Arizona MLS Transfer

I've been an Arizona Real Estate Agent/Broker for a number of years and have decided to retire. By coincidence, just a few months ago, my partner (and sister), Marty, retired after almost 30 years of being an agent.

She and I discussed at length what to do with our successful business and website, Arizona-MLS. Over the years we (and our website) have helped thousands of people in Arizona find land, rentals, homes and commercial properties. Our dilemma was that as retired agents, we could not continue providing a free service to our friends and clients.

After much discussion we knew we had to find a good agent that could take over what we had worked so hard on and continue with it. We both came to the conclusion that one of the best agents that could handle this was Sergio Amesquita.

We've known Sergio for several years and have worked with him when he was at SJ Fowler Real Estate. When I approached him about it, he gave it some thought and then said he would be happy to take it over.

Both Marty and I are very pleased that Sergio now has this website as well as Arizona MLS LLC. We hope you give him as much support and business as you gave us.

Thank you,

Jim & Marty

Banker Hours?

Interesting... I have a buyer flying in from back east and they asked to see several properties (investor, buying single family homes to rent out). So using their list of 6 properties, contacted most of the agents. Of note was one company (that will remain nameless).

The agent tells me that they cannot show the property EXCEPT during Monday through Friday, from 9am till 5pm. Well, I had asked for a Saturday showing and was told that it can't be done. Although vacant, they would not put a lockbox on it and allow agents to view. Had to have a property manager there to 'show' the property (not a luxury, $279,000).

Little wonder the property has been on the market so long.

Prices still going up

Prices in the Phoenix area are still going up... even in the commercial markets. Last week I was contacted by a client we helped just over a year ago purchase a 4 unit (quadplex) in central Phoenix for $95,000.

He said he was real happy with the last purchase and was interested in buying another one. After we went back and forth a little on the details we got around to the price range he was looking for. Well, he said he wanted to stick with the under $100,000 price.

After searching the MLS I came up with a whopping 11 properties to tell him about. Needless to say, he was pretty disappointed that there were no longer 50+ properties listed for under that magic 100k number. The sad thing about those 11 properties was that a number of them had serious issues (missing a roof, burned out hulks, etc.) and were not even close to being 'rent ready'.

Heading into the hot part of the year now, and I expect the showings to drop, but not necessarily the prices.

Lots of news over the last few weeks.

• Maricopa County Single Family homes, 7,837 are active and on the market this morning; 14,826 are under contract (Pending/AWC) and from 1/1/2012 there have been 39,875 sold.
• For Multifamily property, 211 are active, 131 under contract and 347 have been sold this year.
• National Median existing home prices rose 7.9% to $182,600 from a year ago in May.
• Distressed home sales (foreclosures and short sales), account for 25% of May sales.
• All Cash sales slipped to 28% from a year ago 29%.
• 30 year mortgages have dropped to a record low for the 7th time in 8 weeks. Rates are at 3.66%

Interesting article in the Washington Post on Friday about appraisals. Worth taking a look  http://tinyurl.com/6nqhxe8

Multiple Offers Received

Interesting article in the Globe and Mail about the Phoenix home market having Bidding Wars. Yes, you heard right, the Buyers’ market is over (which actually happened months ago.) I am still getting calls from Buyers that want to buy a good property 10% to 20% under the list price. In some cases this is still possible where the list price is pretty high, but in most cases it can’t be done.

The Buyers dreaded term ‘Multiple Offers Received – Give us your highest and best’ is being seen more and more.

Less than 10,000 SF homes on the market

Just checking the ARMLS listings for this morning and noticed that there are now 9,931 active Single Family homes now listed in the system. This time last year there were closer to 50,000. There are also 217 active Multi Family (MF) properties listed; Sep 2010 had just under 600 listed.

Below are three charts of MF properties over the last few years. Since Jan 2009 with 600 properties on the market, to May 2012, with less than 200. The second chart is indicating the lowest prices for property Asking Price versus the Sold Price was in the summer of 2010. The Asking prices have skyrocketed in the couple of quarters; last summer it was not hard to find 3 and 4 unit properties in the under $100k range. Today, there are about 20 listed, and many are not those that you would consider a 'turn key' purchase.

It's now a Sellers Market

Zillow and Phoenix Business Journal had a good article last month (4/25/12) on how Phoenix home values will have the largest national gains in 2012. Zillow released a report indicating that the home appreciation in Phoenix between March 2012 and March 2013 was 6.5%. The largest growth reported among the 30 metro areas reported. 

They also stated that Phoenix foreclosure resales were about 30% of the market, which is 17% less than this time last year, and half of what it was during the peak of 2009. 

Zillow also reported just this week that Phoenix has the second highest rate of underwater homeowners at 55%. Las Vegas was the highest at 71% and the third was Atlanta followed by Orlando.

Another interesting note about the Phoenix market is that this week, the available Single Family home supply was below 10,000 Active homes for sale. There were also over 17,000 Pending/AWC homes in the ARMLS system. This is a far cry from about this time last year where there were close to 50,000 homes available.

Many Buyers are not aware that the market has changed and the last few years of it being a Buyers’ market, is now gone.