TheTucsonFoothills

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.

leader of the pack

Long Realty (the company I work for ) just released the Market Share figures for the six largest real estate companies providing residential
real estate services in the greater Tucson area.
See the chart below.
This is based on residential property sales for all of 2007.
Long comes in at about 3 times more market share than it's next closest competitor, (Data obtained on 1/17/08 from Tucson MLS for all closed residential volume between 01/01/07 - 12/31/07 rounded to the nearest tenth of one percent and is deemed to be correct)
Unfortunately at this point, the graphs have only been released in a print version that does not display clearly on the web. But in both charts(the first is for all residential properties, the 2nd for those priced at $1.0mil+) Long Realty is the yellow band towering over the others.

Is bigger better?
No. We're not better because we're bigger.
We're bigger, because we're better.

making a real estate deal, the old fashioned way

In representing some second home buyers recently in the Tucson Foothills, I had the rare pleasure of doing the deal for the purchase of the home with a verbal agreement.
Circumstances necessitated this.

I had filled out the 9 page purchase contract plus 3 additional pages of required addendum and faxed it all to the listing agent.
As I was faxing it, I called him to be sure that he was receiving the fax. Time was of the essence here, and we needed a quick response with no glitches. So of course his fax machine broke down after receiving the first two pages of the contract, kaput, and because of circumstances he was not able to leave where he was to receive the fax somewhere else. 
So we talked about it, and agreed that we'd do the offer verbally.
I conveyed the details of the offer to him as he asked a few questions and took some notes.
And the seller, who was in a wilderness mountain top area for the next day and a half, and only available sporadically by cell phone, did not have access to the internet or a fax machine either.
So the listing agent verbally conveyed our offer to the seller, whereupon he and the seller came up with a counter offer and verbally conveyed that counter offer to me. And after discussing the counter offer with my client, we came up with a second counter offer, and I verbally conveyed that to the listing agent.
After discussing counter offer #2 with his client, the listing agent called me back to convey their acceptance of our counter offer.
We had a deal, and we did it all in about 90 minutes, with no paperwork and no signatures, just our word.
A day and a half later, when everyone was re-connected to the grid, we simply reduced our verbal agreements to writing, everyone signed on the dotted line, and now we had a written binding agreement.

During the 90 minutes of verbal negotiation, my client asked whether we could depend on the listing agent and the seller to live up to the verbal agreement, as I'm sure the listing agent had a similar conversation with his client. I know the listing agent, and I assured my client that in my judgement, the listing agent's word was good, and that he would not have agreed to this if he was not confident that his client would follow through as agreed. And that was that.
We proceeded as if we had a deal, and in the end we did, with no squabbling, quibbling, and no back-pedaling. 
What a pleasure.

better food & mountain views

About six or seven weeks ago I spoke with Doug, the manager of the Foothills office of Long Realty in Tucson where I work - and let him know that I didn't really need my office space any longer.
Doug wrinkled his brow and blinked a few times, not quite understanding what I was really trying to tell him.
I don't think too many agents have given up their offices voluntarily.
My office - at the office - was nothing to shout about. No plush furniture and sweeping mountain views, but it was an office, with a desk, a couple of chairs, a file cabinet, telephone, a high speed internet connection, and a door.
And for the last six months or so it had been gnawing at me that I had this office, but I hardly ever used it. I felt guilty about that -office space at the Foothills office is scarce and much in demand. 
I'd been doing all my work from my home office, and having another office became more of a chore than a benefit. It was confusing.
I found myself spending more time than it was worth coordinating that I had everything I needed at both offices - paperwork & files and so on.  And after a while I was only showing up there maybe once every ten days - and then I'd just sit in my office for a couple of hours doing exactly the same things I'd been doing at my home office for the last nine days. And when I met clients at the office I usually used one of the meeting or conference rooms, and not my office. 
Finally I figured out that this was crazy, and I should either make good use of it, and not just because I felt guilty, or give it up.
So I gave it up.
I didn't need it. I have an office at home, with all the same stuff and more, and it's bigger, the food's better, and it does have sweeping mountain views. Rupert Murdoch aside, who needs two offices these days, particularly when they're just four miles apart.

Labor Day

Enjoy it!

The Tucson public rates Tucson REALTORS

The Tucson Association of REALTORS® has released the results of a survey done this past April to determine the overall perception of REALTORS® in general, as well as how homebuyers and sellers perceived their own individual experience with a REALTOR®.
The topline results are as follows:
• 91.9% or homebuyers and sellers in Tucson are likely to use a
  REALTOR in their next transaction.
• 81.3% report that their most immediate experience (based on a   
  transaction) with a REALTOR was a positive one.
• 69% report that their general perception (not based on a
  transaction with a REALTOR) was positive.
• 68.6% felt their perception of real estate agents has remained
  unchanged in the past five years.
• 6.2% reported that their experience was neither negative or
   positive.
• 7.1% indicated that their experience was somewhat negative.
• 5.4% indicated that their experience was very negative.

Open ended responses to "what made it a negative experience for you" included: "I did all the leg work", "Lack of attention to details",
"Pushiness, trying to get me to buy a house I did not want", "The inability of the REALTOR® to follow through", "Very disorganized, didn't listen".
On the plus side, comments from respondents who had a positive experience were: "They did all the legwork for me. We told them what we wanted and they came up with six or seven places and we found one". "Everything went smoothly and we didn't have to worry about the details". "He was easy to work with and I felt like he had my best interests at heart". "She didn't push us at all. She gave us the options and let us choose and she was very low-pressure".
"They did some research for us that was above the call of duty".

This is the first time I've read the results of this type of survey about REALTORS®, and all-in-all I find the results encouraging.
The overall findings are very positive, but surprising too, in view of the fact that REALTORS® are so often the butt of so much criticism.
I read a lot of real estate articles online, from Tucson sources and sources all over the country. And if you scan the comments left by readers, the one thing that stands out consistently, regardless of the news source - newspaper, magazine, CNN, you name it - is that the majority of reader comments about real estate agents are negative. I'd say they're easily 65% negative, with the remaining 35% falling somewhere between mildly to wildly positive. Reading these comments, and reading between the lines, I've often felt that the person commenting was not speaking from personal experience, but just jumping on the bash the REALTOR® bandwagon. Nevertheless, aside from being very discouraging, reading all these negative comments, I've often wondered why people continue to use REALTORS® at all. 
Yet in this survey we have 81% reporting that their most recent experience with a REALTOR® was a positive one, with 50% of them responding very positive, and 91.9% indicating that they'll use a Realtor in their next transaction.
Somewhat, but only somewhat more in line with the number of negative reader comments are the survey findings of the general perception of REALTORS® - that is, not based on having worked with one - at only 69% positive, with just 22% of them reporting very positive. Why is that.
The study concludes; This is likely a due to a common phenomenon in which some like the person they deal with, but are less positive about the group as a whole (similar to “my Congressman” versus “Congress”).
I think the other thing that influences the discrepency between this surveys findings and the general perception of REALTORS, as indicated by reader comments, is that those who've received bad service are much more apt to write-in to complain, than those who've received good service. I know it's true for me. I expect good service, and when I get it, I don't usually write-in to tell all about the good service. But I often do when I get bad service. At a restaurant, at the bank, with an online business, at the auto dealer, the airline, the hotel. I think a lot of people do.
And by the way, the Tucson Association of REALTORS® has released the results of this survey to it's members only, to help them understand how the public perceives them, and to identify those areas where improvement is needed. Not so we can go round tooting our horn and pounding our chests. I'm the only one guilty of that.
Reader comments invited.