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Tucson Real Estate & Golf Properties

Douglas Trudeau , Assoc. Broker
Prudential Foothills Real Estate
64 N. Harrison Road, Suite 160
Tucson , AZ 85748
Mobile: 520-954-2209
Contact Me

Archive for January, 2008

Seven Ways To Drive A Realtor Insane

January 25th, 2008 categories: Real Estate News

Having worked with a variety of home buyers over the past several years I have met some very nice people. Some I share a lot with, especially the passion for golf. Others have been very interesting and fun to work with. Each having their own special value. There are those few who just drive you insane. Which is what everyone is curious about, right?

As a Realtor it doesn’t matter if I work with someone for a day or over a period of years. I am in the middle of a sale right now that I have had the pleasure of communicating with my buyer for nearly two years. Once they were ready, I turned up the service from periodic e-mails, an occasional phone call, and just staying in touch to some serious searching, looking, kicking the tires and writing a contract. Its been a fun two years with them.

Working with a client for several months or a few years is easy. Knowing when to turn up the service is the key. Its the buyer who doesn’t know what they want and want me to find it for them that creates the real challenge. Sometimes to the point of insanity. Here’s some tips on how to drive Your Realtor totally insane:

Make sure you have two or three Realtors looking for you and don’t tell them the other Realtors are expecting to find you a home as well.
Start out in one part of town, bounce to another, then another and another to keep your Realtor guessing.
Have a lot of demands for the home you want that just does not exist in this universe.
Change the price of the homes you look at to higher than what you can afford.
Look at homes that are outside your stated criteria, and reject those that fall within your criteria.
Make an appointment with your Realtor to show homes, then don’t show up.
Make an offer for 20% below the asking price, especially when everything is selling within 5%.

Realtors work for a commission. No sale, no pay. If three are working hard to sell you a home, one will see the reward, the other two will end up wasting their time. Put yourself in their shoes, how would you feel spending time and money on gas driving someone around who has no intention to select you to represent them? Imagine putting in your full two weeks of work for your employer, only to be told that you won’t be paid for it.

The seven descriptions above happen every day to a variety of Realtors. Choosing a Realtor wisely and remaining loyal to him or her means a lot. After all, wouldn’t you prefer the your Realtor remain loyal to you?

Authored by Doug Trudeau | Discussion: No Comments »

What Is The Real Story About The Tucson Real Estate Market?

January 24th, 2008 categories: Real Estate News

Watching the news yesterday the average person would think that Tucson will turn into a ghost town. That real estate is on a decline. That buying or selling a home is hopeless. Not true. Reminds me of a professor who commented about the media be a great fertilizer. Lets see, the newspapers and the media depend on readers for sales and viewers to get higher ratings and sell more advertising space. Sensationalism is the key ingredient. Lets give the public what they want. Forget what damage it does to a vital part of our economical market.

True, there are way too many homes on the market. As of this writing there are 9,895 mobile homes, condos, town homes, and single family residences on the market through the MLS in the greater Tucson area. Consider the For Sale By Owners, and the number is higher. That is an impossible number to track though. Of those available homes 9,156 do not have an offer. Oops, 9,155 homes I had accepted offer for my Buyers yesterday that I have to turn in today. That means 701 homes are in various stages of process leading to the word all Sellers love, “Sold.”

True, current sales are not keeping up with the number of homes hitting the market. A healthy market based on the average number of monthly sales is somewhere between 7,000 to 8,000, depending on who you talk to. Until that time it will remain a Buyer’s market. When the number of available homes begin to drop or sales start shooting up, buyers will less opportunity to get great deals. When that happens, what will happen to interest rate?

True, interest rates are dropping again. The interest rates have dropped below 6%. Last time the greater Tucson real estate market experienced challenges similar to today’s interest rates were well over 8%. At one time as high as 18%. Now, that was a tough market for buyers, sellers and everybody tied into the real estate market. Once sales start picking up, anticipate that those rate will increase to over 6% again.

True, Tucson is a growing community. As more and more people move to Tucson the demand will increase. Builders have already stopped building spec homes, and sold off inventory at incredibly low prices. Forcing the new home inventory to drop. Working toward basic economics of reducing supply. Now we just have to work on the demand.

True, home buyer confidence is at an all time low. This is the key to the demand. Sellers have reduced prices, builders have reduced inventory, the Fed and lenders have reduced interest rates. Now is the time to take a serious look at the real estate market in greater Tucson and ask yourself, “Should I take advantage of the current situation and buy now, or should I risk waiting for it to get better?” Don’t get trapped into WSC (Woulda Should Coulda).

True, buying a home is a huge investment. That’s why buying what you can afford today and not what you think you can afford tomorrow is vital. Too many buyers anticipated increased value and higher pay. Too many bought on emotion without sitting down and counting the beans. Before buying, crunch the numbers. My suggestion, buy a little less than you can afford, stay in your home for at least five years, and thank God you have a roof over your head. For sellers, if you don’t have to sell, don’t sell. Level out the market so those who have to sell their homes can. Sellers don’t be greedy, sell for a win-win price. Investors, buy for five to seven year investments. Quit buying today to sell tomorrow. Draw your rents, maximize your write offs and do some long term planning.

The greater Tucson real estate market is not immune to what is happening nationally. However, we are not suffering as bad as many parts of our nation. With thousands moving to our community every year, its a matter of time for the market to level out and get healthy again. Ask yourself, “How many times have you let opportunity slip through your fingers, only to kick yourself later?”

Authored by Doug Trudeau | Discussion: No Comments »

Tucson Golf Property Sales

January 20th, 2008 categories: Tucson Golf Community, Tucson Real Estate

Tucson is a retreat for golfers who love to play year round. There is no question that my niche is golf properties and golfers. When writing monthly reports about home sales I’ve had a desire to focus more toward golf properties. I finally found the time to pull up statistics, which I’ll begin reporting in my monthly sales reports beginning in February.

For now, I’d like to look at available MLS information for properties that are directly adjacent to golf courses. This does not take into consideration sales of homes within subdivisions that embrace golf courses which do not back up to the golf course. It does provide a solid basis to view the history of sales, average prices, and median prices. With the number of retirees moving to Tucson each month, this niche information should prove valuable to my fellow Babyboomers and golfers.

What is interesting is the consistency in golf property home sales in the current Buyers Market, the previous frenzy from 2004 into 2006, and the stable years prior dating back to 1996. There was a definite peak in sales in 2006, as was experienced in the rest of the market. The average sales price for golf properties in 2007 was 98.59% of that for 2006. The median price for golf property sales for 2007 was 94.5% of that for 2006. Sales of golf properties in 2007 increase 1.81% over that of 2006. For 2004 and 2005 sales were off the charts with 498 and 507 respectively.

Now it really gets interesting. The average sales price of golf properties for 2007 was 42% higher than 2004, and 9.6% higher than 2005. The median prices for 2007 golf properties was 33.9% and 2.6% higher than 2004 and 2005 respectively. While other sectors of the Tucson real estate market have seen a leveling or decline in property values, golf properties are seeing an increase in value.

The numbers tell the tale. Golf properties in Tucson real estate are holding their own in value and consistency in sales.

Sales	Year	Avg	Med	Low	High
184	1996	$238,867	$210,000	$58,000	$887,500
262	1997	$239,733	$216,373	$59,000	$765,000
277	1998	$228,957	$202,000	$48,500	$1,000,000
393	1999	$256,691	$210,000	$54,500	$1,300,000
361	2000	$277,389	$214,000	$16,320	$1,365,000
325	2001	$282,882	$244,000	$57,000	$1,780,000
383	2002	$278,443	$242,000	$39,000	$1,775,000
409	2003	$286,323	$243,000	$48,500	$1,600,000
498	2004	$342,313	$295,000	$75,000	$2,400,000
507	2005	$445,955	$385,000	$105,500	$2,225,000
383	2006	$495,769	$418,000	$102,000	$2,950,000
390	2007	$488,809	$395,000	$135,000	$3,850,000

With Accenture Match Play Championship bringing more PGA attention to Tucson, with more Babyboomers retiring, I can see an increased demand for golf properties. All I can say is, golfers, Welcome To Tucson. Look me up when you get here. I am always up for 18 holes, as well as showing the beautiful homes that line our many golf courses.

If you want to see some of the golf communities in Tucson, links are to the left. For golf courses and scheduling tee time, the links are to your right. Enjoy and share with fellow golfers.

Authored by Doug Trudeau | Discussion: No Comments »

December 2007 Tucson Home Sales

January 18th, 2008 categories: Tucson Real Estate

First things first, Happy Holidays to Everyone.

Tucson Association of Realtors October report is out. Each month it comes out later and later. Sales did increase over October, the official number is 759 sales for November. October had 790 reported home sales through the MLS. Buyer confidence is still lower than it should be. Which ads to the reduction in numbers overall. I am still seeing a little more buyer activity as I did last month. Sales for the winter are traditionally lower. So, the drop from October to November can be expected. December should be even lower. Sales will begin to pick up in January and normally continue to increase until May and June.

Pending sales waiting to close for the month November were 910. A slight drop from October as can be expected for the seasonal trend.

Average home price increased from October by $7,714 to $269,968. The Median price went up by $8,000 for the second month in a row to $218,000.

November saw an anticipated drop in sales. I continue to believe that it is an emotional response of buyer confidence. The Herd Mentality is a definite factor here. The banks and the Feds working out restriction on ARM increases should help keep a few more homes from hitting the market. December will close out a year we’ll all try to forget. 2008 will show promise when buyer confidence returns. The Debt Relief Act is a step in the right direction for 2008. If you’re interested in Jay’s Opinion, he usually makes a good point.

Till next month, enjoy family and the Holidays.

Authored by Doug Trudeau | Discussion: No Comments »

December 2007 Preliminary Real Estate Report

January 3rd, 2008 categories: Tucson Real Estate

There is no doubt that 2007 turned into a Buyer’s Market. December was a reflection of previous six months of real estate sales. Not as good as many homeowners and Realtors would have liked. Not immune to the events of the year. But, better than many parts of the country.

Tucson real estate sales for the month of December decreased over that of November. The market always slows down for the holidays. There were 669 MLS reported sales for December as of December 3rd, compared to the 757 official home sales for November. Verifying those November sales today and you can see that there are 37 Realtors out there late with their reports to reflect an actual 794. An improvement over October which saw 69 late reported sales.

The number of homes on the market without an offer dropped from November’s 9,135 to 8,539. Homes that are active with offers number 603, while there are 437 pending sale within a few days of Close of Escrow.

The Tucson Association of Realtors official report will be out later month. It will be interesting to see what is reported. See you then.

Authored by Doug Trudeau | Discussion: No Comments »

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