Phoenix Arizona Real Estate Blog, presented by ...

Dec. 6, 2006 - Like Small Bedrooms?

Oct. 25, 2006 - Westbrook Village, Here We Come

Within the next few days, a group of us from Century 21 Arizona Foothills - Arrowhead office will begin a long-term journey into serving the real estate needs of the residents of Westbrook Village, an active adult community in Peoria Arizona. Why? Because it's there, of course. (Hopefully, none of the five of us will be found 75 years from now in a bunker on the Westbrook Village Country Club's back nine.)

Choosing an area in which to work seems simple enough on the surface - place map on wall, throw dart, send postcards, list homes, make money, retire to Westbrook. But in truth, a lot of preparation goes into launching an effective marketing campaign. And that's the topic both of this post and some future posts - building a large presence in a community where only a small presence currently exists.

First off, we needed to know more about our competition. In the Valley as a whole, it doesn't make sense to worry too much about who else is out there because there are far too many agents and far too many homes for there to be any discernable market share. Not so in an area such as Westbrook Village, which has a history. Once upon a time, Westbrook Realty was the dominant player in the area - the reasons are both obvious and peculiar to active adult communities - residents rely heavily on word of mouth and stay with what they know.

Russ Lyon bought out Westbrook Realty and now they are the major brokerage in the area - to the tune of 23% of the current listings and successful sales in Westbrook Village. West USA agents have carved out another 14% of the market. From there, the numbers quickly drop into the single digits. It's in these single-digit areas that we've set our sights; add together enough of the single digits and soon you have double-digit market share. Let Russ Lyon have theirs, we'll take the rest, essentially.

Later this week the real work begins. Residents in Westbrook Village's Phase II - 83rd Avenue to 91st Avenue, Union Hills to Beardsley - will be receiving an introductory letter from me and the other five agents involved in this effort within the next week. And by Halloween I will have WestbrookVillage.com up and running - trust me, you'll see an announcement here when it's ready. In addition to the real estate, we will be providing a lot of useful information for residents and prospective residents on the site's pages.

Direct mail will start in December with notices of homes sold in the area, both by C21 Arizona Foothills and others. Some of us may even be showing up on people's doorsteps in the next couple of months as well, either delivering candy or demanding eggnog - whatever it seems the situation demands.

And last but not least is the work from within - among our ranks we have a member of the bridge club and a member at the Westbrook Village Country Club. Word of mouth is a truly wonderful thing.

You'll see more in this space as we move along. In the interim, please allow this as an explanation of why we've been a little more quiet the last week or two. Tobey's not much of a multi-tasker.

(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes

Oct. 8, 2006 - And I'll never be topic-less again ...

Cue the trumpets and beat the drums ... the Arizona Republic today announced that their real estate reporter, Catherine Reagor, will have her own Arizona Real Estate blog.

From what I can see, she's actually had the blog for some time, which means those of us practicting real estate have had more time (or topics or inspiration or insight ... take your pick) to write about real estate than those who are paid to cover the real estate market for a living.

I believe that would be an excellent working definition of irony.

(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes

Oct. 3, 2006 - From Whither the Real Estate Market

As we embark on the fourth quarter of 2006, predictions continue to vary widely about the future of the Phoenix real estate market.  There have been multiple predictions of a nationwide slowdown, including yesterday's published report from Moody's Economy.com predicting a "correction" and "trough" lasting through 2009 for areas as disparate as California, Arizona, Florida and Danville, Illinois.

The driving force behind the predictions is the disappearance of the flippers - speculators who would purchase a home and sell quickly, claiming a sizable profit in the process as their artificial demand combined with the traditional buyers' need to sell pushed prices ever higher. The flippers aren't gone. Like locust, they simply have descended on the next location - Texas primarily, but other mid-America states as well.

As I said, Arizona is lumped into the category of markets primed for a fall based on last year's extreme appreciation - roughly 50% from the second to the fourth quarter 2005. And in some areas, prices definitely have declined - not across the board by any means, but in some areas. Inventory continues to hold steady while sales decline slightly; I'm about three weeks behind on posting absorption rate figures, but the number has been creeping up over the last month while inventory has remained the same.

Yet there are factors which I believe will keep the Arizona market from declining significantly, factors which might not be true of other areas. The National Association of Realtors recently published market analyses for dozens of metropolitan areas across the nation. In Phoenix, NAR has found:

• "A recent cut-back in new home building has reduced the risk of overbuilding in the region. Homebuilders evidently are responding to reduced housing demand. Low new supply betters helps support home prices."
• "Local job growth has been exceptionally strong. The three-year job growth of 12% is nearly five times as fast as the national increase [emphasis added.] The local unemployment rate of 4.1% in the first quarter implies full employment in the region. Not surprising, the mortgage delinquency rate in the first quarter for the state was well below the national average."
• "Job growth and strong net positive migration in the region brought additional potential homebuyers to the market and limited the number of "forced-home sales" associated with job losses. This suggests that any price decline likely will be short lived given the additional buyers ready to enter the market [emphasis added].

The report also says interest rates present the biggest risk of a drastic slowdown in sales: "Should the 30-year average fixed rate approach 7.5% (from its current 6.8% [sp]) as a result of too much monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve, home prices in the region could well decline. Clearly, the percentage quoted is dated. And as the Associated Press story on the Economy.com report notes:

The Fed has kept rates unchanged for the past two months and many economists believe the central bank has finished its rate hikes as long as inflation pressures keep falling.

The belief that the current economic slowdown is restraining inflation has helped push mortgage rates lower with the 30-year mortgage now at a six-month low of 6.31 percent, an improvement that is expected to help put a floor on housing's fall.

Sep. 15, 2006 - Chalk One Up to Me!

If you've been reading along you probably remember me mentioning courtyard and patio homes in my post about Phoenix real estate going vertical. Maybe there's someone at the Republic reading along, too:

http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwatukee/articles/0915ar-smalllots0915Z14.html

(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes