Desert Botanical Gardens

I love our gardens. Love being a member, even if I don’t get there as often as I would like. Last year the Desert Botanical Gardens had the Dale Chihuly: Nature of Glass exhibition. Because of the exhibit, the gardens increased their revenue last year by 45%.

With so many of the museums, parks and other community facilities facing closure due to the economy and lack of funds, I am glad The Desert Botanical Gardens is doing so well.

Connect with them on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter

Summer Resort Fun

With temperatures rising, many of the visitors to our beautiful city have left, not to come back till cooler weather returns. So the resorts are offering great summer play packages.

• Millennium Resort has offers starting with $100 room, and get $100 in food and beverage, even pool side. For a bit more add in a golf package.
• Hyatt Regency Scottsdale is offering free meals, kids camp, and with their ‘water playground’ loads of fun for the family
• Stay at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort and spend the day at the spa or enjoy all of the services they offer.

Call the resort you’re interested in getting away to and find out what specials they are offering.

You don’t have to get out of town to have a vacation – summer fun is waiting in your own back yard.

Foreclosures in the Active Adult Communities

With today days real estate market I get asked about foreclosures all the time. Specifically about foreclosures in the adult communities. As people are looking thru the listings from our website (Active Adult Communities in Arizona) they don’t see many foreclosures. I am not hiding them, or keeping them from the selection available, I promise.

It is the nature of the buyer in Adult Communities. They are much more conservative. Many if not most, purchase with cash. If they require a loan, the amount down is usually greater than 10 or even 20% and the loans are all fixed rate loans. Only investors in those communities purchased with interest only, adjustable loans. And most new build communities did not sell to investors.

So we don’t see many home foreclosures in the adult communities. When they do come on the market, many times was an investor that got in over their heads, or some major personal issue, or the property passed on to the family and they couldn’t handle paying the additional mortgage.

The result, the housing prices in the adult communities have not been affected by foreclosures like the all aged communities. Instead, the conservativeness of the buyers, and the balance of retirement accounts has kept the buyers away, bringing the prices down in those communities.

In conclusion, the adult communities see far fewer foreclosures, and though the prices have come down with the real estate crisis, they prices have not come down as much as the all aged communities.

It’s Raining in Arizona - Things to know

The average rain fall in a year for the Valley is roughly 8″. But what is normal truly. Last year we had less than 4″ for the whole year. This week we have already had over 1 1/2 inches and more is coming, possibly 3″-5″ tonight.

What should you know…

• First don’t drive thru any rushing water, or huge puddles, you don’t know how deep they are, and it takes only inches for rushing water to pull your vehicle down stream
• Be extra careful on the roads.  We don’t normally get this amount of rain.  There are lots of months with no rain, and nothing to wash the oil off the roads from cars.  When the rain does come, our roads are more slick than you are accustomed to even if you come from a rain soaked area.
• The roads dip down to allow the water flow across:  A wash; is any dip in the road where water accumulates, it’s not just a puddle and could be deceivingly deep.
• The Stupid Motorist Law: (that’s really what it is called) has the driver pay for the cost of rescue services if needed to get you out of your car to safety.

Driving in the rain, always be more alert.  Driving in the rain in Arizona; be even more careful.

PFChangs rock and Roll attitude

PFChangs rock and Roll attitude

Originally uploaded by IreneHammond

I wish I could get out to the festivities this weekend. I have clients in from out of state and will be missing it.

The PF Changs Rock and Roll Marathon is always fun to participate in as well as encouraging the athletes. With the same 6 bands returning again this year, the course will keep you moving. The post race concert is featuring Everclear and should finish out the afternoon with a splash.

Come out and cheer these amazing athletes on! Check out the spectator info, and there may still be time for you to volunteer and help out. It takes a ton of volunteers to make an event like this one come together.

Have fun!

Why Social Media makes me a better Realtor

When I got started writing Scottsdale-Blog.com I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. What I have discovered now is that my blog lead me to several other Social Media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and more. It also connected me to many, many other Realtors who were also writing blogs and Twittering.

What happened when I started my blog is I started paying closer attention to what would be useful or interesting to write about. I read the other blogs, listened with a new attentiveness to the continuing education classes I took, followed links on Twitter, and learned more about what was happening with real estate in my area and around the country.

I may not write every day, I may not have a huge following on my blog, I do have more knowledge than I had before and because of this I feel I am a much better Realtor today than I was before I came to Social Media.

Happy New Years!

Welcoming in 2010, there are a few big events to consider bringing in the New Year!

• Scottsdale’s Ultimate Block Party - This is the block party to be at.  Live music, lots of dancing and 7000 people
• Fiesta Bowl Block Party - not just for the football crowd - Rated as a top 10 event by USA Today be sure to consider this Tempe town spectacular for New Years Eve

Besides these events there are many, much more intimate gatherings.  Check with your favorite restaurant or club to see what they have planned.

And have a very Happy New Year!

Merry Chirstmas

Wishing you the very best this Holiday Season,

From our family to yours
Merry Christmas

Market Review of 2009

Well the numbers are not yet in for December, and they won’t be for a couple of weeks.  I have access to great statistics, they compile the numbers daily, weekly and monthly, and I get to share the details with you.

I started by checking out many, many different charts to look for what I believe is the best representation of our market currently and over this past year.  This chart, shows the annual appreciation based on monthly sales price per square foot.  I have 2002 and 2003 on this chart to show what a ‘normal’ year appreciation looked like.  In 2004, and 2005 we saw huge appreciation that is not typical of a normal market and then in 2006, 2007, and 2008 we saw the bubble pop.

Back in about April we started to see changes, the number of homes being purchased increased, the inventory started reducing, and the plummeting price drops slowed.  In a ‘normal’ market there is around a 6% increase to value each year.   In April we hit the low of 44% loss and as I write this we are sitting on average across the entire valley 12% loss.

OK so when your looking at losses, none are going to be good news.  But the dramatic change from earlier this year indicates to me, that we are moving toward  a normalized market.

Let me say again, that this is an over view of the entire Valley of the Sun, each smaller area may tell a different story and usually does

Part of the story that needs to be told is the market by price.  A look at inventory broken down by price tells a great story.  In a ‘normal’ market there is about 6 months (180 days) worth of inventory.  Less and you have sellers market, more and you have a buyers market.

What is interesting is we have all 3 happening at the same time.  A price point of  $300-400k is our ‘normal’ market with about 6 months of inventory.  Prices higher are in the buyers market and lower are in a sellers market.

So depending on the price point you are purchasing in, you may find yourself in a bidding war, and some sales prices over asking.

What’s Happening around Scottsdale

We are a week from Christmas and two weeks from New Years. Wow this year has flown by. There is still time to catch a few seasonal celebrations before they are gone again.

• Holiday Lights at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park starting Dec 11th at 6:30-9:00 and nightly after. Be there for the tree lighting, Santa, and a train ride thru the park with over 100,000 lights
• Windham Hill’s Winter Solstice: Night Sky essays at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, performances start at 8pm
• Center Dance Ensemble presents “Snow Queen” at the Herberger Theater the retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s family favorite

And if your looking for a little more action check out

• Phoenix Suns vs Washington Wizards at US Airways Center at 7pm

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