The First Time Buyer Tax Credit is set to Expire December 1, 2009.

If you are thinking of buying a home, this means you MUST CLOSE ESCROW November 30 or sooner!

There is some consideration to extending it, but the government may well run out of money. It is only logical that you can’t spend money like we have been without income to offset the expenditures, so I wouldn’t count on it.

If you are a First Time Buyer, act soon!

Call or write for details and help.

Jim Little, your Sun City Realtor

When you google something like “homes for sale in…” or “real estate agents in…” you will find the first several pages of hits are probably not agents or brokers actually working in the area you are interested in.

Who are they? Aggregators, companies that specialize in capturing your contact information and selling it to agents for a large fee. My learned associate, Teresa Boardman just wrote an article about these companies and her experiences acting as if she were a buyer. It makes fine reading, see it here. She also gives some good tips about how to find an agent without resorting to these companies. Most important is to find out does the agent actually have any experience doing business in the area you are looking to live in, or you have a home for sale in.

Here in the sun city neighborhood, I see for sale signs from companies 50 miles away. That is a LOOOONG WAAY AWAY in a metropolitan area. Do you believe the agent is working the home effectively? Do you think the agent is there after every monsoon storm? Not only do I doubt it, I know most of them do not check vacants in the absence of the owner.

If you are a buyer, will the agent who is not intimately familiar with the neighborhood able to tell you about the jet noise, the railroad noise, the busy streets and traffic patterns? Are these important? You bet.

ALWAYS do your homework and select a local agent with whom you are comfortable. Be sure the agent has the local knowledge you need, and will tell you the bad as well as the good about any property you look at.

Jim Little, Your Sun City REALTOR® [contact-form 404 "Not Found"]

People trying to sell a home today ask me, “Why do I have to sell such a low price”?

The answer is at once simple and complex. The Phoenix AZ market is currently driven by the lenders selling foreclosed properties. In addition, there are many people who face foreclosure. Currently there are over 40,000 notices of default pending. These  factors depress listing prices.

Buying activity is centered on these foreclosed homes, with the dominant players being investors chasing these homes with CASH. It is very difficult for the traditional buyers to successfully compete in this market.

Sun City is slightly different, in that there are few foreclosed homes and buyer activity has been stable, if lower than normal, for the last few months. The problem here is that the prospective buyers who would like to sell the old family home and move into an adult community cannot sell because they are competing with the REO (foreclosed) sellers.

My analysis of the current conditions lead me to believe that sales prices will stabilize, indeed may have already stabilized, but cannot go up any significant amount for at least 2 more years.

It remains difficult to sell a traditional listing, but not impossible.

Buyers, it is no longer a buyers market, but the conditions remain good for the purchase of a new home, especially for first time buyers. A caution, interest rates are now creeping up, and traditional inventory is gradually being absorbed. The first time buyer credit is scheduled to expire in December, don’t wait too long.

Jim Little, Your Sun City REALTOR®
To search the MLS with NO Registration, click HERE

Good news number one. Buyer activity has been so good the last couple of weeks that I didn’t get to post my Good News posts.

Two articles in today’s Arizona Republic were both Good News.

1. Trustees sale auctions now have increasing numbers of 3rd party buyers. 3rd party buyers have increased from 5% TO 12%. This means investors now have faith in the future of home sales in Arizona, and rcognize the present and future value of Arizona Real Estate.
2. Borrowers are now begining to contes foreclosures in court. Grounds given are that the lenders have failed to show good faith in attempts to modify loans, and have failed to show good faith in working with short sales. I hope this trend continues, and I hope legislatures at the state and federal level pass safe harbor legislation to hold harmless lenders and loan servicers from investor lawsuits if the servicer/lender does make the best possible modification or short sale. This will slow some of the foreclosures to a rate the market can better absorb.
3. Recent appraisals are coming with a 1004MC (Market Condition Report) showing stable a  or increasing market. Appraisers seem to think the bottom has arrived.

Jim Little, Your Sun City REALTOR®
To search the MLS with NO Registration, click HERE

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The Phoenix area real estate is rising from the ashes just like its namesake, the mytical bird.

The lowest priced homes, under $100,000 are selling withind a few days, often with multiple offers.

Bank owned homes, (REO) ar also selling very well. REO new listings have been averaging 4,000 per month. Pending sales in this category are currently 6000. Obviously, even the older, stale inventory is now being absorbed. As a side note, this means if there really is a “shadow inventory” of foreclosures that haven’t been listed yet, the market seems to be standing ready to buy them.

On a more local level, homes for sale in the Sun City neighborhood have decreased in the last couple of months, and sales + pending sales have increased, a sure sign of a recovery in its early stages.

New appraisals are coming in at or above contract prices, and the Market Condition Report appraisers are now required to file no longer defines properties as being in a declining market.

Interest rates, while still at an artificial low, are starting to creep up. If you are thinking about buying a home, do it soon. Historically, when interest rates reach a low, they will rebound to prior levels quickly. This rebound can be very dramatic. Interest affects buyer costs much more than the sales price over the term of a loan. It also limits the home you can buy on any given income. Act soon to take advantage of these very attractive rates.

The government First Time Buyer Tax Credit is working, bringing renters into the market. HUD is now allowing lenders to provide bridge loans so the tax credit can be used toward closing costs. This reduces the out-of-pocket expenses for a home buyer. It is important to note that this is for closing costs, not for down payment purposes as some reported in error.

Another promising piece of news, Friday 6/19/2009, large banks began paying back the TARP loans. It is nice to see this program seems to have worked, but 75% of the money loaned has yet to be repaid.

And last, it is a small step, but GM announced Friday the company would be recalling 900 laid-off workers. Just a drop in the bucket, but the right direction anyway.

Who can imagine the sheer terror the young men who invaded Normandy 65 years ago felt? I quake to simply think of it.

I live and work in Sun City AZ, and am honored to know some of the men and women who fought the battles of WWII.

It is my honor to know and serve these people.

1. Pending home sales are up 7% nationwide.
2. Credit Suisse reports real estate buyer activity is up 20-28% in the Phoenix market. Much of the activity is first-time buyers and investors. I have said often it is the first-time buyer who will lead the way and get us out of this recession.
3. Investors are paying CASH. It is the speculation and credit purchases of investment properties that caused many of our current problems. Cash investors will help us improve the market.
4. Low price properties are literally “Flying off the Market”
5. Buyers are now saying the bottom is near. (Personally, I think the bottom is past. In the last few weeks the extreme low prices no longer show up on the MLS. New listings of homes for sale are priced at a more reasonable value.)
6. Walmart announced it is adding 22,000 jobs nationwide, 1300 here in Arizona.

Jim Little, Your Sun City REALTOR®

The real estate market in Sun City is continuing to show signs of recovery. We have 708 active listings, 107 of which were sold in the month of May. The resulting absorption rate is 6.16 months of inventory. As I have said before, 6 months of inventory is a balanced market, favoring buyers and sellers alike.  Also important, the number of new listings and the number of listings sold has been relatively equal for April and May. I take this to be another sign of a return to normality.

My own observation is in order here. The “shiny pennies” are sold as soon as they hit the market. So are the “steals”. We are now back to the times when we would say to a prospective buyer, “the house you want to think about today was seen yesterday, who thought about it last night, and is writing an offer today.”

Jim Little, Your Sun City Neighborhood REALTOR®

As I mentioned in Friday’s post, the use of the first time buyer tax credit toward BUYING A HOME,  is a work in progress.

A very knowledgeable loan originator, Jeff Belonger in Cherry Hill NJ just posted a very good explaination of the rules as they are today. Rather than re-invent the wheel, see Jeff’’s post here.

Why does an agent in Sun City worry about first time buyers?  Because I also serve the family communities of Glendale, Peoria and Suprise AZ. All of these communities have excellent opportunities for the first  time buyer to own their own family home.

Jim Little, your Sun City Neighborhood REALTOR®