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Archive for the 'Real Estate News' Category

Watson Lake Park

August 20th, 2008 categories: Just For Fun, Real Estate News

Watson Lake is located about 4 miles from downtown Prescott and offers fishing, boating, kayaking,  hiking, rock climbing, camping and picnicking.  

There are several hiking trails near Watson Lake.   The Peavine Trail runs along the southeastern side of the lake into the scenic Granite Dells. 

This trail level is easy and is enjoyed by walkers,  joggers, horseback riders and mountain bikers. 

Watson Lake Park is located on Hwy 89 North of Prescott

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Historic Mount Vernon Street

August 19th, 2008 categories: Just For Fun, Real Estate News

 Mount Vernon Street is one of Prescott’s most historic neighborhoods.  With fall approaching this tree-lined street is a wonderful place to view autumn colors.

Many of these homes were built in the early 1900s and occupied by Prescott’s founders.

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July 2008 Real Estate Market Update

August 7th, 2008 categories: Market Update, Prescott Market Statistics, Real Estate News

Lower home prices are positively effecting home sales. 

For the second month in a row, the number of homes on the market is down and sales are up.  Home prices in Prescott are down approximately 24% from this time last year and buyers that were watching and waiting are beginning to take advantage of the great buying opportunities available.
Is the worst of this market downturn behind us?

To compare July to June, click here June 2008 Sales Statistics
Prescott Sales Statistics for the month of July, 2008

Price Range	Residential Properties On The Market	Residential Sales Last Month	Absorption Rate # Of Months It Will Take To Sell
$300,000 and below	208	18	11.5
$300,001 to $500,000	425	30	14.7
$500,001 to $800,000	313	13	24.08
$800,0001 to $1,000,000	78	4	19.5
$1,000,001 & above	96	1	96
Totals	1,120	66	16.97

Prescott / Tri City Absorption Rates By Area
See below for area definitions (110 - 150)

Area	Residential Properties On The Market	Residential Sales Last Month	Absorption Rate # Of Months It Will Take To Sell
110	161	4	40.25
120	337	21	16.05
130	167	14	11.93
140	193	10	19.30
150	123	9	13.67
Williamson Valley	214	9	23.78
Prescott Valley	737	83	8.88
Chino Valley	312	17	18.35
Dewey	101	5	20.20
P.C.Club/ Quailwood	107	5	21.40
Totals	2,452	177	13.85

Area 110: North of Gurley/Thumb Butte, West of Willow Ck Rd including Longview
Area 120:North of Gurley, East of Willow Creek Road, West of Hwy 89
Area 130:East on Hwy 69 from Hwy 89 & 69 Junction, East of Hwy 89
Area 140: South of Gurley, East of Park/White Spar, West of the Ranch
Area 150: South of Gurley, East of Park/White Spar

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Regards,

Sherry Huffman
Realtor-Associate
The Huffman Group, Realty Executives
928-533-1833
928-441-1201 e-fax
sherry@thehuffmangroup.com
www.theHuffmanGroup.com

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Home Prices Continue To Adjust

July 30th, 2008 categories: Home Sellers, Prescott Real Estate Trends, Real Estate News

Stumble, skid, slide, falter, this is all we hear about the real estate market.   This morning I heard on the news “More Bad News For The Housing Market!  Prices in Phoenix continue to slide downward, down 26.5% from May of 2007″.  
This  market correction had to happen and it’s not a bad thing.   Lower home prices will help move us from the problem into the solution.

The real estate market conditions that got us here started in the mid to late 1990s.  We had a 10 year run of accelerating sales and appreciating values.  Home values in Prescott were up 25%, in some cases the appreciation was a staggering 45%.  In 2004 through 2006, the average sale price in Prescott for a single family home was $420,000.  These are unsustainable numbers for Prescott, Arizona Real Estate.  The average annual income for people who work in Prescott is $34,454.00.  Prescott does not have the job market to support an average sales price of $420,000.   People who work here should be able to afford a home here.  
So when I hear prices are down, who’s to say it’s not a good thing?

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Will Investors Shift Their Money Back Into Real Estate?

June 30th, 2008 categories: Home Buyers, Real Estate News

With the stock market hovering above bear market statistics, will investors shift their money back into the Real Estate market?

Just a thought….  The stock market has become increasingly volatile, and many investors are moving their equities into cash.
Real Estate prices have dropped to 2004 levels and Sellers are more motivated than ever.  If there was ever a time to “buy low”, this is it.

I looked at 10 homes over the weekend, a few of them were ”bank owned”.  The great news is that buyers had submitted purchase contracts on two of them.  These homes were priced very competitively and were in good condition.  In 5 years, both of these homes will be worth more than what the buyers purchased them for.  These buyers not only have a place to live at a fixed monthly rate, but tax deductions on the interest paid, and an investment that is appreciating.

The Real Estate market is going to turn around and if you want to “buy low and sell high”, now’s the time.

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Great Values in Pinon Oaks Subdivision

June 27th, 2008 categories: Home Buyers, Home Sellers, Real Estate News

Pinon Oaks is a beautiful subdivision, and a great place to find some real house hunting bargins.  Pinon Oaks is located at the corner of Willow Creek Road and Pioneer Parkway in Prescott.

5693 Globe Mallow
Prescott
This home features a 4 car attached garage, and large .44 acres lot with views and a large covered patio that is great for entertaining.
The home was built in 2001 and features 2,044 sq. ft., 3 bedrooms 2 full baths, a fireplace in the master suite and a spacious kitchen.
The large back yard is a fully fenced, has a fire pit, covered patio, open flagstone patio, a garden area, grass and RV parking. 
This home is priced at $379,000
MLS # 916072
Virtual Tour 

1032 E. Sunflower Drive
Prescott

This lovely home is located on a extra large .75 acre lot.  The floor plan is open and the home is very light.  The kitchen in this home was designed for a cook!  This spacious kitchen includes lots of counter space, a cook top and wall oven.  The floor plan makes this a perfect home for parties.
This home was built in 1998, is 2,121 Sq. Ft., 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  Plus a 3 car attached garage.
This home is priced at $359,000
MLS# 927952
Virtual Tour

Call Sherry or Sue with any questions about these listings, or any or our listings at (928) 778-4492
To see virtual tours on all of our homes and land listings go to
The Huffman Group.com

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Is The Housing Crisis Over? You Decide

May 8th, 2008 categories: Prescott Real Estate Trends, Real Estate News

I thought this was an interesting article written by Cyril Moulle-Berteaux,  managing partner with Traxis Partners LP, a hedge fund firm based in New York.  This article was published in the Wall Street Journal on May 6, 2008.

The Housing Crisis Is Over      By CYRIL MOULLE-BERTEAUX
May 6, 2008; Page A23Wall Street JournalThe dire headlines coming fast and furious in the financial and popular press suggest that the housing crisis is intensifying. Yet it is very likely that April 2008 will mark the bottom of the U.S. housing market. Yes, the housing market is bottoming right now.How can this be? For starters, a bottom does not mean that prices are about to return to the heady days of 2005. That probably won’t happen for another 15 years. It just means that the trend is no longer getting worse, which is the critical factor.Most people forget that the current housing bust is nearly three years old. Home sales peaked in July 2005. New home sales are down a staggering 63% from peak levels of 1.4 million. Housing starts have fallen more than 50% and, adjusted for population growth, are back to the trough levels of 1982.Furthermore, residential construction is close to 15-year lows at 3.8% of GDP; by the fourth quarter of this year, it will probably hit the lowest level ever. So what’s going to stop the housing decline? Very simply, the same thing that caused the bust: affordability.The boom made housing unaffordable for many American families, especially first-time home buyers. During the 1990s and early 2000s, it took 19% of average monthly income to service a conforming mortgage on the average home purchased. By 2005 and 2006, it was absorbing 25% of monthly income. For first time buyers, it went from 29% of income to 37%. That just proved to be too much.Prices got so high that people who intended to actually live in the houses they purchased (as opposed to speculators) stopped buying. This caused the bubble to burst.Since then, house prices have fallen 10%-15%, while incomes have kept growing (albeit more slowly recently) and mortgage rates have come down 70 basis points from their highs. As a result, it now takes 19% of monthly income for the average home buyer, and 31% of monthly income for the first-time home buyer, to purchase a house. In other words, homes on average are back to being as affordable as during the best of times in the 1990s. Numerous households that had been priced out of the market can now afford to get in.   

 The next question is: Even if home sales pick up, how can home prices stop falling with so many houses vacant and unsold? The flip but true answer: because they always do.  In the past five major housing market corrections (and there were some big ones, such as in the early 1980s when home sales also fell by 50%-60% and prices fell 12%-15% in real terms), every time home sales bottomed, the pace of house-price declines halved within one or two months.The explanation is that by the time home sales stop declining, inventories of unsold homes have usually already started falling in absolute terms and begin to peak out in “months of supply” terms. That’s the case right now: New home inventories peaked at 598,000 homes in July 2006, and stand at 482,000 homes as of the end of March. This inventory is equivalent to 11 months of supply, a 25-year high – but it is similar to 1974, 1982 and 1991 levels, which saw a subsequent slowing in home-price declines within the next six months.Inventories are declining because construction activity has been falling for such a long time that home completions are now just about undershooting new home sales. In a few months, completions of new homes for sale could be undershooting new home sales by 50,000-100,000 annually.Inventories will drop even faster to 400,000 – or seven months of supply – by the end of 2008. This shift in inventories will have a significant impact on prices, although house prices won’t stop falling entirely until inventories reach five months of supply sometime in 2009. A five-month supply has historically signaled tightness in the housing market.Many pundits claim that house prices need to fall another 30% to bring them back in line with where they’ve been historically. This is usually based on an analysis of house prices adjusted for inflation: Real house prices are 30% above their 40-year, inflation-adjusted average, so they must fall 30%. This simplistic analysis is appealing on the surface, but is flawed for a variety of reasons.Most importantly, it neglects the fact that a great majority of Americans buy their houses with mortgages. And if one buys a house with a mortgage, the most important factor in deciding what to pay for the house is how much of one’s income is required to be able to make the mortgage payments on the house. Today the rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 5.7%. Back in 1981, the rate hit 18.5%. Comparing today’s house prices to the 1970s or 1980s, when mortgage rates were stratospheric, is misguided and misleading.This is all good news for the broader economy. The housing bust has been subtracting a full percentage point from GDP for almost two years now, which is very large for a sector that represents less than 5% of economic activity.When the rate of house-price declines halves, there will be a wholesale shift in markets’ perceptions. All of a sudden, the expected value of the collateral (i.e. houses) for much of the lending that went on for the past decade will change. Right now, when valuing the collateral, market participants including banks are extrapolating the current pace of house price declines for another two to three years; this has a significant impact on the amount of delinquencies, foreclosures and credit losses that lenders are expected to face.More home sales and smaller price declines means fewer homeowners will be underwater on their mortgages. They will thus have less incentive to walk away and opt for foreclosure.A milder house-price decline scenario could lead to increases in the market value of a lot of the securitized mortgages that have been responsible for $300 billion of write-downs in the past year. Even if write-backs do not occur, stabilizing collateral values will have a huge impact on the markets’ perception of risk related to housing, the financial system, and the economy.We are of course experiencing a serious housing bust, with serious economic consequences that are still unfolding. The odds are that the reverberations will lead to subtrend growth for a couple of years. Nonetheless, housing led us into this credit crisis and this recession. It is likely to lead us out. And that process is underway, right now.Mr. Moulle-Berteaux is managing partner of Traxis Partners LP, a hedge fund firm based in New York. 

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How To Sell Your Home in 90 Days (or less!) Part 1

April 24th, 2008 categories: Home Sellers, Real Estate News

Yup.  Buyers are still buying.  Hard to believe with all the negative press but it’s true.  They’re out there.  They really want and need to buy a house  but are scared to death to step up to the plate and sign a purchase contract.  Who can blame them?  Every day it seems the news media delivers more bad news about real estate.  I wish a recession would hit the news industry but more on that later.

OK, so you need to sell your home.  If you’re in Prescott, you are now one of over 1200 homes listed for sale through the Prescott Area Multiple Listing Service.  How do you make your property stand out and become a SELLER instead of just another listing in MLS?

1.     OFFER THE MOST AND COST THE LEAST.  I cannot stress this point strongly enough.  Since you are competing with a sizeable inventory of resale homes, your home must look as sharp and clean as it possibly can, inside and out.  Get rid of the clutter, pull the weeds, and wash the windows.  Price your home BELOW the competition.

2.     PRICE YOUR HOME CORRECTLY FROM THE BEGINNING.  Do not, I repeat, do not start out too high thinking you can come down if you don’t get offers.  Trust me, if you’re priced too high you won’t get any showings,  much less offers.   If you’re serious about selling, you must be ahead of the pricing curve.  Price and price alone is what will bring Agents and Buyers to your home.   

3.     DON’T OFFER MORE COMMISSION, LOWER THE PRICE!!    Buyers are not going to pay a higher price just because their agent is making more commission on the transaction. 

Remember, today’s Buyers have full access to Multiple Listing Service.  That means they know what’s on the market and how much it costs.  Today’s Buyers typically have this information before they ever talk to a Realtor. 

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Tips On How To Buy In A Buyers Market

April 22nd, 2008 categories: Home Buyers, Real Estate News

A buyer’s market exists when there are a lot of homes on the market and very few buyers.  If the number of homes on the market in your neighborhood has been rising, it’s likely that the days on market has been increasing too.  Couple that with declining sales figures over previous months, and home buyers are in a excellent position to negotiate.  Here are a few tips on buying in a buyers market.

1.  Know the listing inventory.  Look at similar homes on the market and know the prices.  If you’re like most buyers, you will want to offer less than the asking price, it’s human nature.   Know what homes have had recent price reductions.  These sellers may be more likely and receptive to lower offers.

2.  Request e-mail listings and updates.  80% of today’s buyers start their search on the Internet.  Have your Real Estate agent register you for e-mail updates.   This is a great time saver.

3.  Obtain comparable sales information.   When you find a home you want to make an offer on, ask your Real Estate agent to print out a list of recent sales of comparable homes in the same neighborhood.  This will help establish an appropriate offer.

4.  Ask for allowances or credits.  In a buyers market, it never hurts to ask.  If the carpet needs replacing, if you need help with closing costs, ask the seller for a credit at close of escrow.  Check with your lender first and find out how to word the credit clause.

5.  Request Extras.  Sellers realize that in a buyers market they may need to offer something extra to entice a sale.  Don’t be afraid to ask for a home warranty or appliances.

6.  Talk with several Mortgage Lenders.    Fees and interest rates that lenders charge vary.  Talk with 2 or 3 mortgage lenders to make sure you’re getting the best terms and conditions for your money.

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Granite Dells Added To Prescott Open Space

April 18th, 2008 categories: Just For Fun, Real Estate News

                                                                                                                                                                   

I could not be happier to report that the City of Prescott has just purchased 35 acres in one of my very favorite areas; Granite Dells.  This pristine acreage will be added to Prescott’s growing inventory of dedicated “Open Space”.  Beginning with the aquisition  of some Granite Dells Ranch parcels in the 1990’s,  the City has endeavored to preserve as much of Granite Dells as possible.  Willow and Watson lakes were added in 1998, providing area residents with lakes for boating (no gasoline motors!), fishing, and  wonderful trails for hiking and bird watching.  To read more about Prescott’s Open space program, go to; http://www.cityofprescott.net/services/parks/space/

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