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June 7, 2008

Has the Phoenix real estate market turned the corner? It’s too early to tell, but May’s results suggest we may be nearing the bottom

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

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This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Has the Phoenix real estate market turned the corner? It’s too early to tell, but May’s results suggest we may be nearing the bottom

Are you in the mood for some good real estate news for a change? How about some news that’s not all bad? Here’s what news there is, in any case:

May was a very strong month for clearing bread-and-butter inventory in the Phoenix real estate market. BloodhoundRealty.com tracks sales of newer suburban tract homes — three bedroom, two bath, single-story homes with tile roofs and two-car garages — the middle of the housing-supply bell curve.

We have records going back to January of 2004, so we have tracked both the boom and the bust in our recent real estate history. May 2008 was the strongest month for the homes we track since May of 2007, with the best month before then being November of 2006. A total of 170 of these homes sold in May, up from 114 in April.

Prices were down, month over month, and not by just a little bit, so May’s results no doubt reflect the sale of a lot of lender-owned properties. But inventories of the homes we track are down by 7% from April and by over 14% from March.

The implied absorption rate from May’s results is 5.2 months, down from 8.4 months for April. Absorption rate is the amount of time it would take to absorb all currently-available inventory at the current rate of sales.

The absorption rate calculation is less than reliable, since it uses backward-looking numbers to make a forward-looking projection. But substantially greater sales taken together with substantially lower inventories is a very good sign.

As a matter of anecdotal evidence, earlier this week I phoned the listing agent of a very market-weary short sale. After months of no activity, three offers came in over the weekend. The seller issued multiple counter-offers, with the high-bid being $17,000 over the list price.

So has the Phoenix real estate market finally turned the corner? We won’t know for sure for two or three months after the fact, but May or June could be the bottom of the market in Phoenix.

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June 4, 2008

Looking for value in lender-owned homes in Metropolitan Phoenix? Take a look at 14912 West Watson Circle in Ashton Ranch in Surprise

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

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The prices on lender-owned homes in the Phoenix area are getting to be incredibly low. It’s true that many of these homes will require some serious work to bring them back to turn-key condition. But others require little more than a cosmetic effort to return them to rent-ready condition.

Here’s the best news: Because the prices are so low, because interest rates are still very aggressive, and because rents are holding their own through the rough real estate market, it’s relatively easy to make a newer suburban home throw off positive cash flow. It could be that we’ve already found the bottom in the Phoenix real estate market. But, even if we have not, a well-chosen rental home will self-amortize. You can buy now, while the selection is great, as you wait for the market to fully recover.

A great example of a near-turn-key lender-owned home is 14912 West Watson Circle in Ashton Ranch in Surprise, Arizona. The home will need some cosmetic work, especially paint and landscaping, but it is in very good condition for a foreclosure. The cost to make it rent-ready might only be around $5,000, and, as this cash-flow analysis shows, the $115,000 list price should yield a positive cash flow even using relatively pessimistic assumptions.

Here’s the bad news: As I write this, I may have already sold this home.

Here’s the good news: There are dozens more like this, well-priced lender-owned homes in decent shape that can make very nice, cash-flow-positive rental homes.

These homes are not flip candidates. There’s not enough upside in the short run to justify the risk. But as buy-and-hold rentals, they could end up paying for a lot of feathers for your retirement nest.

 
Further notice: I ended up writing a contract on this house, but here are 26 more newer suburban homes priced at $115,000 or less. Some are in better condition than others, but all of these homes are in areas that can command premium rents and should appreciate well over time. Each one requires on-the-ground inspection, but I’m very choosy about what makes a good rental. If we pick the right home, it should stay rented consistently for the entire time you own it.

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May 31, 2008

Looking for the bottom? Real estate speculators are establishing the bottom-dollar price for lender-owned homes in Phoenix

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Looking for the bottom? Real estate speculators are establishing the bottom-dollar price for lender-owned homes in Phoenix

If you’re looking for the bottom of the real estate market in Phoenix, chances are it’s right up the block. It’s that house with the jungle of overgrown weeds in front.

It used to be for sale. Then it was a short sale. By now it’s lender-owned. A year ago it might have been listed for $250,000. Now the price has been slashed to $120,000 — maybe less.

That’s a sad story, particularly if you knew the owners. And now, as you watch the parade of investors checking it out, you might feel a certain anger toward them.

If so, your anger is misdirected. Between syrupy books and movies and high-strung high-school-teachers, we have been indoctrinated to despise speculators. But the truth is, speculators are the garbage collectors of capitalism. They come in and clean up messes they did not create, returning productive value to underperforming assets.

It you’re looking for a villain in these stories, look to the borrower, to the lender or just to the vicissitudes of life. But it is the speculators who are going to bring the real estate market back to a viable state.

How? By establishing the bottom-dollar price.

What is your home really worth right now? It’s worth as much as the lowest-price lender-owned comparable plus the cost of returning that home to turn-key condition plus a small convenience premium. In other words, if the lender-owned house sells for $120,000, and if it will take $10,000 to make it as nice as your home, then your home is worth $135,000 — $140,000 at most.

And if you’re not willing to sell you home for that price? Get it off the market right now. It will not sell for more, but the surplus of over-priced inventory is a false signal to buyers that the market has not found its bottom.

If you must sell into this market, you’ll sell at the market price. If you can afford to wait, you will almost certainly do better after the market has turned.

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May 24, 2008

Phoenix real estate conference teaches Realtors and lenders the brave new world of internet social media marketing

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Phoenix real estate conference teaches Realtors and lenders the brave new world of internet social media marketing

What happens when you bring the brightest Realtors and lenders from all over the country to Phoenix for a social media marketing conference? Great ideas are cross-pollinated, germinated, planted, take root and flower.

We run a national real estate industry-focused weblog called BloodhoundBlog.com. There are 24 contributors — Realtors, lenders and investors from all around the country — and hundreds of daily visitors. We’ve been doing this for nearly two years, and, in that time, we have avidly pushed for excellence among real estate practitioners, especially in the burgeoning internet side of the business.

This past week we hosted the inaugural BloodhoundBlog Unchained event at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. People came from all over — a third from Greater Phoenix, a third from the rest of the Southwest, a third from places where it rains and snows. Together for three days we explored the world of social media marketing in real estate.

What’s that? Social media marketing is the commercial arm of the participatory internet. As more and more people make the internet their primary means of interacting with the world, real estate professionals are learning how to move their own practices online.

The important question: What’s in it for you? The internet is a brave new world of commerce. No one likes sleazy sales people, but sleazy sales tricks cannot work on the internet, where every suspicious claim can be checked in an instant. Transparency rules, and the practitioners who succeed with net-empowered consumers are the ones who are prepared to back up everything they say.

The bonus for people willing to work this way is that consumers will have a much higher degree of trust in their Realtor or lender. Rather than picking a name out of a phone book or off of a yard sign, they will have gotten to know that person — passively and anonymously — online.

BloodhoundBlog Unchained was put on by me and my partner, Brian Brady of MortgageRatesReport.com. If you’d like to sneak a peek at the world of real estate as the professionals see it, feel free to join us at BloodhoundBlog.com.

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May 17, 2008

The Flip digital video camera makes illustrating real estate ideas fast, convenient and fun

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
The Flip digital video camera makes illustrating real estate ideas fast, convenient and fun

I’m becoming a fan of digital video for marketing real estate.

I’ve always hated the video home tour: “This. Is. The. Living. Room. This. Is. The. Dining. Room. The. Family. Dines. In. This. Room.” The images will be small, dark and grainy. The motion will be either jerky, swooping or both. And the tour itself will do nothing that could not be done better with digital photos.

But just lately I got a Flip video camera, and I can’t seem to stop thinking of real estate uses for it.

The Flip uses solid state memory rather than tapes to store its video. It’s a tiny little thing, about the size of a digital still camera, and you can operate it with one hand. It’s really only good for certain kinds of work. It would be useless at a wedding or a basketball game. But for capturing interviews, it is the prefect video camera.

Even better, it comes with a built-in USB connection and software for emailing videos or pumping them directly into YouTube or MySpace. Shooting, storing, editing and sharing videos are all painlessly convenient.

The first real estate application I thought of for the Flip was to collect testimonials from clients. That’s kind of self-serving, but the next idea was all about selling houses. In the past we have done video interviews with sellers or neighbors, but the editing process for normal video is onerous. But with the Flip we can just shoot the interview, upload it to YouTube and then link it from the web site for that property.

If I want to make a quick video to show weather conditions or traffic around a house, it’s easily done. I had a home inspector deliver a short video summary of the repair issues on a home for out-of-town buyers.

The breakthrough for me was thinking of video in the same way I think of still photography, as another way of illustrating real estate ideas. Because it’s so small and easy to use, the Flip now rides on my hip with my digital still camera.

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May 12, 2008

Are you an investor looking for a Phoenix-area rental home that will stay rented? Buy a home worth living in

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is from my Arizona Republic column (permanent link):

I represented tenants for my first two years as a real estate licensee. Working with tenants didn’t pay very well, but it was a good way to get a lot of real estate experience very fast. Gradually I started working with home buyers, and then with home sellers. By now, I only work with tenants as a courtesy. It still doesn’t pay very well.

But in those two years, I saw an awful lot of rental homes. Or, more precisely, a lot of awful rental homes. Again and again, I would find myself wondering why anyone would think a particular house would be appealing to tenants. Not just the condition of the property, often atrocious, but simply the location itself. It’s astounding to me how many vacant rentals are situated nowhere near where tenants might want to live.

In the years since then, I’ve represented a huge number of investors. Market conditions haven’t been kind to them lately, but Phoenix is once again a market ripe for landlords. Prices are low and cash flows are positive. If landlords buy the right properties to use as rentals, the homes should rent quickly and stay rented.

So which homes will work best as rentals?

I’m looking for a home in a built-out suburb. Buckeye is a bargain for owner-occupants, but why would tenants move to a town with no employment base? What I want are jobs, schools, shopping and entertainment, all nearby, with decent freeway and bus access. I want a north-facing home; tenants read their power bills, too.

Am I looking for the cheapest house? No. Price matters, but what matters more is livability. Parents worry about the kids taking a header down the stairs, so I want a single-story home. There has to be at least a little grass in the back yard so toddlers can romp.

Here’s the magic bullet: If you buy a house that will resell well, and you maintain it in a way that communicates that you like and respect your tenants, it should rent well the whole time you own it.

May 4, 2008

Do you want to make sure your home will sell? Little things matter

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
Do you want to make sure your home will sell? Little things matter

I tend to do a lot of previewing. I will go into houses alone to take photographs. My buyers and I then use those photos to draft a short-list of homes to view when they’re ready to see for themselves.

Because of this, I get to spend a lot of time alone in homes, looking at absolutely everything, with no distractions.

Here’s what I’ve learned from looking at thousands of homes for sale: Little things matter.

Is the home picked up, or are there clothes, toys and magazines scattered everywhere? Are there dirty breakfast dishes on the kitchen table? Dried up orange juice splotches? Toast crumbs? Are last night’s dirty dishes piled up in the sink?

Is the house clean? Does it look and smell like the cleaning crew just left? If I look for dirt, I can find it. But can I find it easily without having to look?

Is every room of the house packed to the walls with furniture? Are there pictures of every member of the family for three generations tacked all over the walls? Do the kids like dark blue, dark purple, dark black paint?

I can probably guess your religion by the stuff you own and the other stuff you don’t own, but my buyers should never, ever see symbols of your religion in the house. Why? Because it can be subtly off-putting to them without their even knowing why at a conscious level.

Likewise, if they can smell your cat — or the fish you fried for dinner last week — you’ve probably already alienated potential buyers before they have even given your house half a chance. Odors kill sales, so kill those odors now.

Fix any obvious defects. Only a specialist can say for sure if the air conditioner is working properly, but no one has to be told when it’s completely broken.

It only takes a few small things to drive buyers on to the next house on their list. If you want for yours to be the one that sells, it simply must be better than others. Little things matter.

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April 27, 2008

The challenge for Realtors and lenders in the future: How do you sell to consumers who don’t want to be sold?

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). The lender in the story? Brian Brady, America’s #1 Mortgage Broker.

 
The challenge for Realtors and lenders in the future: How do you sell to consumers who don’t want to be sold?

We represented a cute couple in the purchase of their first home late last year. That much is not news: First time home-buyers are the bread and butter of the real estate business. What was interesting to me was how internet-focused they were.

The husband, Michael, is an internet adept, but his wife, Danielle, is a true wizard. Her primary interface to the commercial world is the world wide web.

They found me on the internet, of course, and I referred them to a lender that I know through the nets.

Consider this: There are 30,000 Realtors in Phoenix, and at least that many lenders. All of them are advertising at a furious pace — newspapers, real estate magazines, supermarket shopping carts, bus benches, billboards, radio, TV — plus balloons, free pens and scratch pads and coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, flower seeds, recipe cards and Halloween pumpkins.

Real estate professionals spent millions of dollars trying to get Michael and Danielle’s attention, and all of that money was wasted. They are not paying attention to advertising.

To the contrary, if Danielle cannot completely research a product or service on-line, she won’t have anything to do with it. They never once went into the home they were buying without a digital camera. I watched Danielle crane around in impossible contortions so she could read and write down the model and serial numbers from the washer and dryer so she could research them on-line.

Looking forward, nothing changes as fast as we expect it to. But looking backward, the world seems always to be changing like dreams. Danielle is immune to advertising. She recycles her junk mail unread. She doesn’t want to be pitched, she doesn’t want to be sold, she doesn’t want to be wheedled or needled or cajoled. She doesn’t want to be closed on.

All those old school gimmicks still work — on some people — and they will continue to work — for a while. But Danielle is the future of real estate marketing. Realtors and lenders are going to have to learn to sell to consumers like her.

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April 20, 2008

Will Realtors be disintermediated by on-line tools? Probably not, but tech-savvy Realtors will supplant those who do not adapt

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
Will Realtors be disintermediated by on-line tools? Probably not, but tech-savvy Realtors will supplant those who do not adapt

The big news in real estate is the market, of course. My view is that the American economy is much stronger and more resilient than you might guess from day-to-day reports.

But the other big story in real estate is the idea of “disintermediation” — replacing Realtors with some combination of do-it-yourself effort and hi-tech tools. The stock retort to this notion — and I have made it myself — is that people will never buy homes like they buy books on Amazon.

Perhaps so. But I lived through the desktop revolution in printing, so I have a different take about the dreaded word disintermediation.

If the triumphant yelp is that some travel agents and some stockbrokers still have jobs, I will point out that some blacksmiths still have jobs, too. Horses still need shoes. That much is beside the point.

Here’s my take on the matter: Don’t think in terms of disintermediation. Use the word “supplantation” instead. In industry after industry, old techniques are being supplanted by new ideas. More importantly, the old technicians are being supplanted by new ones.

This is not a necessary consequence, but it often works out that the “old hands” don’t want to make the change to the new ways of doing business. Even if they do, the “first-mover advantage” can be too great to overcome.

The same goes for everything — most especially real estate. Realtors who are not all the way onboard with the way business will be done in the future will be left behind at the station.

A real estate transaction is so complex that most people will continue to want professional advice — even as they handle many of the simpler functions Realtors might have done in the past. The work we do will be superficially similar to the work others have done in the past — but those others won’t be doing it any longer.

Will they have been disintermediated? Not if you insist that they haven’t. But they will have been well and truly supplanted.

When will that happen? Ask a blacksmith — if you can find one.

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April 13, 2008

Zillow.com’s Mortgage Marketplace brings anonymous apples-to-apples mortgage rate quotes to consumers, free consumer leads to lenders

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
Zillow.com’s Mortgage Marketplace brings anonymous apples-to-apples mortgage rate quotes to consumers, free consumer leads to lenders

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get a broad array of mortgage quotes without having to make dozens of phone calls? And what if you could make a true apples-to-apples comparison among quotes? Better still, what if you could remain anonymous, making yourself known to the lender only when you are ready to do business?

Seattle-based real estate start-up Zillow.com last week released its long-anticipated mortgage lending product, called the Mortgage Marketplace, and it offers all those features and more.

Unlike Zillow’s “Zestimates,” the loan quotes are generated by real people, working lenders. Zillow will basically be acting as a hands-off intermediary between borrowers and loan originators.

Consumers using Zillow’s new Mortgage Marketplace will be able to anonymously solicit bids for loans from participating lenders. The consumer will fill out a detailed form disclosing all pertinent financial details.

The form will be submitted anonymously to participating lenders, who will, in their turn, produce estimated loan quotes, submitting them, through Zillow, to the consumer. The consumer will then have the choice to make direct contact with particular lenders to decide whom to do business with.

To a very large degree, the information asymmetry between lender and borrower will be done away with, since the loan quote will detail every fee associated with the loan. Moreover, Zillow will be implementing a reputation-management system whereby borrowers will be able to rate lenders on their performance.

In return, the lenders will receive Zillow’s mortgage leads at no cost.

What’s in it for Zillow.com? When you fill out a form requesting a loan quote, Zillow will be writing “cookies” to your local browser. They won’t be storing your financial details on their own servers, but they will be able to access those cookies in the future to target specific ads at you according to your demographic characteristics. Zillow will also be selling access to these cookies to other ad-supported sites.

So, just as with free-TV, in exchange for looking at advertising, you will get free anonymous mortgage quotes and lenders will get free mortgage leads.

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April 5, 2008

Looking for a bargain in Phoenix real estate? Add some elbow grease to your money and go for a bank-owned home

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

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This is from my Arizona Republic column (permanent link):

In the past we’ve talked about how home sellers can command a premium price in the current Phoenix real estate market, even if they are competing with nearby foreclosure properties, by putting the home into turn-key condition.

So what’s the counter-strategy? If you’re a buyer looking for the best possible price, what should you do?

Go for the bank-owned homes, of course. Trying to buy a short sale can be heart-rending. The price listed in the MLS will be meaningless. The lender will decide what price to allow. Still worse, lenders drag their feet on short sales. If they have any hope of keeping the loan alive, they won’t let the house go. Meanwhile, your own interest rate could be spiking, rendering you unqualified for the deal if and when it finally comes through.

By contrast, bank-owned homes (you might hear them called REOs, for “real estate owned”) can race through the escrow process. Once a bank has foreclosed on a home, all it wants is to get it off its books and recover whatever cash it can, as quickly as it can. In consequence, your offer might be approved in just a couple of days, with the bank rushing the closing date any way it can.

Because of that, your loan qualification matters a lot. If you look shaky to the bank, it might pick a lower offer from a stronger borrower just to be assured of getting whatever money it can out of the deal.

And then there is the condition of the home. People  losing their homes sometimes let the daily maintenance slide. Expect to see filthy carpets, scuffed-up paint, damaged doors. The air conditioner might have been removed and sold, or the water heater — or even the kitchen sink.

In most cases, the bargain price you get for the home is going to be offset somewhat by the money you will have to put into it. But if you are handy and industrious, the profit on these expenses can be two dollars or more in value for every dollar you spend.

March 29, 2008

Back to the future in North Central Phoenix? In the Missouri corridor, 1322 East Vermont Avenue is as cool as the Phoenix of the fifties

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

Phoenix is the best-named city in the wild and wooly West. We are the Thunderbird, rising always anew from our ashes, a constant state of reinvention. Surging ever outward — and lately even upward — we are too much the City of Tomorrow ever to spare a thought for the city we were yesterday.

And yet…

That city we were yesterday had its charms… Mostly we recall them through the good offices of PBS Channel 8. At fund-raising time, we get to catch a few brief glimpses of the Phoenix we paved over decades ago. A Phoenix where kids played in the street and swam in each other’s backyard pools. Where their older brothers and sisters cruised Central Avenue — ragtops down and the radios all tuned to the same station. Between the dusty little nineteenth-century town of Phoenix and the vast megalopolis that Phoenix has become, there was a shady oasis in the desert where prosperous people perfected the fine art of suburban living.

Here’s the good news: It’s still there. Everything changes in Phoenix, it seems like every day. But North Central Phoenix endures. In the late forties, through the fifties and early sixties, as Phoenix was surging outward in its first great growth spurts, some very wise people built big, sturdy homes right in the heart of everything. On both sides of Central, between the Canals, North Central Phoenix took root in the desert soil — and took root in the hearts of the people who built it.

Land that had been irrigated orange groves became rich irrigated lawns instead. And the trees that grew from that water spread a thick canopy of shade over the land. And houses made of concrete block were built one-by-one — modern and roomy, with high-ceilings and wide-open sight lines. And big back yards. And pools and barbecues and basketball hoops and volleyball nets.

And here’s the even better news: You can have a house just like that. There aren’t very many to be had, and North Central can be a pricey neighborhood. But the house we’re talking about, 1322 East Vermont Avenue, in the Madison United Neighborhood along the Missouri Avenue corridor, is everything you could wish for in a mid-century modern ranch home in North Central Phoenix — at a price you can afford.

My job is to sell houses — you didn’t know? — but we don’t sell homes we don’t love. We want to understand the houses we represent like works of art, each one unique and unrepeatable. The web site for this home features hundreds of photos, and we even went so far as to build a virtual coffee table book for this property, so that you can send it off to friends and family.

There’s so much more I could talk about, but that’s why we built such an elaborate web site for this home, so that you can see absolutely everything there is to know about it. We’ve always built an interactive floorplan into our web sites, but for 1322 East Vermont, for the first time, we’ve also built in a virtual remodeling feature. I happen to think that kitchen rocks the way it is, but if you’d like to try a different look, the virtual remodeling software makes it easy.

I could go on all day, but — let’s face it — a house either sells itself or it doesn’t. What we have is a spacious, well-kept mid-century modern ranch home on a big irrigated lot in the Missouri Avenue corridor of North Central Phoenix. You’re minutes from Downtown, seconds from the Biltmore. If you’re in love with an older Phoenix, or with that flaming Thunderbird that was always born just yesterday, this home is not for you. But if you long for that Phoenix of the fifties, that cool and comfortable suburban lifestyle perfected by our parents — give me a call. You don’t have to wait around for the fund-raisers on Channel 8. That shady oasis of a Phoenix still exists — and it can be yours…

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March 29, 2008

If you don’t have to sell into the current Phoenix real estate market — don’t. But what if you do have to sell…?

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
If you don’t have to sell into the current Phoenix real estate market — don’t. But what if you do have to sell…?

Here’s a piece of real estate marketing advice that should be obvious: If you don’t have to sell your house right now, don’t.

If you are living in your home — or if you are an investor and you have a tenant — and you are making your payments and don’t have any exigent need to sell — sit tight.

We are probably nearing the bottom of the downturn in Phoenix, but the path to the bottom is likely to be pretty steep. If you don’t have to compete against deeply-discounted lender-owned homes, don’t.

Will the market go back up after we hit bottom? Eventually, yes. How long is eventually? It could be a long while. But prices should stabilize after the bank-owned inventory has cleared the market. What you can get for your home may not be all you want, but you won’t be facing competition priced 20% or 30% less.

But suppose you do have to move right now. You’ve taken a job out of state or you have a pressing financial need and need to tap your equity. How can you compete effectively against the lender-owned homes in your neighborhood?

The bad news is, the price pressure on you is still downward, and probably will be for longer than you can afford to wait. That means you cannot set your price above the market and hope for an offer anyway. If you price your home above the recent high sales for your floorplan — where recent means the past 60 days — your home might not show at all. There is simply too much inventory for buyers to bother with an overpriced home.

The good news is that the lender-owned homes are almost certainly trashed. Filthy, in bad repair, with overgrown lawns. Investors know those problems are easily addressed, but owner-occupants want turn-key homes.

That works to your advantage. If you are willing to put your home in turn-key condition — everything in first-rate repair, squeaky clean and staged beautifully — your home can still command a much higher price than the nearby foreclosure properties.

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March 28, 2008

Who says we sell nothing but half-million dollar homes? 3527 West Quail Avenue in Glendale, AZ, can be yours for $60,000

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Sun City Real Estate Broker

Author website

We list more than our share of pricey homes, that’s a fact. I sometimes list all over the Valley for my investor clients, but Cathleen Collins has made a specialty — and an artform — out of listing remarkable homes: Historic, architecturally-distinctive and mid-century modern luxury homes. We’re often found in that half-million-and-up price range — and that’s a comfortable place for us to exercise the kind of marketing tools we like to deploy when we list a home for sale.

So what does it mean when we list a double-wide mobile-home in last rustic neighborhood in Glendale? The newspapers are full of starving Realtor stories. Are we so desperate for work that we’re listing for ten cents on our usual dollar?

Not quite. The listing itself is family — Cathleen’s sister’s husband’s mother. But we know we can do a better job on a home like this than the average mobile-home lister. There are things we would normally do that just don’t make sense for a home at this price. But building a web site for the home makes perfect sense to us.

The home is what it is, and we can’t puff it to be something else. The structure needs help, and our listing copy acknowledges this fact. But the land and the surrounding area are incomparable, some of the last bits of desert available this close to town. And these are the kinds of ideas we can bring out in the web site and on the home’s color flyers.

In some ways our listing this home is kind of funny. For example, the house is in rough-enough shape that we took no photos at all of the interior of the home, where normally we would take hundreds. But this house was a sweet lady’s dream home, and it is her financial nest egg even now. If we can help her get the most money she can for her home — that’s our job, a job we love to do regardless of the house we’re working with or its sales price.

But take careful note: The purpose of real estate marketing is to sell real estate. If you’re interested in picking up a quarter-acre of raw desert at a bargain price, take a look at the web site for 3527 West Quail Avenue in Glendale, AZ — and then give me a call. This property is primed for its next chapter, and you could be its author.

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