The Catalina Foothills

be the center of attention at your next cocktail party in the tucson foothills

don't get bogged down in all that drab talk about slower home sales and falling prices,  and woe is me ...
perk things up with some fast foothills facts that I guarantee no one knows (and no one cares about, but after a few drinks you'll have 'em all in the palm of your hand)

of the 577 homes for sale in the Tucson Foothills,
guess how many are,

in a gated community - 234
in School District 16 - 341
in TUSD - 118
in Amphi - 118
on a golf course - 38
masonry construction - 193
frame stucco construction - 344
metal, combo or other construction - 39
in an adult community - 2 are listed as, but they're not 
1 story - 436
2 or more stories - 141
connected to the sewer - 422
on septic - 129
on other - 1 (outhouse maybe?)
on nothing - 2 (here's why it's a good idea to make sure the toilets actually flush) 
on city water - 544
on a well - 5 
that leaves 28 with no water (look at the bright side, your icemaker will last forever, and there's always bottled) 
in a flood zone - 3
sante fe style - 36
territorial - 78
ranch - 60
mediterranean - 62
spanish - 18
southwestern - 91
contemporary - 191
colonial - 0 (sorry, you diehard midwesterners)
other - 15
1 bedroom - 1
2 bedrooms - 46
3 bedrooms - 192
4 bedrooms - 239
5 bedrooms - 83
6 bedrooms - 13
7 bedrooms - 1
8 bedrooms - 0
9 bedrooms - 1

how many have,

a basement - 15 (for you diehard midwesterners)
air conditioning - all 577 (we know what's important)
a pool - 318, ditto
RV parking garage - 6
horses allowed - 34
horse facilities - 1
a roof - all 577, ditto ditto

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to search for and learn all the really important things about Tucson Foothills Homes

good things come in small packages, I guess

There are a lot of really crummy pictures of homes on the internet.
But these are my favorite. Teeny-weeny little postage stamp size pictures, where you know there's something there, you just can't tell what it is. If you're trying to sell your home, having pictures like these is not the best way to go about it. 
But you see these little postage stamp size pictures all the time in the MLS and on the internet.

 

And if your agent hasn't figured this out yet, the internet is where home buyers are shopping for homes, and the pictures go a long way to determining which homes buyers go to see. 
It's the ad for your home, and it's the only one that really brings them in the door, or doesn't.
Check out the pictures of your home on the internet,
they should look something like this,  

so that home buyers can actually see what your home looks like

and maybe even decide that they just have to come see it in person,

and because it looks so nice in the pictures,

maybe they've already begun to picture themselves in it,
before they even walk in the front door 

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

homeowners who won't cut the price

' Overall home sales have fallen a remarkable 33 percent since the summer of 2005

Home prices, on the other hand, continued to rise until 2006 and are now only 5 to 10 percent below where they were in mid-2005

In most other areas of the economy, this combination of plummeting sales and stable prices would not happen. When demand for airline tickets drop, the airlines cut their prices until they have sold their seats. When stocks become less appealing, share prices fall

Real estate, though, is different. For both economic and psychological reasons, there is no asset more conducive to hopeful overvaluation '

From an article in today's New York Times by DAVID LEONHARDT
Be It Ever So Illogical: Homeowners Who Won’t Cut the Price

There's not much in this article that's revolutionary, or that we haven't heard before, but David Leonhardt says it all very well, and at times like this it bears repeating. And while I like the comparison with stock prices - as I've used it a number of times, sometimes even successfully, with stubborn sellers - the band-aid analogy really cuts through the clutter.
 
' In many ways, it would be better if the housing correction would happen more swiftly and sharply. The pain might be worse, but it would be over quickly. We seem to understand this principle when we’re removing a bandage. Why, then, is it so much harder with housing?'

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

the Tucson Foothills, we didn't make the Case-Schiller report

U.S home prices fell by a record in January
Headlines like these are being splattered across the media today as Case-Schiller has just released it's latest data on home sales.

As reported by MSNBC. U.S. home prices fell by a record in January

'U.S. home prices fell 10.7 percent in January, and the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 cities saw the steepest decline in the index’s two-decade history.'

'Worst-hit were Las Vegas and Miami, both reporting 19.3 percent drops, as the regions are still paying the price for rampant speculation and overbuilding during the boom years. Those cities and 14 others, including Phoenix, San Diego and Detroit, posted record lows.'

Despite the countless times that you will see this reported over the next few days, it has nothing to do with the Tucson Foothills.
Tucson, and certainly the Tucson Foothills, are not included in this Case-Schiller report. So lacking other data, you may be inclined to use the Case-Schiller numbers, particularly those for Phoenix, to make inferences and draw parallels and conclusions about sales and prices in the Tucson Foothills.

That wouldn't be good, because it would lead to a very distorted view of what's happening with home sales here in the Tucson Foothills.  
So instead of doing that, take a look at this.
Here is the latest data (based on TAR/MLS sales) for single family home sales in the Tucson Foothills from - 
1/1/08 through yesterday 3/24/08 vs the same period in 2007.

2007                                              2008
121 homes Sold                                106 homes Sold
Avg Sold $ = $650,943                       Avg Sold $ = $719,494
Med Sold $ = $530,000                       Med Sold $ = $535,000

The number of homes sold is down 12% from last year
The average Sold price is up 10% from last year
The median Sold price is up a fraction, at .94%, from last year.
That's the summary of home sales for the Tucson Foothills so far.

*My numbers are not an apples to apples comparison with the
Case-Schiller report. Their numbers are based on averages and indices of this and that, that are then weighted one way or another and put through an economists secret sauce to achieve their results. Also their latest numbers are for January, while mine run through yesterday, 3/24/08.
Mine are raw numbers. This many homes sold at these prices,
this year vs last.

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

looking for a home in a gated community in the Tucson Foothills

Whether they're a full-time resident or a second home owner, many people like gated communities - for the added security and privacy they offer, and sometimes for the exclusivity factor too.

On my web site TheFoothillsToday.com I have a list of gated and golf course communities that are some of the most popular in the Tucson Foothills -
Pima Canyon , Sabino Mountain , Hacienda del Sol, Ventana CC,
La Paloma CC , Skyline CC, Sin Vacas, Bellas Catalinas, Pinnacle Ridge, Catalina Foothills Est 10 and more. But there are many others that are less popular and well known.

And in addition to being less well known, they're usually smaller, while some of them are also less expensive than you might expect for a gated community. If you're looking for a home in a gated community in the Tucson Foothills they're worth checking out.
  
Here's a selection of other gated communities, and all the homes for sale in each of them, arranged in more-or-less ascending price order;

Solace at Sabino Canyon, Sierra Catalina Est,  Shadows @ Sabino, River View Estates, Bonita Ridge Amended, Pontatoc Canyon Est, Rockcliff, Ventana Del Rio, Rivergate Est, -(Foothills II & La Puerta On Hacienda Del Sol - even though I include these 2 on a list of popular gated communities on my web site, they're less well known),
Canyon View Est, The Summit at Finger Rock, Quail Canyon,
Eleven Arches, Miramist At Ventana

I can help you find the home that's right for you, in any community in the Tucson Foothills
see 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

Foothills News debuts

If you live in the Tucson Foothills you should have received the very first edition of Foothills News yesterday. At this point it's a
give-away, ad supported I guess, paper that is mailed to all residents  in the Tucson Foothills. The goal of Foothills News as stated on the front page " is to be the most comprehensive hometown newspaper possible for the Catalina Foothills "   I wish them luck. 
They're online too, TheFoothillsnews.com

Of course the first edition had an article on real estate. 
Titled, Real estate in the Catalina Foothills remains stable
the author Heather Stanton interviewed Tom Sloyan, president of the Tucson Association of Realtors for the article.
The gist of the message was that the Tucson Foothills is a more stable market because - it has the top public school district in Tucson, very desirable area, fewer homes are for sale, basic supply and demand coupled with the fact that there is relatively little opportunity for development in the Foothills because it has already been developed. It goes on to talk about the increased popularity of renovating older homes, knock-downs and land values.

All of that is true, and it's accurate and it's very welcome.
Because the media usually (no always) paints the Foothills with a broad brush that includes all of Tucson, and that's not an accurate picture.  I've chanted this stuff for a long time, most recently in
are the Tucson Foothills more resilient to a declining real estate market  And also on my web site at Foothills Market Trends.
And now I'm glad to see someone else address the particulars of the Foothills market.

One correction.
I don't know when this paper went to press, but in the last paragraph Heather states that only 38 homes have sold in the Foothills in 2008,
"too small a number to draw conclusions from" she says.

If that were true, and only 38 homes had sold so far this year, there'd be no talk about the Foothills being a more stable market.  
Through yesterday, 103 single family homes have sold in the Tucson Foothills, 152, if you include town homes and condos.

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

life without a connection

About 10 days ago our cable connection went down and stayed down for about 14 hours. We had no access to the internet and no TV.
We had no idea what was happening in the world, I couldn't do my real estate business and we couldn't communicate with people via email. And we communicate with a lot of people via email.
Our daughter's in Greece finishing (I pray) her last semester of college, so we do a lot of email with her.

And even though some people still send out recipe cards and football schedules, and call that, well I don't know what they call it, but the real real estate business is done online now.
The MLS, property research, property tax records, communicating with clients, blogging, even writing contracts, it's all online.
Even my fax is internet based, efax.com.

When I write contracts and related paperwork for home buyers & sellers it's usually done online with a program called HotDocs.
I fill it all out online and email everything to the buyer/seller for their review and signatures. It's very slick. There's no generation loss that occurs when you fax and refax, up to date versions of current and past contracts are stored online for as long a you want, and changes and revisions are a snap.
It works great, but you've got to have a connection, or you're out of business.
 
Now our cable connection is down again.
It's 4:30 PM here in Tucson and I'm writing this offline, and waiting for service to resume, but I have no idea when that will be.
Comcast is our service provider, and of course you can't get anyone  on the phone, you can't even get through to Comcast to find out what the &%&^&% is going on or when it will be fixed.

It's now 5:45 and the TV is back on, but still no internet.
I don't care about TV, I never watch it. I rent movies.
I want-need the internet.
6:05 PM and the internet is back, and I'm back in business.
Thank you comcast. That wasn't too bad.

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

are people trying to buy homes in the Tucson Foothills right now

They are.
There are 82 homes under contract in the Tucson Foothills today.

That means that 82 home buyers and sellers, with the aid of their Realtor®, have made or received an offer, and probably a counter offer or two, and negotiated and ultimately come to terms on the sale of a home in the Tucson Foothills.

The 82 homes under contract include those that are now listed as, 
-active contingent, 43 homes, (they are in the inspection period)
-active capa, 4 homes, (the sale is contingent on the buyer selling   their home first)
-Pending, 35 homes, (inspection contingencies have been satisfied  and the sale will soon close)

See them all  Homes Under Contract
*this link will expire on 4/18/08

The 82 homes under contract range in price from $215,000 to $2,590,000 and everything in between.
So they're representative of the broad spectrum of home prices in the Tucson Foothills, and that's a healthy thing. 

While it's likely that some of these homes won't close escrow -  
because the buyer will discover issues with the house during the inspection period that cause them to cancel the contract, and others may run into problems getting approved for a mortgage loan - and the 4 that are active capa, well, who knows with those - presumably many of these buyers will turn around and find another home to buy.

And while the number of homes under contract is not a bankable number - only closed sales are - it's a picture of the activity and intentions of home buyers and sellers at this moment, in the Tucson Foothills.

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

**These figures are for single family homes - no condos, no townhomes - listed & sold through the Tucson Association of Realtors MLS.

days of inventory, in your price range, for the Tucson Foothills

Right now (DOI) days of inventory in the Tucson Foothills stands at 11.5 months for all single family homes in all price ranges. So 11.5 is the average DOI for the Foothills.
But with such a broad range of prices in the Tucson Foothills, average DOI is a very misleading number. It represents everything and nothing at the same time.
Yet last week I too reported the average DOI in the aptly titled days of inventory in the Tucson Foothills and now I want to provide a more revealing picture of what that means and how it shakes out.

In the table below I've broken out days of inventory by price range,
and as you can see DOI vary widely. Up to $600,000 we're just a little over the six months of inventory that is usually considered normal.
From there the numbers rise and fall through a wide range, but none of them are 11.5 months and most are not even close to that.
If you're buying or selling in the Tucson Foothills, DOI in your price range is a key factor to know and consider.

Price range	# For Sale	# Sold	Months of   Inventory
$0 - $399,999	81	12	6.75
$400 - $600K	147	20	7.35
$601 - $800K	113	5	22.6
$801 - $1.0 m	65	7	9.3
$1.01-$1.250m	43	2	21.5
$1.251 - $1.5m	40	1	40
$1.501 - $2.0m	43	1	43
$2.01 - $3.0m	32	2	16
$3.01m & UP	11	0
Total	575	50	11.5

*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.

**These figures are for single family homes - no condos, no townhomes - listed & sold through the Tucson Association of Realtors MLS. The # of homes Sold is based on sales in the 30 days previous to today 3/18/08

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

a really big menu in the Tucson Foothills

Recently we've been wondering about growth in the Tucson Foothills, more houses, more shops and more mouths to feed.
To give you an idea of that growth, today you can choose from these 29 restaurants and more, that are in, or right next to the Tucson Foothills

The Grill at Hacienda del Sol - Ventana Room - The Flying V - Anthony's in the Catalinas - El Corral - Sullivan's Steakhouse -
Fleming's Prime Steakhouse - McMahon's Prime Steakhouse - Vivace - Tavolino - North - Vin Tabla - J Bar - Janos - Terra Cotta - Blanco - Acacia - Bluefin - Wildflower - Red Sky Cafe - Bluepoint Kitchen & Bar - AJ's Fine Foods - Firebird's Wood Fired Grill - Armitage Wine Lounge - ZinBurger - PF Chang's  - RA Sushi -
Shlomo & Vito's New York Delicatessen Tohono Chul Tea Room

just three years ago, you'd have had to be content with these 15,
from that same list

The Grill at Hacienda del Sol - Ventana Room - The Flying V - Anthony's in the Catalinas - El Corral - Sullivan's Steakhouse -
McMahon's Prime Steakhouse - Vivace - J Bar -Janos - Terra Cotta - Wildflower - Red Sky Cafe  - PF Chang's - Tohono Chul Tea Room

and five years ago, there were just 11 to choose from,

The Grill at Hacienda del Sol - Ventana Room - The Flying V - Anthony's in the Catalinas - El Corral -  McMahon's Prime Steakhouse  Vivace - J Bar - Janos - Terra Cotta -  Tohono Chul Tea Room

And all these restaurants (except Vivace, Tavolino & Schlomo) have web sites.
It ain't the old pueblo anymore, the Foothills have been discovered

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. 

home sales trends in the Tucson Foothills

Online valuation sites have gotten a lot of interest from people curious about real estate values, trends and data. 
So this morning I started playing around with cyberhomes.com an online valuation site that I hadn't visited before.
Like other online valuation sites, I found the valuations for individual homes to be hit or miss, often missing by a pretty wide margin.
But when I looked at the broad trend reports available on cyberhomes I found them to be indicative of the market here in the Tucson Foothills. The chart below shows the moving average sale price for homes in the Tucson Foothills, area code 85718, for the past five years.

Here's a tighter version of that same chart reflecting average sale prices in the Tucson Foothills for the 2nd quarter of 2006 thru the present. That big dip you see in the 4th quarter of 07, that came on the heels of the crash in the mortgage markets in August of that year. Jumbo loans, which are a popular financing option in the
Foothills, became difficult to get and very expensive, so higher-end sales collapsed, for a while.

They call the chart below a buy/sell indicator.
This one illustrates the shifting trend
(call it a downward spiral) from a sellers to a buyers market over the past two years in the Tucson Foothills. 
If you're a buyer or a seller, this is a trend you can't afford to ignore.

Because broad trend reports like these indicate the direction of a market over an extended period of time, as well as highs and lows within that period, for my money they're a more reliable gauge of activity, values, or whatever it is they're measuring, than making decisions based on what happened during a 1, 2 or even 3 month period.

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

are the Tucson Foothills more resilient to a declining real estate market

There's a good real estate article in today's Wall Street Journal online that talks about, ' In Many Markets, the Outlook Varies Widely by Community'.

The article points out some of the things that make a particular community more desirable, and therefore more resilient to falling values in a declining real estate market, than neighboring communities.

And though the Tucson Foothills are not mentioned in the article, the similarities between the Foothills, and the communities featured in the article as holding up better than others, are unmistakable.
These are things that I have been chanting for a long time, both on this blog and to my home buyer clients.

The article is titled, 'Gauging Value In Real Estate As Prices Slide'

Here are some key points from the article that also apply to the Foothills,
- In this battered housing market, choosing the right neighborhood is more important than ever.
-One factor is well-known to home buyers: schools. Even if you don't have children, houses in high-ranked school districts generally retain their value better.
-don't overlook perhaps the most important variable of all: supply and demand. ...prices are tumbling hardest in places like Phoenix or Miami or Las Vegas, which were smothered in recent years by new construction. Yet it is apparent that some parts of Phoenix are substantially weaker than others.
-In many cities during the housing boom, developers ventured far afield to buy cheaper land, expecting that if they built it, buyers would come. And buyers did. But now they aren't so eager for two reasons: Gas is topping $3 a gallon, increasing their commuting costs, and the necessary infrastructure such as schools and retail and medical facilities often haven't sprung up yet.
-Just about anything sold in the hot market of 2004 and 2005, but now "it's location, location, location -- more than ever,"

In the Tucson Foothills,
-District 16, the school district for much of the Foothills, is considered by parents of school age children, to be a very good school district.
Many parents will only buy in District 16.
-the Foothills have not been plastered with new construction, there's been very very little, because there's no room to expand in the Tucson Foothills
-the Foothills are all about location, location, and an established community with a wide variety of housing that appeals to many different types of home buyers.
And in addition to it's natural beauty and lack of congestion, it's convenient to downtown Tucson, to retail, outdoor recreation, golf, hiking, dining, medical facilities and more.

One disclaimer. The supply of luxury homes in the Tucson Foothills and also other areas of Tucson, at about $1.3mil & UP, has gotten way ahead of demand. And I believe the luxury market has also crossed the line of buyer tolerance, as these homes are increasingly being built on less desirable home sites in the Foothills.

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

days of inventory in the Tucson Foothills

DOI, days of inventory, is an excellent benchmark to show the
velocity of transactions in relation to the market inventories.
This measurement is a broad one and will vary (in some cases
dramatically) by price range, location and type of property.

In the Tucson Foothills;
Currently there are 562 homes for sale.
In the last 30 days 46 homes have sold.

562/46 = 12.2 months of inventory
(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 product becomes available)

12.2 months of inventory is about 2X what is considered normal.

A year ago at this time, there were about 450 homes for sale in the Foothills. And 42 homes had sold during the same 30 day period.

450/42 = 10.7 months of inventory

So at this point in time, inventory has inched up, while sales are keeping pace, vs. last year.

For a more detailed view of home sales in the Tucson Foothills
for Jan-Feb of 08 vs. 07, see -
2008 Tucson Foothills home sales, so far

*These figures are for single family homes - no condos, no townhomes - sold through the Tucson Association of Realtors MLS.

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

looking for a Joesler in the Tucson Foothills

Josias Joesler is the Swiss born architect, who together with the developer John Murphey, conceived, designed and built the original Catalina Foothills subdivisions in the Tucson Foothills in the 1930's and 40's.
And while the homes that Joesler built are very special and are sought after to this day, it can be difficult to find the ones that are for sale using any of the home search tools available on the internet, including mine.

That's because you can't enter Joesler, or any other architects name as one of your search criteria - like you can the number of bedrooms or baths, square footage, etc.
And the only way that a home is identified as a Joesler in the listing information, is in the agent's MLS remarks, and you can't search those either.

But here's what you can do to narrow down your search and make sure you find all the Joesler's that are for sale.
It's a little tedious, but it works.

-If you're searching from my web site, thefoothillstoday.com click  Custom Search, then
Steps 1 - 3 should all be pre-selected already, but if they're not,
-In step 1, enter- Tucson Region
-Step 2, enter- Greater Tucson Area
-Step 3, enter- North for the city (that's the Foothills)
-For Built Between, enter 1920 to 1960 (though most Joesler's were built between 1930 & 1950, he built a few before & after his prime years.
-Under Property Type, select- Single Family
-You can leave all the other criteria blank.
-Click Search

Using that search today, ten listings are returned. Four of them are Joesler's. In order to pick the Joesler's out of those ten, - here's where it gets tedious- you'll need to open each listing to find what you're looking for. There you can read the MLS remarks where it will say " ...wonderful Joesler..." or "... back in time to this Joesler estate..." or something like that identifying that house as a Joesler. You'll also get the occasional " Joesler-like " which is, according to the agent, sorta like a Joesler, but not. 

For more on Josias Joesler,
Designed by the architect Josias Joesler in 1936, it was set on 12 acres,
Joesler homes & Catalina Foothills on National Register of Historic Places
For Joesler fans
Joesler, popular as ever in Tucson Foothills
built for the desert
A Tucson Classic

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

homes under contract in the Tucson Foothills today

Below is a link to all the single family homes that are currently under contract in the Tucson Foothills today.
This includes homes that are listed as active contingent, (they are in the inspection period) active capa (the sale is contingent on the buyer selling their home first) and Pending (inspection contingencies have been satisfied and sale will soon close)

There are 89 of them, and they range in price from
$215,000 to $2,495,000

Homes Under Contract

Please note, this link will expire on April 8, 2008.
The data is from the Tucson Association of Realtors
Multiple Listing Service

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

Open houses in the Tucson Foothills

Looking online at the Long Realty site and in the local paper, I see a lot of Open Houses scheduled for today in the Tucson Foothills.

Homes priced from the low $200's to over $3,000,000 are being held open today throughout the Foothills, by Long Realty agents and agents from other real estate brokerages.

I've always been a fan of open houses, because judging by the number of people who show up, and the fact that they seem to be enjoying themselves, it's obvious that people shopping for homes like open houses. 
Whether they're serious shoppers or just toying with the idea of buying a home and want to get a feel for what's out there, 
open houses are an easy, no-pressure way for them to do it.

And unlike the old days, when you went to an open house with little or no knowledge of what to expect, with the internet and all the information and pictures that are available on houses being held open, today you can pick and choose the homes that are of interest to you. 

That's how I see it. But I'd like to hear your opinion about what you like or don't like about open houses, and any suggestions you have for how open houses could better serve you.

Yes, I'm doing one today too. 3718 E Rose Peak Pl
Hope to see you there,

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range priced homes in the Tucson Foothills

If you're looking to buy a home in the Tucson Foothills these days,
you've probably run across homes for sale that are Range Priced.

When you see a listing that says,
'SELLER WILL ACCEPT OR COUNTER OFFERS BETWEEN
$750,000 - $799,000'
OR
'Seller will entertain offers between $599,000.00 and $629,000.00'
or some variation of that language, you're looking at a house that is range priced.
Range pricing has become more popular lately, because it is meant
to limit the offers on a house to a specific price range that the seller is willing to accept. And to discourage low-ball offers, because it clearly implies that the seller will not respond to offers that are less than the range.  

So if you see one of these range priced homes, and you like it, and you want to make an offer, but you're only willing to make an offer that is less than the range, you may feel uncomfortable doing that, not wanting to have your offer rejected, and therefore you may decide not to make the offer, assuming that the seller will reject it. 
Don't assume that, even though it clearly states -
  'Seller will entertain offers between $599,000.00 and $629,000.00'
This one, sold for $550,000, $49,000 under the bottom of the range.

I looked at homes that have sold in the Tucson Foothills in the last few months and pulled the ones that were range priced.

Here's what I found,
-Seller will accept or counter offers $319,900-$332,000
                                        SOLD $310,000

-Offers entertained 480K-505K   SOLD $480K
                   
-SELLERS WILL ACCEPT OR COUNTER OFFERS BETWEEN
     $499,900 & $549,900    SOLD $500,000

-SELLER WILL ACCEPT OR COUNTER OFFERS BETWEEN
      $549000 -575000.    SOLD $530,000

-OFFERS ENTERTAINED $550-575K  SOLD $550K

-Seller will entertain offers between $599,000.00 and $629,000.00
                                                     SOLD $550,000

-Range Price. Seller to entertain offers from $745K-$765K
                                                     SOLD $680,000

-Range Pricing $695,900-$720,000
               SOLD $680,000

-SELLER WILL ACCEPT OR COUNTER OFFERS BETWEEN
$750,000 - $799,000    SOLD $725,000

A few years ago, at the height of the real estate boom,
I represented the buyer of a house here in the Tucson Foothills that was range priced from $799,000 to $849,000.
We ended up getting it without too much trouble, for $750,000.
Since then I've always taken range pricing with a big grain of salt. You should too.

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to search for and learn more about Tucson Foothills Homes

the SmartMoney's on Tucson

"Not all places are created equal when it comes to weathering economic woes like the current real estate slump, credit crunch and slowing job market. Choosing the wrong place could carry serious ramifications"

From an article in SmartMoney, the Wall Street Journal magazine of personal finance and investing, that has named Tucson, AZ one of the 7 places to retire during an economic downturn.

7 Places to Retire During an Economic Downturn

Unlike other lists of ' best places to do this or that', and because SmartMoney is a magazine of personal finance, the focus here is on choosing cities not only based on lifestyle and a sunny climate and such, but on making a choice that makes good economic sense. 

                "Tucson is a dynamic, growing   retirement spot ..." 

"Expect real estate prices to remain solid, thanks to increasing interest in the area ..."

7 Places to Retire During an Economic Downturn

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herd behavior helps explain the housing debacle

Robert J. Schiller, Yale economist extraordinaire and author of Irrational Exuberance, who predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000, and the current housing bubble, holds forth in an interesting article in this past Sunday's  The New York Times 
How a Bubble Stayed Under the Radar

    We have to consider the   possibility that perfectly rational people
        can get caught up in a bubble

He talks about why even most experts didn't recognize the housing bubble as it was forming, the cascade of information that led people to make the wrong decisions, and how herd behavior helps to explain the housing debacle.                 

Interestingly, and in conclusion, he states, " it is now possible that a downward cascade will develop — in which rational individuals become excessively pessimistic as they see others bidding down home prices to abnormally low levels"

Flipping back to August 2005,  The New York Times did a piece on Mr Schiller back then titled, Be Warned: Mr. Bubble's Worried Again
where Mr. Schiller is described as follows, ' Mr. Shiller is sounding the same warning for real estate that he did for stocks. In speeches, in television and radio interviews and in a second edition of his prophetic 2000 book, "Irrational Exuberance," he is arguing that the housing craze is another bubble destined to end badly, just as every other real-estate boom on record has'.

2008 Tucson Foothills home sales, so far

Here are the latest sales figures for single family homes SOLD in
the Tucson Foothills for the period of
January/February 2008 vs January/February 2007 -
thru the Tucson Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

Price	Jan-Feb 07	Jan-Feb 08	% +/-
$0 - $250K	3	1	- 66%
$250 - $500K	33	31	- 6%
$500 - $750K	22	13	- 41%
$750- $1.0mil	11	14	+27%
$1.0- $1.5mil	5	5	0
$1.5- $2.0mil	3	2	- 33%
$2.0 & UP	1	4	+300%
Total Sold	78	70	- 10
Avg List $$	$672,950	$808,247	+20.%
Avg Sold $$	$645,469	$752,673	+16
Median List $$	$542,000	$552,000	+1.84%
Median Sold $	$520,000	$530,000	+1.92
$$ Value of Sold Homes	$50,346,550	$52,687,076	+4.64%

With most of the drop in sales occurring at the low to average price range (for the foothills) -the $500 to $750K price range accounting for the bulk of it - the # of homes sold is down 10% overall, while sales at the high-end are holding their own.

As to the big jump in the average list and average sold price-
some of that can be attributed to the four multi-million dollar homes that sold this year.
With three of those four selling at right around $3,000,000, the averages get pushed up pretty quickly, particularly when we're dealing with a short period of time and relatively few sales overall.
And yet the median sold price, less effected by a few high-end sales, is also up.

So while the high-end seems to be holding the reins, there is some contradictory evidence here. Sales are down 10% - inventory is UP about 20% from last year - yet the average and median sold prices are (stubbornly) up, and the total dollar value of the homes sold is up almost 5%, despite 10% fewer sales. And to complicate an already mixed review, there are 88 homes currently under contract in the Foothills today.
Stay Tuned.

UPDATE - 3/4/08
A reader of this post commented,
"Thanks John! Looks like the Foothills is holding up pretty well, thanks to sales of expensive homes".
OK, with those high-end sales, that's a fair conclusion to come to.
And it's true, but only to some extent.
So while I raised the issue in my post, "selling at right around $3,000,000, the averages get pushed up pretty quickly", maybe I should have taken a closer look at what that means in dollars & cents.

So to make the average and median sale price comparison with last year more even-steven, I've eliminated the 2 highest priced sales from this year - 2 that sold for about $3.0 mil each. That leaves 9 homes that sold for over $1,000,000 in both 07 & 08.

Doing that adjusts the average list price to $732,019, the average sold to $685,839 and the median list and sold prices to $549,950 & $525,000.
Still holding up very well vs. last year.

And this begs the question, if those $3,000,000 homes had sold last year, rather than this year, would anyone stand still for me adjusting the sales figures to make things more
even-steven.

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