Tucson Real Estate In The News

Our Take on the Tucson Real Estate Market

Tucson Real Estate Absoption Rates July 2008

August 22, 2008

I’m going to chalk this up to the lazy crazy days of summer. I wrote more on this in yesterdays post on the Tucson MLS Statistics for July 2008.

 

Area	July Listed\	July Sold	July AR	June Listed\	June Sold	June AR	Sold YTD
N	730	75	9.73	769	96	8.01	569
NE	451	41	11.00	455	40	11.37	282
NW	1987	241	8.24	2131	254	8.38	1649
XNW	124	7	17.71	133	8	16.62	62
C	984	157	6.26	1001	161	6.21	918
E	445	76	5.85	422	83	5.08	467
S	513	65	7.89	527	60	8.78	403
SE	625	95	6.57	606	116	5.22	620
SW	625	62	10.08	666	66	10.09	449
XSW	309	14	22.07	309	32	9.65	180
XS	519	59	8.79	542	65	8.33	440
W	480	47	10.21	525	48	9.87	320
XW	72	5	14.40	72	5	14.40	37
	7,876	945	8.29	8,140	1048	7.88

 

There was a slight increase overall by a few days. Some areas saw a slight change, others a little decrease, a couple major increases. But those could change easily in August. September 2008 is going to be a month to watch. More on this later.

Post Tags: Tucson Real Estate , Tucson Real Estate Market , Tucson-Absorption-Rates-July-2008

Tucson MLS Statistics for July 2008

August 21, 2008

July traditionally in Tucson sees a drop in real estate sales. This year was on exception. But do you know why sales drop on in July? There are several reasons. First, it is hot, really, really hot, in July and in the heart of the Monsoon Season which means it is also really muggy, at times. July is the month when those who are buying because they have relocated to Tucson for work and need to find a home before school starts. School starts in July in Vail and in early August in the rest of Tucson. Those making this transition have already been in the market and made their purchases in May or June.

July is too early for even the northern most snowbirds to be thinking of coming to the desert. We are left with July, and those who for whatever reason are moving to Tucson be it job, second home, investment, or they just love the heat and humidity! And that is why the closed transactions decrease every year for the month of July.

Now let’s do the numbers.

Tucson MLS Statistics June 08 - July 08 Summary

Category	June 2008	July 2008	Diff.
Avg. Sale Price	$257,499	$254,854	+ $2,645
Total Units Sold	1048	945	- 103
Median Sale Price	$200,000	$199,900	- $100
Pending Contracts	951	960	+ 9
Active Listings	8,140	7,876	- 264
New Listings	2,095	1,679	- 416

 

Tucson MLS Statistics July 07 - July 08 Summary

Category	July 2007	July 2008	Diff.
Avg. Sale Price	$267,808	$254,854	- $12,954
Total Units Sold	1,182	945	- 237
Median Sale Price	$217,000	$199,900	- $17,100
Pending Contracts	1,777	960	- 817*
Active Listings	8,692	7,876	- 816
New Listings	2,766	1,679	-1087

These number indicate that we are moving back to a more moderate inventory and far fewer listing are coming on the market.

* on Pending Contracts We are once again back at apples to oranges. There was a change made to the calculation for Pendings made in June 2008, Up until June the number indicated every transaction still pending. A sale might be pending for several months before it would close. In June it was decided to only show the number of transactions which “Went Pending” in the month. This means the number of pending sales when compared to the previous year are going to show a huge decline making it appear there are fewer homes going under contract than in the previous year.

This is not the case. I like the fact it is for the month only, it is too bad the Tucson MLS can’t (for some reason) go back and see how many sales went pending each month for the comparison. It seems we are destined to another 10 months of apples to oranges on pending sales.

I’ll be posting absorption rates on Friday for July. I’ll give you a hint. National absorption rates indicate 11.1 months inventory. In Tucson in July it was 8.29 months with only a 5.85 months supply of inventory in the East area of Tucson. Inventories are returning to normal and builders have slowed the rate of new construction significantly. Both of these are good signs for the residential resale market in Tucson.

Post Tags: tucson-housing-market-July-2008 , tucson-mls-statistics-July-2008 , tucson-real-estate-July-2008

US Housing starts hit a 17 year low

August 20, 2008

Home and apartment construction nationwide fell in July to its lowest level in more than 17 years.

The US Commerce Dept. report shows that construction of single-family homes in July fell by 2.9 percent from the previous month to a pace of 641,000. That is the lowest mark since January 1991.

If you are a builder or work in construction this might be considered bad news. If you are trying to sell your home in Tucson or any place else this is good news. You aren’t competing for buyers against New Construction undercutting your asking price and selling a new home for less than you are asking for yours.

Post Tags: Tucson-Housing-starts-decline

A River with Water in It

August 19, 2008

I posted this image with the same title and got a few comments about how funny it was to think of a river without water in it.  Unless you live in Tucson that is.  Over the years we have had people who were planning on moving to Tucson say they wanted a home on a river.

We usually respond there aren’t many of them but they do exist.  By the way are you aware we don’t have any water in our rivers?

If you have never been to the desert southwest you might  find this hard to believe.  It has never even crossed peoples minds that there could be rivers without water in them.

I took this photo at Iowa City, Iowa of the Iowa River just a few weeks after the great flood of 2008 that flooded most of downtown Cedar Rapids and much of the University of Iowa.  My daughter and son-in-law were walking with me after an evening dining out at “Atlas” (which was wonderful by the wa), when I told them the title of the image, they had to laugh.  They have spent time in Arizona and got it immediately.

Post Tags: A-river-with-water , atlas-restaurant-iowa-city , Iowa-City-Iowa , Iowa-River , University-of-Iowa

Back in Tucson with More Real Estate News to Share

August 18, 2008

I’ve been on the road for the past two weeks.  I still have kept in touch reading the daily Arizona Daily Star email headlines updates.  There have been a few changes in the past two weeks and the Tucson MLS Statistics for July were released in my absense.  I’ve printed those out and hopefully will have a post on them tomorrow.

I’ve been in 10 states and back again in the past two weeks.  I won’t bore anyone with the details or slides of the trip.  I did see and observe quite a bit during my trip for how some states and communities are fairing during this economic downturn which we refer to in our household as “A Recession“.

The final destination was Ontario, Ohio, where I grew up and graduated from High School.  It was also the first time in more than 10 years I saw the home I grew up in and the small town that isn’t so small anymore.  I took pictures of the Westinghouse plant where dad and I used to work and the town square in Mansfield, Ohio which is celebrating 200 years and Ontario 50 years respectfully.

I’ll get back to covering the Tucson Real Estate Market tomorrow.  Over the next few weeks I’ll take time to share on this blog and some of the others tidbits of things I learned and saw while I was gone.

You don’t need to know what it was like seeing the people I went to high school with after 40 years.  Let’s just say a few have changed in appearance and girth.

I would like to say I wasn’t one of them, but I can’t : )  Well since I’m the one writing this maybe I can.

Post Tags: High-School-Reunion , Mansfield-Ohio , Ontario-Ohio

Tucson MLS Preliminary Closed Transactions July 2008

August 5, 2008

In about 12 hours the Stats for July will be pulled. Monday and Tuesday were the last two business days to get closed transactions entered in the system before the data pull. Usually we see between 50 and 75 sales a day entered after the end of the month before the data is pulled. Not so in July. There were very few (maybe 20) closed transactions entered on Tuesday August 5, 2008 for July.

The total at this time is 936 Closed Transactions for July 2008. I know there is the psychological level of 1000 closed transactions which for some it the “magic number” indictor for a good month. We will not hit that number this month. Does that mean the Tucson real estate market has taken a “turn for the worse” and to expect another shoe of some sort to drop? NO! has to be the answer when looking at the historical trend for closed transactions between June and July of each year.

July in Tucson is like January in Wisconsin

July is usually one of the hottest months in Tucson. June is the month families with children in school will often move to Tucson as soon as school is out. July on the other hand is a hot month. A month when you get worn out just going from house to house in and out of the AC in the car and often (too often) into a vacant house without any cooling or air moving. Some of these homes can be over 120 degrees inside. It is the opposite of looking at vacant homes in the dead of winter in Wisconsin.

June had 1034 closed transactions. July at the moment has 936, a difference of 98. That gap will close a little but not much over the next few days. However over the past 5 years July has been lower in closed transactions than June. A difference between 150 and 350 approximately in some years. Therefore a difference of less than 100 is the smallest gap between June and July in the past 5 years.

Pending Contracts Data Pull Changed in June of 2008

I also pulled the Pending 274, Active Contingent 677 and Active Capa 77 for a total of 1028.

In June there was a change to how Pending figures will be pulled in the future. In the past pending were for what was Pending, Active Contingent and Active Capa in the system. If a property had a three month close it could show up as pending for multiple months, creating a situation that did not provide an accurate picture of how many properties went under contract during the month. In June it changed to what “went” Pending, Active Contingent or Active Capa during the month. This is the reason the June Pending Sales count was so much lower than the previous months.

Why the lily pads? Because despite the rumors and media coverage of the National real estate market, Tucson is “Staying Afloat”.

Post Tags: Tucson-closed-transaction-July-2008 , Tucson-real-estate-market-July-2008

Tucson Foreclosures Short Sale REO Bank Owned July 2008

July 28, 2008

There they are;  all the buzz words of Real Estate these days.  After seeing the headline “Foreclosures more than double here” in the Saturday, July 27, 2008 Arizona Daily Star I decided I wanted to see for myself where all this stacks up in the Tucson MLS system.

According to an aside on the front page Tucson ranks 37th Nationally with 1 foreclosure for every 148 homes.

By contrast Phoenix/Mesa has 51.  The top 10 are all in Calfornia, Utah, Florida, and Phx/Mesa ranks 7th to round out the top 10.  Not a top 10 list any city wants to make.

I decided to do a little searching inside the Tucson MLS system to see what I could learn in a general way about where foreclosures and short sales were taking place around Tucson.

Data Snapshot July 28, 2008

I placed the criteria for the following words to be in the property description.

foreclosure, bank owned, reo, short sale

There were a total of 541 active listings with one of these phrases in the property description.

Those 541 broke down in the following areas:

• SFR  500
• TH      30
• CD      11

I decided to focus on single family residence since this was by far the largest group.  If you own a condo or town home it doesn’t look like (at the moment) you have too much market pressure on sale price.

The table below breaks down the number of active listings by area and the number of properties that fit the criteria for the search.  It also includes a column for percentage of active listings for each area.  At the end of this post are two links.  These links are to PDF documents of the searches run to gather this data.  It breaks each down into more detail than the table.  It will show price ranges and bedrooms of each area.

The Foreclosure Short sale Bank owned REO breakdown

Area	July Listed\	FSREO	%OL
N	548	11	2.00
NE	355	7	1.97
NW	1763	112	6.35
XNW	52	2	3.84
C	717	42	5.85
E	290	13	4.48
S	433	85	19.63
SE	537	66	12.29
SW	453	79	17.43
XSW	153	4	2.61
XS	403	51	12.65
W	354	28	7.90
XW	21	0	0
	6,093	500	8.20

 

It very much appears the areas in the south are by far the hardest hit. S,SW,SE,XS are all in double digits.
The XW at 0% and N at 2% are the best. But none of the other areas are in double digits and the percentages of home for the entire area are quite small.

Yes there are foreclosures, short sales, bank owned and REO properties in the Tucson real estate market. However, for most of the areas the percentages are small; these properties should not effect overall property values for the area.

I know the article created a lot of concern over falling property values. It is a valid concern for some areas in double digits. But, if you don’t have to sell and don’t plan on selling any time in the next year you should be fine in the future.

Here are the links to the two PDF files:

Report on Foreclosures, Short Sales, Bank Owned, REO

Report on All SFR Active Listings

By the way, that 1 in 148 homes in Tucson in foreclosure works out to 99.7% of the homes being paid for just fine. And by any definition 3 tenths of a percent do not a “housing crisis” make.

Post Tags: Arizona-Daily-Star , Tucson Real Estate , Tucson-bank-owned , Tucson-Foreclosures , tucson-mls , tucson-REO , tucson-short-sales

How Big is the Housing Crisis

July 24, 2008

How Wide Spread is it Across our Country

How Big indeed? This doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It means the aunt hills have been made into an entire mountain range, not just a mountain. Fear, misinformation and the economy as a whole drive much of the media and the fear they have instilled. Now it is up to the American people and local communities and citizens not to turn it all into a self fulfilling prophecy.

Post Tags: Local-Economy , Tucson Real Estate

Tucson Real Estate Urban Legend

July 21, 2008

Too Many Zero Can A Legend Make

I wrote earlier this week about waiting for a data fix in the Tucson MLS.  Back on July 3, 2008 a property was set to closed tranaction with a sale price of $95,500,000.  I knew when I saw it that was too many zeros as the end of the sale price.  If this “AS IS” property sold for Ninety Five Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars I’m sure it would have made the news.

While I was waiting for this entry to be fixed another popped up.  A mobile home sold for 57,000,000.  Combined these two entrys made the average sale price for July with 186 properties sold to be $1,186,000.

Now even the most casual observer will know that this is not accurate or even close to accurate.

All week I’ve been waiting to do an update for July closed transactions, but it is impossible to get an accurate picture with these transactions entered the way they were.  The mobile home entry was fixed the day I noticed it.  The other was just fixed this afternoon.  (A fine was issued for not fixing it in a timely manner). (this part written last week)

Data Pulls are a Snapshot in Time

This has had me thinking all week.  What if someone pulled data from the Tucson MLS between July 3 and July 11, 2008 as a part of a much bigger data pull.  Say for a national study on housing, or a study on “How Real Estate Markets in Arizona are doing in June 2008″

If data was pulled for a national study those bogus entries would have skewed the final results.

As it is they made it difficult to get average statistics or pull a CMA if the properties in question were in the same location.

If it sounds too good to be true . . .

One thing I’ve noted over time.  If it sounds to good to be true it usually isn’t.  But if it sound outlandish it isn’t true, but often is accepted as if it is.  And another Urban Legend is born.

Oh, and we have really big toad stools here in Tucson during the Monsoon Season.

Post Tags: Tucson-monsoon-season.--Tucson-Toad-stools , Tucson-Urban-Legend , tucson_mls

Tucson Residential Real Estate Twenty Days in July 2008

July 20, 2008

We are twenty days into July 2008.  We had a long holiday weekend and July historically is one of the slowest for Tucson real estate.  I call it our:

Opposite of Winter

It is hot, triple digits and with the Monsoon Season it is also muggy.  These are the six to eight weeks when we enjoy the winds, the thunderstorms, and street flooding reports : )  It is the time of year when for some reasons buyers don’t like getting in and out of their car when it is 107 degrees out side and many of the homes (usually vacant) are 130 degrees inside with no air moving.

Go figure for some reason buyers would rather be by the pool or in the movie theatre than out looking at houses.  They figure “It will still be there to look at when it cools down”  Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t (more than likely it is)  : )

With all of this in mind here is another snapshot of the residential real estate market in a table breakdown format so you can see where we are.  Don’t worry about the total number of closed transactions.  Most are usually set to close in the last few days of the month.  As far as our 1000 sales per month goal.  I’m not sure July 2008 is going to get there.  Close, but only time will tell at this point.

Closed Transactions by Type
July 20, 2008

Type	Close Tran	Avg List Price	Avg Sale Price	Avg Price Sq.Ft.
SFR	355	$302,363	$287,735	$136
TH	44	$199,723	$189,474	$138
CD	20	$132,877	$126,196	$141
MH	1	$59,900	$57,000	$79
MFR	15	$108,495	$104,153	$72
ALL	433	$277,452	$263,963	$134

 

Finally, there are currently 1053 June Closed Transactions which break down  as

• Average Asking Price $269,691
• Average Sale Price $256,497
• Average Price Per Sq.Ft. $135

 

July is shaping up to be Hot, Windy, Loud (thunder) and typical.

For those of you that can’t get enough statistics here is the breakdown for the first six months of sales in Tucson real estate

Residental Sales Trends 2008

Month	Close Tran	Avg Sale Price	Active List
Jan	594	$266,450	9168
Feb	710	$262,155	9168
Mar	900	$259,120	9022
Apr	1008	$253,729	8808
May	748	$250,953	8708
June	1053	$256,497	8140

 

Greg Norman is a class act we are sorry to hear he couldn’t pull of the win at The British Open. Third isn’t bad : ) We hope he enjoys the rest of his honeymoon with Chris Evert.

Post Tags: British-Open , Chris-Evert , Greg-Norman , monsoon_season , residential_real_estate , tucson_real_estate