.

Others have gone the teardown route, finding well-located older homes on good lots and starting over. This is a very popular way to go in Skyline country club, which is a guard-gated golf course community in the Tucson Foothills, where many 60's and 70's vintage homes are located on prime lots with great city and mountain views.

The one below was built in 1967, and sold for $480,000 in 2004

And after a massive facelift it's now listed for $1,685,000


Here's the original 60's kitchen

and a couple hundred thousand later, bon appetit

from Ozzie and Harriet in the living room

to surround sound and knock-out views

 

Here's another one, this 3160 sf house was built in 1965,
and sold for $455,000 in 2003

and was reborn as a 5000 sf luxury manse which sold for
$1,875,000 in 2005. It sits on the golf course in Skyline
and has great mountain views too

and a new kitchen

and a new everything

Despite a lack of land, this is how some of the new construction is getting done in the Tucson Foothills, and doing it on a great lot in a place like Skyline Country Club is the way to go, in my opinion.
It's more expensive than building on in-fill lots, but if you're going to build or buy an expensive home, location, location, is the critical criteria. It can't be overlooked, because it can't be changed, while just about everything else about a house can be.

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

do you see trouble or opportunity in the land of the fabulously wealthy

Today I read two interesting but somewhat contradictory real estate articles about the fabulously wealthy.
The first in The New York Times Hints of Fear in the Land of Mansions about the slowdown of the market in Greenwich, Conn., long home to the fabulously wealthy. 
Sales are down 39% from last year in Greenwich, where they call the $2.0 to $4.0m price range, the meat and potatoes houses.

At the more respectable end of the Greenwich market, Mel Gibson's got his place for sale for $39,000,000 and Leona Helmsley's 40 acre spread is listed at $125,000,000.
But even in the rarefied air of Greenwich, the downturn is causing a touch of panic. A home that was recently listed for $11.5, then shamelessly reduced to $8.5, finally sold for just $6.9.  
What's the world coming to!

Realizing that other sweet spots in our hemisphere are experiencing similar downturns, I concluded that buying a second, or third home, perhaps in the Tucson Foothills even, would be last on the
to-do list of these hopelessly stressed lords and ladies of the manor.  

But then I picked up the Wall Street Journal and read
Sunny Side of the Street, America's wealthy see buying opportunities in sluggish real-estate market , (this may require a subscription, if so, let me know and I'll email it to you)
(reading it, I wondered, could this just be Rupert having fun, in a not so subtle poke at his new rival, The New York Times)

The Journal presented a very different side of the real estate street, as perceived by the wealthy. From the article,
"While many average Americans are skittish about the housing market, some of the country's richest citizens see the current conditions as perfect for buying, according to the Annual Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America..."
"Seventy-seven percent of the wealthiest people surveyed think real estate presents a "real opportunity" right now"
"And these high-income earners are putting their money where their mouths are: 40% said they are in the market to acquire real estate this year"
And get this,
"Forty-one percent of those in the wealthy category said owning a second home was "almost a requirement" for people of their economic means, according to the survey"  tsk- tsk, but of course.

I'm confused, but I'm glad I read this one last, I prefer Rupert's take on it.

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

are you looking for a home in Pima Canyon

If you are, there's a good selection to choose from in Pima Canyon today.
There are 18 homes for sale in Pima Canyon ranging in price from $1,095,000 to $5,900,000, and 3230 to 7065 square feet.
See them all here with just one click, from my
Gated & Golf Course Homes page.

Pima Canyon, which opened for business in 2000,  is one of the premier guard-gated luxury communities in the Tucson Foothills.
In my opinion it's the community that really put the Tucson Foothills on the map for luxury home buyers. 

For more on Pima Canyon and the luxury home market in the Tucson Foothills today, see  Pima Canyon gave Tucson a boost  &  
 Tucson Foothills Market Trends 

I can help you find the home that's right for you, in Pima Canyon or any community in the Tucson Foothills.

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to search for and learn more about Tucson Foothills Homes

trophy homes in the Catalina Foothills

I often read about a lack of real trophy homes, you know, mega homes, $20,000,000 and up, for sale in places like New York, Beverly Hills, Palm Beach and so on. The real estate agents in these places are often heard complaining in the pages of The New York Times or the WSJ that they have plenty of buyers, but there just aren't enough of these real trophy properties to go round. 

We have a similar problem here in the Foothills. While we have a lot of spectacular luxury homes for sale, maybe even too many at the moment, we don't have anything that qualifies in the category of mega trophy home.

We did, but not anymore. For the last few years Campbell Cliffs was for sale for $22,000,000. At 25,000 sq. ft. on 20 acres of pristine desert high in the Catalina Foothills, Campbell Cliffs was by far the largest, the most dramatic, exotic, and expensive home for sale in all of Tucson. A world class trophy home. But it's been quietly taken off the market. Take a look, Campbell Cliffs 

Because we have nothing to offer in the mega home department, the Tucson Foothills are completely off the map for the growing class of super rich home buyers. And these days the super rich come from all over the world to buy their 3rd, 4th or 5th home in the US.

While most of us compare prices and $$/sq ft, and negotiate to get the best deal possible, the super rich are only interested in finding another great trophy home to compliment their lifestyle and reflect their status.
And aside from price being low on their list of considerations, $22,000,000 is a drop in the bucket for these buyers. 

"Tucson in really good years will grow 2.5%, despite ...

I grew up in New York City and then I lived in Chicago for 20+ years. And every square inch of those cities have been paved over and built and re-built since before the beginning of time.
Growth in New York and Chicago meant knocking down a big old building and putting up an even bigger new one.

So I when I moved to the Tucson Foothills in 2000, I wasn't accustomed to seeing the kind of growth that's happening here. 
Oro Valley and the entire Northwest Tucson area, Southeast Tucson and Vail, plus the southwest and west Tucson areas, have grown tremendously in that short time. Where once there was desert - hundreds of homes, miles of roads and homes for Home Depots and Wal Marts have sprung up relentlessly. When you read about big growth in Tucson, those are the areas that you're reading about.

In the Tucson Foothills, which was pretty much built out when I moved here, the last large parcel of land was claimed by
Pima Canyon, the luxury home development built in 2001.
Since then, growth in the Foothills, has and will continue to be limited to the few and quickly diminishing number of good lots, and to what I charitably call, in-fill development. There just isn't any land available.

A recent article in the AZ Daily Star talks about current and future growth in Pima county and what's driving it. Some highlights,
Pima population growth to slow — microscopically
Pima County's rate of population growth will slow in the next seven years, but so slightly — despite the housing downturn — "you won't even notice," says planner David Taylor.
These are the latest forecasts from Taylor, of the Pima Association of Governments, and Marshall Vest, University of Arizona economic and business-research director.

Until at least 2015, annual growth rates will stay over 2 percent, where they've been for a decade-plus. "Tucson in really good years will grow 2.5 percent," Vest said. "In bad years, 2 percent."

The reasons: more retirees are moving here, along with people with "a heckuva lot more money," Vest said. "People are able to move here when they don't have a job, when they don't even need a job."
Some choose Tucson for second homes. The population is aging.

All of that is allowing the population to grow even when the economic slowdown could bring a drop in total jobs, Vest said.

 
And a lot of those retirees, and people with "a heckuva lot more money", choose the Tucson Foothills, because of -Location, Location, Location - there's nothing else like it in Tucson.
And though I have heard rumors that there are people who actually prefer these other areas of Tucson, I've never met one myself.
So as far as I'm concerned, it's just a rumor.

Second homes and retirement homes account for an increasingly large share of the homes that are sold in the Tucson Foothills. And as for the "heckuva lot more money" luxury home market, here's a look at how it's grown in the last 7 years:
In the years 2000 thru 2003, sales of $1mil+ homes in the Tucson Foothills ranged between 24 to 30 homes sold each year.
Then in 2004 that number jumped to 60 homes sold, then to 97 homes in 2005, and to 126 in 2006, about a 400% increase.
Yes, in 2007 that number slipped, to 91 $1mil+ homes sold.
But that's no surprise given the shenanigans of the financial markets and the resulting disappearance of jumbo loans.
 
The Tucson Foothills, along with Northwest and Southeast Tucson, will benefit from the continued growth that we'll see in all of Pima county, but unlike those other areas of Tucson - which will continue to expand out and get bigger and busier with more and more new homes and shopping centers and roads - the Foothills won't grow, and it won't get any bigger, it will just become more and more desirable because of what it has always been and continues to be.

See TheFoothillsToday.com
to search for and learn more about Tucson Foothills Homes,

Pima Canyon gave Tucson a boost

Recently I noticed that the sales center at Pima Canyon, which is really just a luxury home with some office equipment and a conference table, was itself For Sale, for $2,215,000.
It got me thinking of when I first saw Pima Canyon in late 2000.
The sales staff there had arranged for a fleet of chauffeured jeeps to take us on a grand tour of the property and then to a lavish buffet lunch on the patio of the sales center. I was new to Tucson and I was dazzled by the whole experience. I saw Pima Canyon from the beginning, and I've seen how it has played a key role in revitalizing the luxury home market in the Tucson Foothills. More than any other event or development in recent years, Pima Canyon popularized the notion and broadened the appeal of luxury home ownership in Tucson.
Ideally located high in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains, and bordered by the Coronado National Forest, Pima Canyon was developed on the last large parcel of land in the Tucson Foothills.
With 290 home sites on 450 acres of gorgeous Sonoran desert, and all of it carefully primped and planned down to the last detail, it's sheer size alone made a huge impact on this market.
And although there were plenty of other luxury home communities in the Foothills at the time, when Pima Canyon opened for business in 2000, there was a surge of excitement and publicity not seen before in Tucson. Home buyers, from in town and out of town, and plenty of the just curious, all wanted to see Pima Canyon.
In early 2001 I was scheduled to meet a client at the guard house entry gate one morning to look at a few new spec homes.
Unknown to us, some anti-development terrorists had set fire to a few vacant homes in Pima Canyon the night before, and the place was crawling with FBI and other law enforcement. We were denied entry and told that it would be three days or more before anyone, other than residents, could get in.
This put a bit of a scare into my client, and we wondered if it would put the kibosh on Pima Canyon for a while.
No way. Pima Canyon responded with a security and PR blitz that quickly put the negative aspects of the incident behind them, and simultaneously raised the awareness and recognition of Pima Canyon to new heights, on a national level. 
And timing is everything. Pima Canyon got started at the height of a booming run-up in the stock market, and at a time when many
well heeled baby-boomers began easing into second home ownership and eventual retirement. 
Because of the ruboff effect of it's popularity and tremendous success, Pima Canyon paved the way for a big leap forward in the growth of the luxury home market in Tucson, justifying further luxury development in the Foothills and other areas of Tucson as well.

Details
Here's a quick peek at what's happened to sales, prices and appreciation in Pima Canyon between then and now.
LOTS
In 2000, you could have bought a lot in Pima Canyon for $145,000, with many selling in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. But even back then, the most expensive lots were very expensive, the highest price paid for a lot that year was $900,000.
This year the least expensive lot sold for $550,000, with many selling in the $700,000 to $1mil range. The most expensive went for $1,500,000.
HOMES
In 2000, you could have bought a home in Pima Canyon for $600,000,
with many selling in the $650,000 to $750,000 range. The most expensive sold for $865,000. The average $/sf back then was $181.80
This year the least expensive home sold for $1,100,000, with many selling in the $1,150,000 to $1,600,000 range. The most expensive sold for $2,855,000. The average $/sf is now $377.18.
While price appreciation has been strong and steady in Pima Canyon, albeit with a little drop this year, it's also true that once it became obvious that it was going to be a success, owners and builders began putting up much larger and more exotic homes in Pima Canyon, which has contributed significantly to today's higher prices.
If you'd like to see all the homes currently for sale in Pima Canyon
click HERE