The Difference between Staging and Stuff is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

There is a difference. The quickest way to tell the difference. Staging Enhances the property, Stuff Detracts.

$8000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

There are still a lot of people with questions about the $8000 first time Home Buyer Tax Credit which is a part of the stimulus package.

Who is a first time Home Buyer

Anyone who has never purchased a home or has not been part owner of a home in the past 3 years is considered a “First Time Home Buyer“.

What is the window for purchasing a home

The window for the purchase of a home is January 1, 2009 – November 30, 2009

This tax credit is like a refund

The tax credit is up to $8,000. You don’t have to have a large income to use this credit. It is the type of credit that works like a refund. The home you purchase has to be over $80,000 to receive the entire amount. If you owe the government taxes that weren’t taken out of your paycheck those taxes will have to be paid or deducted from the $8,000 credit.

When can I get the Tax Credit

You can get the tax credit for your 2008 or 2009 tax return.

If you already filed Your 2008 return can you still get the tax credit this year. You can file an amended return using Form 1040X. If you purchased a home before April 15, 2009 and you haven’t filed your taxes you can apply for the credit on this years tax return and file your taxes as usual.

If you plan to buy a home later this year and you haven’t filed yet you can file an extension as long as your taxes for 2008 are filed by Oct. 15.

(I am not a tax consultant and don’t play one on TV either.  This post is for general information purposes only.)

It applies for homes purchased between January 1 and November 30, 2009

Below is a table provided by the National Association of Realtor showing a comparison between the $7500 Tax credit from 2008 and this $8000 credit in the stimulus bill. You can download the original table here.

FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYER TAX CREDIT
As Modified in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Major Modifications Bolded
February 2009

The window of opportunity is closing for the $8000 first time home buyer tax credit.  All purchases must be made completed by November 30, 2009.

If there are questions not answered in this table below please feel free to contact us.  We work with first time home buyers through this process in an on going basis.  We will be glad to help you find a home in Tucson to which you can apply this tax credit.

Foreclosures for Pima County ONLY 9000 – Good News is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

Tucson Weather For the Next Four Days

We should report the weather the same way we report the economic news.

Tucson’s Highest Low for the next 4 days will be 46 degrees.
The lowest low will be a bone chilling drop to 42 degrees which will be tomorrow.
Highs for each day will only reach 72 degrees. Bring your parkas.

The headline in today’s (newly shrunk) “Arizona Daily Star” ” The number of local homes entering foreclosure last year was almost 9000 and they’re dragging down home prices.”

97.84 of Homes in Pima County NOT in Foreclosure

And the 9,000 in big BOLD red letters is a nice touch.

Foreclosure PDF map provided by Marana included with the article

There is so much that needs to be addressed. I don’t want this to turn onto a tome.  I also don’t want the “You are up selling the market” accusation.  Here are the facts.

• 9000 are a lot of foreclosure notices
• These are notices of foreclosure not the number of foreclosures
• This represents only 2.16 of the properties in Pima County
• 97.84 % of properties are NOT in foreclosure and families are living in those homes and making their mortgage payments
• There are currently 7, 626 home for sale in the Tucson MLS not all of these homes are foreclosures
• The foreclosures on the market at this time are effecting home sale prices
• New construction is being effected in a negative way.  BUT this favors home owners who now are not competing with new construction.
• 88,854 foreclosure notices for Maricopa County in 2008

The fact that so many foreclosures are on the market at the same time are effecting average and median sale prices.  But this doesn’t mean that every home sold is going to be for a loss.

When “Repo Joe” rolls into town with repossessed autos you don’t see the new car dealers panic and lower their prices because there are repos in town. (All right, this is for comic relief, I know it is a bad example and like comparing apples to oranges.  Thought it might be interesting to try newspaper logic)

Let me give you a real apples to apples comparison

Tucson MLS January Quick Stats

As of Noon January 15, 2009

Closed Transactions: 173
Average Sale Price: $185,260
Median Sale Price: $154,900

In the same paper reporting sales by zip code:

There is nothing in the table indication what type of homes these are. But as you can see they aren’t all at the average or median sale price.

Yes Foreclosures and short sales are having an impact, but they aren’t dragging down all sale prices. I hate to use the old real estate saw but location is significant in home sale prices.

Finally Here are the figures for foreclosure notices for all 15 counties in Arizona for 2008 provided by California based Realty Trac.
County

Let’s recap here: 97.84 % of properties are NOT in foreclosure and families are living in those homes and making their mortgage payments.

Tucson MLS Statistics September 2008 is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

August came and disappeared before I even wrote a detailed look at the Statistics. I didn’t realize this till I set out to create the Stats table for September. August was a very decent month and September was even better compared to year over year and month over month.

Tucson MLS Statistics Sept 08 – Sept 08 Summary

The median and average sale prices continued their decline in September. These sale prices reflect the return of the market to both more affordable housing and prices at a more sustainable market value. There were slight increases in inventory and the number of pending contracts is holding around the 900 mark. So far October is off to a heathy start despite all the economic turmoil of the past weeks. Now lets look at the Year Over Year Figures

Tucson MLS Statistics Sept 07 – Sept 08 Summary

*Pending Sales appear to be down, but the * tells us these two numbers are not comparable. A few months back the Tucson MLS started tracking pending sales as “Sales that went pending during the month” instead of “All sales with a pending status in the system” If a sale had a two or three month wait while pending till close of escrow it was counted in each months statistics as a pending sale. The way they are reported now is much better. To have 836 sales in the month going pending vs 989 in the entire system pending appears to be a decrease, but actually is a nice increase over last year.

Trends in most categories are dropping where they should drop and increasing where they need to for a stable and healthy market.

Checking on availability of credit finds there is credit available for qualified buyers. It might actually be easier to buy a house right now than it is a car.

Tucson’s housing market is not flooded with high inventory. There are some areas of Tucson with less than 6 months of inventory. There also does not appear to be a glut of short sales and foreclosures in the Tucson Market in the percentages found in many other markets across the country. This is not to say we don’t have them. We do, both, but it isn’t the majority of properties on the market, far from it.

Since most real estate transactions take anywhere from 30 to 45 days to complete it will be November before we see what the impact of the past few weeks has had on our local market. It does appear there are some bargains to be had at the moment. And not in short sales and foreclosures which can take months ( Typically 6 month ) to close.

Investors (the real ones, not speculators trying to get rich on a quick, paint carpet flip, strategy) are making their way back into the Tucson market.

Finally, if you are thinking about selling your Tucson home and moving, either in Tucson or out of state consider this. Check your interest rate on your existing mortgage, can you get a better rate now? Second, Are homes where you want to move cheaper to purchase now than the home you are thinking of selling in Tucson?

It is better not to think about what you could have gotten for your home last year or the year before and think about what it will cost you to purchase another home now. You might get less for your existing home, but can you buy more home at a lower interest rate. If the answer is yes, then now might be a good time to make the move. If you wait, you might get a little more when the market turns around but you will probably pay more and once the market turns interest rates are sure to follow.

What’s Happening September 30, 2008 is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

It’s not a bailout it is the Emergency Economic Stability Act

I never prefer the media spin on what is going on, period. The selling of the Emergency Economic Stability Act as some kind of fat cat bailout is just one example. There are plenty of negative opinions to be found everywhere about this bill. Jonah B. Gelbach is associate professor of economics at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. Here is a link to his Op Ed printed in todays “Arizona Daily Star“. I found it an interesting read.

Yes I know he called it a bailout too.

Tucson MLS Preliminary Closed Transaction Sept. 2008

There are 836 closed as I write this with two more days to enter transaction without incurring a fine. Last year there were 769 for the month. We should see that number exceeded by more than 100 this month. I’ll have more on this tomorrow with a few breakdowns, overall it is a better month than most expected. However, October could be another story since Sept. last year followed the Mortgage meltdown of Aug. Next month will be the follow up month to the Economic meltdown on Wall St.

The Fall Wildflowers are blooming around Tucson

Here is a quick shot I grabbed today while I was out and about. Want to share a little of nature’s beauty while we are busily going about our day.

Tucson Fall Wildflowers

You can click this image to see the larger version. Some have asked if I could do this again to images so they could see the enlarged images on screen. (Okay, no one asked, I just like seeing them large on screen)

So What Changed On Wall Street

The news is the same, the bill hasn’t been passed so what changed. Even the headlines in the news search provide no reason for the increase in the DOW today. Could it be hope? A change in attitude? Could it be a change of underwear? I’m just asking : )

And I thought the Tucson Real Estate Market was Hard to Predict

Have a great evening, enjoy the sunset if you can see it. At least you can enjoy the flowers above.

Feds Fuel Fannie and Freddie is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

The Four F’s for Today

Yes, the BIG NEWS! for the economy and the housing industry is the take over of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. I hesitate to use the word “takeover” but it almost seems appropriate.

No one really knows what this means yet. In the Sunday Business section of the Arizona Daily Star there was one article suggesting this could bring 30 year fixed interest rates down to the 5.50 to 5.75% range.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Are They our Children

Chalk it up to Family

I’ve read how much this bailout will cost. I was around when the S&L bailout took place. I also remember the dire predictions of the future of the economy because we did and the same dire predictions if we didn’t.

I was thinking this morning on my way back from breakfast how this really is like a family. I’m the head of a family, I have several adult grown children with spouses and some with children of their own. From time to time I help them out. Sometimes it is something they couldn’t avoid, sometimes it is due to a bad decision which didn’t seem bad at the time.

I could let them work their way out of the situation (which I do sometimes) or I could help them avoid a bad situation becoming a much worse situation. Spend a little to keep from spending a lot.

Parents do this all the time. My parents did it for me when I needed help.

That is as far as this analogy goes. I don’t have to be in on who is to blame, or figure out where it all went wrong, I think we have a pretty good handle on where it went wrong. My point.

For the good of the economy and the future of our country it is better we (the taxpayers) plug this leak in our very big ship before it gets so big the ship goes down or at least takes on so much water it will take a very long time for it to sail again.

Most people younger than 40 don’t even know there was an S&L crisis and bailout. Many think we are kidding when we tell them in the 70’s you could wait in line for hours just to get 5 gallons of gas for your car. They don’t remember or know about the truck caravans at that time traveling together for safety. And those stories go on and even back further.

My parents were depression kids. They know about tough times. They also know what happens when the country waits to long to deal with an issue.

Of course Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t our children. But in this case we should probably treat them as if they are and get on with life. Whether you support it or not, it looks like that is exactly what is happening.

One week from today, Sept. 15 I’ll be sending in my next contribution to the economy and the country. Uncle Sam sent me a little a couple of months ago. I’ll send him a lot more next week. And life goes on. Make it 5 F’s for today and chalk one up to Family.

New York Times Take on the Bailout

Finally, if you want the New York Times take on this here is a link to their article: “Fannie, Freddie and You: What It Means to the Public“

You Thought Mortgage Fraud Was Over Think Again is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

It seems the downturn in the housing market has done more than cause cracks in stucco.  Since the mortgage industry meltdown last August there have been tighter and tighter restrictions on the Mortgage industry in an effort to curb fraud.  I for one thought it must be better now.

I don't own it but I'll sell it to you

After reading Kenneth Harney article titled “Despite decline in home sales, loan fraud is still accelerating“, it appears we are in the midst of round two and the fraud being committed is worse than before.  The difference this time being there are a lot of buyers and sellers committing the fraud along with a few still at it in the mortgage industry.

True to human nature (this would be the nature of greed and lust) some buyers and sellers not willing to give up the lifestyle they have become accustom to are willing to enter into fraudulent activities in order to do so.

Here briefly are some of those mentioned please read the entire article.  If you are active in the real estate market as either a buyer or seller you should be aware of what is going on; not so you can participate, but to educate yourself and not to be or become a victim of fraud yourself.

• False verification documents
• “straw buyers”
• Internet generated documents

These are just the quickest of topics.  You really need to read the whole article to get the picture and shake your head.  Be knowledgeable and work with knowledgeable people.  It is your best protection again fraud.

US Housing starts hit a 17 year low is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

Home and apartment construction nationwide fell in July to its lowest level in more than 17 years.

The US Commerce Dept. report shows that construction of single-family homes in July fell by 2.9 percent from the previous month to a pace of 641,000. That is the lowest mark since January 1991.

If you are a builder or work in construction this might be considered bad news. If you are trying to sell your home in Tucson or any place else this is good news. You aren’t competing for buyers against New Construction undercutting your asking price and selling a new home for less than you are asking for yours.

Back in Tucson with More Real Estate News to Share is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

I’ve been on the road for the past two weeks.  I still have kept in touch reading the daily Arizona Daily Star email headlines updates.  There have been a few changes in the past two weeks and the Tucson MLS Statistics for July were released in my absense.  I’ve printed those out and hopefully will have a post on them tomorrow.

I’ve been in 10 states and back again in the past two weeks.  I won’t bore anyone with the details or slides of the trip.  I did see and observe quite a bit during my trip for how some states and communities are fairing during this economic downturn which we refer to in our household as “A Recession“.

The final destination was Ontario, Ohio, where I grew up and graduated from High School.  It was also the first time in more than 10 years I saw the home I grew up in and the small town that isn’t so small anymore.  I took pictures of the Westinghouse plant where dad and I used to work and the town square in Mansfield, Ohio which is celebrating 200 years and Ontario 50 years respectfully.

I’ll get back to covering the Tucson Real Estate Market tomorrow.  Over the next few weeks I’ll take time to share on this blog and some of the others tidbits of things I learned and saw while I was gone.

You don’t need to know what it was like seeing the people I went to high school with after 40 years.  Let’s just say a few have changed in appearance and girth.

I would like to say I wasn’t one of them, but I can’t : )  Well since I’m the one writing this maybe I can.

Tucson Foreclosures Short Sale REO Bank Owned July 2008 is a post Scrapped and Stolen from: Tucson Real Estate if you are not reading this in your Reader.

There they are;  all the buzz words of Real Estate these days.  After seeing the headline “Foreclosures more than double here” in the Saturday, July 27, 2008 Arizona Daily Star I decided I wanted to see for myself where all this stacks up in the Tucson MLS system.

According to an aside on the front page Tucson ranks 37th Nationally with 1 foreclosure for every 148 homes.

By contrast Phoenix/Mesa has 51.  The top 10 are all in Calfornia, Utah, Florida, and Phx/Mesa ranks 7th to round out the top 10.  Not a top 10 list any city wants to make.

I decided to do a little searching inside the Tucson MLS system to see what I could learn in a general way about where foreclosures and short sales were taking place around Tucson.

Data Snapshot July 28, 2008

I placed the criteria for the following words to be in the property description.

foreclosure, bank owned, reo, short sale

There were a total of 541 active listings with one of these phrases in the property description.

Those 541 broke down in the following areas:

• SFR  500
• TH      30
• CD      11

I decided to focus on single family residence since this was by far the largest group.  If you own a condo or town home it doesn’t look like (at the moment) you have too much market pressure on sale price.

The table below breaks down the number of active listings by area and the number of properties that fit the criteria for the search.  It also includes a column for percentage of active listings for each area.  At the end of this post are two links.  These links are to PDF documents of the searches run to gather this data.  It breaks each down into more detail than the table.  It will show price ranges and bedrooms of each area.

The Foreclosure Short sale Bank owned REO breakdown

It very much appears the areas in the south are by far the hardest hit. S,SW,SE,XS are all in double digits.
The XW at 0% and N at 2% are the best. But none of the other areas are in double digits and the percentages of home for the entire area are quite small.

Yes there are foreclosures, short sales, bank owned and REO properties in the Tucson real estate market. However, for most of the areas the percentages are small; these properties should not effect overall property values for the area.

I know the article created a lot of concern over falling property values. It is a valid concern for some areas in double digits. But, if you don’t have to sell and don’t plan on selling any time in the next year you should be fine in the future.

Here are the links to the two PDF files:

Report on Foreclosures, Short Sales, Bank Owned, REO

Report on All SFR Active Listings

By the way, that 1 in 148 homes in Tucson in foreclosure works out to 99.7% of the homes being paid for just fine. And by any definition 3 tenths of a percent do not a “housing crisis” make.