North Phoenix Agent Blog

The May month-end numbers look positive again, for about the fourth or fifth month in a row. We keep moving incrementally in the right direction. This seems to be the classic tale of the tape of a recovering market. “Percent Sold” increases monthly while the “Months of Inventory” number shrinks. Sales volume is back up to a respectable and normal 5,000 a month.

The number I find most compelling is overall “Months of Inventory,” a.k.a. “Absorption Rate”. This number means that if no more houses were listed for sale and we continued at current sales pace, it would take 9.99 months to sell every home on the market. In 7 months, we’ve whacked inventory in half. Very good progress. Most experts agree that 6 months of inventory is ‘normal’.

That’s not to say we’re back to the heady heyday of summer 2005. Downward pricing pressure continues, especially in neighborhoods with a large number of short sales and foreclosures. 

But see also my colleague and friend Jonathan Dalton who says that bank owned properties are flying off the shelves. Jonathan has numbers to back that up.

I don’t have numberes, but I’ve got anecdotes. I was actually presented wth a Multiple Counteroffer form last week on behalf of a buyer looking for a bank owned property. By the by, we lost out on 2 different bank owned properties because we weren’t fast enough. Home number 1 wasn’t even officially for sale yet! I spent 2 full days calling the bank’s HQ in Philadelphia and finally found the local listing agent. She told me the bank hadn’t set a price yet and weren’t even looking at offers. Seven days later I called back only to find it was sold. Apparently several buyers sent offers directly to the bank HQ in Philadelphia because they wanted the home so badly. Mind you this home needed 2 40-yard dumpsters of junk removed and toilets installed before it was even inhabitable as a flop house. My investory buyer estimated he’d spent $30,000 in rehab, bare minimum.

You can also see my friend & colleague John Wake who create awesome statistical charts - he says sales are picking up steam in outlying areas like Anthem and Queen Creek.

As always, this is data from the MLS and includes homes, condos, patio homes, townhouses and even mobile homes and land. It also includes bank owned homes, foreclosures, pre-foreclosures and short sales. It does not include properties not sold through the MLS (for sale by owner, private sales, the example above where bank sold to investor before house hit the MLS). Why only include MLS data? It’s the data I can access most easily and MLS sales represent the bulk of property transfers in the Valley.

More anecdotal evidence the market is improving. This is from a blog i read frequently, miOaklandCounty.com.

Related Posts - Phoenix Market Rebounding?  and The Butterworth Group Crunches The Numbers

Bedroom staging can be tricky. Here are a few tips that have worked for me with my listings.

Master Bedroom
The message you want to convey here is sanctuary. The master bedroom is probably the second most important room to potential buyers, behind the kitchen. Your goal is for the master to appear as a retreat, a getaway from the stresses and cares of the world. Think luxury, comfort and ease.

Buy a new, plush comforter or bedspread in a neutral color and pattern. Good colors are beige, green, and blue. Beige goes with everything; blue & green are soothing. Patterns should be medium sized and gender neutral (no cabbage roses! no petunias!). Wash and iron the bed ruffle if you’re using one.

Buy 2 new pillows if yours aren’t fluffy and luxurious looking. Use the pillow shams if the set you have (or just bought) comes with those. Buy and place a selection of decorative pillows in varying shapes and sizes.

If the master bedroom is simply huge, you can stage a sitting area with two chairs and a small table between them.

Other Bedrooms
The message for these bedrooms is space. You want the potential buyers walking through to be amazed at how much room there is in your extra bedrooms - plenty of room for their  stuff. All you really need to effectively stage a bedroom are

1. a bed,
2. two night tables,
3. two lamps,
4. and nothing else. 

Unless the room is enormous, this is enough. If the room is very small, you can use only one nightstand. If you’re living in the home while you’re trying to sell, the closer you can get to this ideal, the better. I realize that sellers with children are going to struggle over this. Enlist the kids’ help and try to make it an adventure. If you stage it right, and price it right, and your chosen listing agent markets it right, you’ll only be living like this for a month or two. Besides, you’re going to have to pack the stuff once you sell, so you might as well start now. Buy a new bed-in-a-bag set in a neutral color & pattern.

If you’re painting the whole house anyway, use a pale bluish off-white in one bedroom and a pale pinkish off-white in another. Set it off with sparkling white trim and baseboards. Dunn Edwards’ Coy and Romantic are great pale pinks; use Clear Skies or Distant Horizon for bluish off whites.

Staging Bedrooms in Vacant Homes
If you’re trying to sell an empty house, it will pay to rent a bed set at least for the master bedroom. For the other bedrooms, let your budget guide you. Contact my favorite staging company, Staging  Solutions LLC

Of course, if you’ve chosen the right Realtor, I’ll be doing all this for you. Thinking about selling? Give me a call.

Related Posts

1. De-Cluttering
2. The Ice Cream Analogy

Travis & Angela from Integrity Cleaning Systems are my favorite carpet cleaners in town. Integrity does a bunch of other services too. Call them at 602-486-3966 if you’re in need of:

• Carpet Cleaning
• Upholstery Cleaning
• Tile & Grout Cleaning & Sealing
• Natural Stone Honing, Cleaning, Polishing & Sealing (stone counters, anyone?)
• Area Rug Cleaning
• Allergy Relief and Mattress Cleaning

I used Travis to clean my own carpet within the last year. He’s great! He did minor furniture moving for me, and includes steam-cleaning the baseboards in the cleaning package I ordered. He uses industrial strength blowers to help shorten the drying time too. My carpet was grey when he started, and beautifully white and clean when he finished. Best of all, it was dry that evening. He even worked around my cats! Integrity Carpet Cleaning is a locally owned & operated, and I’ve never seen a guy work harder to ensure customer satisfaction.

Did You Know? You should clean your carpets every 6 months. Call Travis to find out what kind of gunk builds up if you wait longer than that. It ain’t pretty!

Related Posts:

1. Discounts on Paint
2. Recycle When You Remodel
3. B & B Appliances

The home inpsection process explained, in plain English. Of course, this applies only in metro Phoenix where I work.

During the Due Diligence Period (usually the first 10 days after contract is signed by both parties and delivered to both parties), Buyer may do any and all inspections she wants. A general home inspection by a licensed professional is a great start. This gives the Buyer a once-over of all the home’s working systems: plumbing, electrical, A/C, roof, and so forth.

If the general inspection turns up anything odd, or if the Buyer has concerns about specific items, she can do additional inspections. Sometimes calling in a roofer, A/C contractor, electrician or plumber is a good idea. Please note that general home inspections usually do not include home entertainmnet sound systems, security systems, and the home automation systems that are all the rage in luxury homes these days, whereby you can monitor your home security system over the Internet while you vacation in Cannes.

During the inspection (or Due Diligence) process, the Buyer retains the absolute right to back out of the purchase for any reason and be refunded their Earnest Money.

Buyers, after your inspections are complete, you’ll have 3 options:

1. Accept the home As Is
2. Back out and take your Earnest Money with you
3. Give the Seller a list of repairs you require and give him a chance to fix them all

Sellers, you will now have 3 options:

1. Fix everything – Buyer is now legally bound to complete the purchase
2. Fix nothing – Buyer now decides whether to accept the property As Is or walk away with Earnest Money in hand
3. Fix some things – Buyer now has the choice to accept the property with the repairs Seller’s willing to make, or walk away with Earnest Money in hand

Please note that there is no step in here for re-negotiating the purchase price! The purchase price and the repairs are separate issues, negotiated separately, and are totally unrelated. Sometimes, some Sellers may choose to offer a credit to the Buyer in lieu of making some or all of the requested repairs. The Seller is not bound to offer a credit and Buyer may not ask for a credit in lieu of repairs, regardless of the inspection findings.  If a credit is offered, the amount is negotiable.

Please also note that there are time-sensitive deadlines involved in this process. First, Buyers’ requests for repairs must be submitted by 11:59 PM local time on the last day of the Due Diligence Period. You do this on a form called a BINSR (Buyer’s Inspection Notice and Seller’s Response). Buyer - missed your deadline? You just bought the house As Is.

Second, the Seller has 5 days to respond to the BINSR using the rest of the same form. Upon receipt of the Seller’s response, the Buyer will have 3 days in which to submit her reply about whether she’ll take the house with the repairs the Seller’s willing to make, if any.

What if the Seller doesn’t reply to the Buyer’s BINSR? The Buyer must assume the Seller intends to sell the home As Is. The Buyer has 3 days from the date the Seller’s response to her BINSR was originally due in which to decide whether to complete the purchase (which we now know will not have any repairs done on it) and submit that decision in writing to the Seller using the rest of the rest of the BINSR form.

Confused yet? This is a great example of why it’s SO critical to hire a professional, full-time Realtor. This isn’t rocket science, but it is the sort of situation where mistakes can be so monumentally costly that it’s best to hire someone who’s job it is to do this all day, every day, and carries insurance to protect you and themselves against mistakes. To err is human nature, to buy real estate without a professional Realtor is just silly.

Please see these related posts

1. Backing Out of a Purchase Might Be Costly
2. Due Diligence Period Defined
3. The Phoenix Real Estate Guy on Escrows and Home Inspections

Today’s mortgage rates are brought to you by my neighbor and all around great guy, Larry Cappalletti of Capp Mortgage.

• 5.625% - 30 Year Fixed, with 1.50 points
• 5.750% - 30 Year Fixed, with 0.875 points
• 5.875% - 30 Year Fixed, with 0.25 points
• 6.000% - 30 Year Fixed, with 0 points
• 6.125% - 30 Year Fixed, No Fee

• 5.750% - 5/1 Jumbo ARM, No Fee
• 6.000% - 7/1 Jumbo ARM, No Fee

Capp Mortgage offers a couple of great features & guarantees, including the “7 Day Promise” which guarantees that the title company will have your final loan documents 7 days before your scheduled close of escrow.

From the cockpit of my Jeep, yesterday, at 3:30 pm. Yikes!

My good friend Chris Butterworth has a great post about how to paint a razor-sharp straight line when you’re painting with bold colors.

For several years, the interior paint trend has been sliding down the in-store color chips, towards bolder, bright, more saturated hues. Home buyers are demanding more windows, higher ceilings, and “light and bright” has become so overused in MLS ads that it’s almost the sort of trite ‘code’ where buyers have learned to read between the lines. “Charming” means exceptionally small. “Plenty of cupboard space” means galley kitchen. And “light and bright” means you can probably navigate through the house without turning on an industrial strength spotlight.

In any case, if you want to try today’s hipper, bolder colors on your walls, read Chris’ advice post first. Wondering what colors will look good? My favorite painting advisor, Noelle Carpenter at Certa Pro Painters gave me some tips on choosing colors (Noelle’s phone is (480) 962-8180 x125). See below for a list of popular paints chosen often by their customers. Or for the easily overwhelmed, visit their website to see Certa’s expert-recommended color palettes, a collection of 4 different families of hues that mix & match well. (These are all Dunn Edwards brand paints. Click here to locate a DE store near you.)

Want a bold brown? Try Cup of Cocoa (taupe-y), Florentine Clay (reddish), Pumpkin Butter (less orange than the name implies and really pretty). Ready to really get your brown on? Opt for the double bold by choosing Warm Nutmeg (taupe-y), Traditional Leather (almost the color of a Hershey bar), or Cinnamon Spice (a bit on the reddish side and a shade darker than actual cinnamon).

Seeking a soothing blue? Quiet Moment, Provence and China Pattern are popular choices. Quiet Moment is the palest, and a little on the warmish side. Provence is a clear robin’s egg blue and China Pattern is the deepest.

Going for the green? Certa Pro gets a lot of customer requests for Soothing Celadon (a cool pastel) and Lime Juice (a warm pastel). Good mid-range greens include Crisp Celery (a warm yellowish green), Green Tea (coolish mid-range green), and Dried Chervil (a neutral medium green). For bolder greens, choose Herbal Scent (clear green), Sage Green (grayish blue) or Rosemary Sprig (the darkest of the bunch, and what I think of when someone says ‘library green’).

A great way to test paint is to buy a quart of the color you think you’d like. Paint 1 or 2 walls in the chosen room with a swath of that color measuring about 4 feet square. Live with it for a couple of days; check it out in different lights. Like it? Go buy Blue Tape, read Chris’ post again and go for it. Don’t like it? Grab a primer, a new quart of bold colored paint, and try again.

Well, my beloved Kristi Collins has changed employers. She’s now with Maricopa Mortgage, after having been hammered lately by Coldwell Banker Home Loan’s inability to do jumbo mortgages, among other things.  CBHL just never got into ‘creative’ financing and so in today’s marketplace where anything other than a standard 10%-20% cash down, full documentation loan is a little (or a lot) of trouble to obtain, Kristi felt she could better serve her client base by moving to a lender who’s a bit quicker to adapt to a changing marketplace.

100% financing is still out there! You can still buy with less than 10% down! FHA loans are booming and aren’t just for first time buyers! Call Kristi, she’ll set you straight. One thing among many that I love about Kristi is that she’ll talk straight with you — “Here’s what I can do. Send me a quote from somebody else and I’ll tell you if I can beat it. If I can’t beat it, I’ll tell you that.”  Sadly, our mortgage world is still overfull of slick salesmen types who’ll push you into a loan that’s good for them instead of being good for you. Kristi and my other preferred lenders take care of you first.

Contact Kristi by cell phone at 602-750-8594 and contact my other preferred lenders by clicking here.

I still love CBHL for clients who fit the scenario of 10% or 20% down on a loan under $417,000. CBHL guarantees they’ll close on time or you get a 1/4% rate discount for the life of the loan. Plus, they have one of the smallest loan packages I’ve ever seen. No junk forms to sign, no writer’s cramp, no 1 hour closings. In, Out, Done. No Fuss, No Muss, and you’re guaranteed to close on time.

I miss Kristi’s sunny personality and well wishes every day at the office. It’s not the same without her. But she’s happier, and her clients are happier. She reports the mortgage rates for the weekend, for any of you home shopping out there. And if you’re shopping, you need a stupendous Realtor at your side. Haven’t got one yet? Call or email me to see if we ‘click’. I’m happy to help out.

6.00% - Conforming loan (under $417,000), fixed 30-year rate
5.50% - conforming 5/1 ARM

Once in a while, the software vendor who provides our local area MLS uses a popup window to provide Relators and others using the MLS software with what they think is critical information. The info is rarely interesting but usually useful. Today it was both.

It’s probably no surprise that green pools are becoming a hazard around the Valley. The number of foreclosures, lender-owned, and otherwise uncared for vacant homes with icky pools is growing. Green pools are breeding grounds for mosquitos, which are carriers of the West Nile Virus.

Maricopa County Vector Conrol (I’d have thought it was Pest Control or even Animal Control, but it seems not) has a hotline for information. Plus they have mosquito eating fish to stock your neighborhood green pool with. From the press release:

“Drain the pools or use mosquito eating fish at foreclosed homes and help Maricopa County “Fight the Bite”. Standing water attracts mosquitoes, and non-operational decorative ponds and “green pools” can dangerously become potential mosquito breeding grounds. This year, Maricopa County recorded it’s first confirmed case of West Nile Virus in a human in March. That was the first identified case in the nation for 2008. Contact the Maricopa County Vector Control office to pick up Gambusia fish, a door hanger and fence sign stating the pool has been treated with mosquito eating fish. Then report the treated pool to the County. For assistance or more information on West Nile Virus, please contact Vector Control at 602-506-0701 or visit Maricopa County’s West Nile Virus website.”

However, see also this website, which claims that Gambusia fish are a nuisance in their own right. Me? I’m worried about fishies “breathing” chlorinated water. Hope Vector Control has thought of that. By the way, I’m also concerned about the County’s press release writer. I edited the paragraph for run-on sentences, mis-used commas, and noun-verb disagreement before posting it. But then again, I’m weird like that.

Related Post

Chris Butterworth of Thompson’s Realty on dealing with vacant foreclosure homes near yours

The National Association of Realtors unveiled a press release today, which said: “A flat pattern in home sales activity should continue for the next couple months before improving over the summer, according to the latest forecast by the National Association of Realtors®.”

The NAR forecast went on to say that the recovery hinges in large part on mortgage affordability. NAR President Chuck Gaylord said “Our members are telling us that more buyers are looking at homes but are slow in signing contracts… In many cases buyers are waiting for greater access to affordable credit,,, but some are disappointed with what appears to be unnecessarily restrictive lending requirements.”

It’s not very often that I agree with the NAR, but here I do. As I posted yesterday, the part of the metro Phoenix market that I cover is showing definite signs of improvement. We’ve still got a long way to go, perhaps as much as another 6 to 10 months before things are “normal” again. But we’ve made a beginning. Pending sales are up.  Overall sales are increasing.  Prices aren’t dipping as hard as they had been. Of course, all of these links are to bloggers I know and love, each giving their own personal touch to the fabulous news that the metro Phoenix real estate market is improving!

The metro Phoenix real estate market continues to show signs of improvement. While it’s true that inventory of homes for sale remains high (54,000+), the number of sales each month continues to increase. We’re now sitting on just under 11 months of inventory. What that means is that if no one else listed their home for sale, and sales continued at the current pace, it would take us 11 months to sell every home for sale. Typically, a balanced market is about 6 months’ supply.

What I found most interesting is what happened in mid-April of this year. We started 2008 with 18 months of inventory. By mid-April we’d whittled that down to only 11 months supply. Whee! We knocked off 6 months of supply in just over 3 months.  See the chart below for more information, or feel free to contact me to discuss your unique buying & selling needs.

Homes and patio homes currently for sale at the Pointe Tapatio. See one that looks interesting to you? Call or email me for more information.

This chart shows the history of sold prices at the Pointe Tapatio for 1600-1700 square foot homes, from 2000 to 2008. Almost all are 3 bedroom, 2 bath, but a few have only 2 bedrooms.

Click to enlarge, but in the thumbnail size it’s easier to see the general trendline, which is UP. While we’re in the middle of the current painful market correction, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that home prices have increased over time.

Another interesting thing the chart shows is that there’s a lot more fluctuation in sales prices in the period 2005 to 2008 than there was in 2001 to 2003. There’s more ’swing’ in the highs and lows. I think this reflects the general confusion in the marketplace today. Sellers and their Realtors spend a great deal of time and energy choosing the “right” list price. Buyers and their Realtors aren’t sure how much to offer, often because there are so few comps to check.  There’s just a ton of uncertainty in the marketplace today about what a home is really worth.

There’s a lot of noise in the media marketplace today about home values. Too many media outlets are shouting “The sky is falling!” To which I say, “Um, not so much here in North Phoenix.” Our prices are wobbling around a little bit, but the sky is definitely not falling at the Pointe Tapatio.

The sky here is as beautiful as it’s always been, filled with resort like lush palms and stunning mountain views.

From Inman News, here’s an excerpt from an article they ran today about a mortgage lender getting sued for shenanigans.

Leib Pinter, 64, is accused of fraud in connection with the alleged theft of $44 million in proceeds from refinance loans funded by Fannie Mae.

According to an indictment filed by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Pinter’s company Olympia Mortgage Corp originated and serviced mortgage loans owned by Fannie Mae. Some of those loans were refinanced through Olympia, with Fannie Mae wiring money to an Olympia account.

Instead of paying off the underlying mortgage loan by remitting the outstanding balance to Fannie Mae, Pinter is accused of pocketing the proceeds. By the time the scheme was discovered, Fannie Mae held nearly $44 million in unpaid, but refinanced, mortgage loans from Olympia, prosecutors said.

Yikes! Maybe in addition to a terrorist watch list, we need a lender fraud watchlist. It might help solve the problem we seem to be having, where most folks want to help homeowners who got duped into a loan they couldn’t afford, but nobody wants to help guys like Pinter and homeowners who knowingly took out a mortgage they couldn’t afford.