We’re fast approaching the end of the selling season in Westbrook Village, one of the active adult communities in the Northwest Valley. Though Westbrook seems to have a smaller percentage of winter visitors than many other areas, the sales season still is concentrated largely in the fall and winter.

That’s one reason why I don’t expect to see many listings appearing on the Just Listed page at Westbrook Village Real Estate.com. While not completely pointless, putting a new listing on the market in a Phoenix retirement community in May doesn’t make much sense.

So as the market moves more toward being static, I thought it would be worth taking a look at the 43 casitas and homes for sale that came onto the market in 2007 (or earlier) and still are on the market today.

See any common denominators?

Look at the number of markers just representing casitas just to the north of Union Hills Drive. Or look to the right side of the map, where another market is just outside the noise wall separating Westbrook Village from 83rd Avenue.

In fact, click on the “price” field and select $100K-$200K. This will narrow the search down essentially to just the casitas. The casitas that have been on the market the longest in Westbrook Village almost exclusively are close either to Union Hills Drive or the Westbrook Village Parkway.

Does that mean these properties are unsellable? Absolutely not. But they appear to be falling victim to what has become a price floor in the Village. Very, very little has sold for less than $150,000 over the past two years. It might be that such a price reduction is what’s needed for the sale … after all, every property has its selling price.

But as these properties languish, additional casitas are coming to the market in areas where the road noise isn’t quite so noticable. And those properties are selling at a quicker rate than these homes you see.

Location within a subdivision should be a consideration when buying; the properties may be purchased at a discount, creating perceived value, but the same causes that make the properties a lower-price option now still will be in effect when the time comes to sell.

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… thanks to one of the two new items over in the right-hand sidebars.

In the first column, under the state-mandated RE/MAX logo (and the keep-the-owner happy balloon), is a shiny new contact form. All of three fields are required though I’m quite prepared to start receiving some questions from Mickey Mouse and Seymour Butts.

And in the far right column is a rotating display of my current listings. Want to know more about any of those properties or how to add your home to the rotation?

Feed me, Seymour … the contact form’s waiting for you.

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Yesterday was a first in my youth soccer coaching career. A handball was called against an opposing player and my team was awarded a free kick, which about 90 seconds later was converted into a goal.

“Timeout!” yelled the other coach, stomping onto the field. “I have an issue.” (I tend to think she had more than one issue, if you know what I mean, but I digress.)

Her argument was her player shouldn’t have been whistled for stopping the ball with her elbow. Alllllrighty then.

Later in the game we had a goal kick and I elected to have someone other than the goalie, my daughter, take the kick. “You can’t do that!” the coach screams. “It’s a goalie kick.”

Except it’s not a “goalie kick.” It’s a “goal kick” and anyone can take one. It’s even in the rules, somewhere or another. (I suggested she Google them after the game.)

This is my ninth season as a soccer coach for the YMCA. I give all the credit in the world to someone willing to volunteer their time to coach a group of kids, most strangers, and try to enrich their lives.

But getting a T-shirt that says “YMCA Coach” doesn’t really make you a soccer coach - not if you don’t know the rules.

Likewise, getting a real estate license doesn’t really make you a real estate professional - you’re not if you don’t know the rules. And the rules involve more than calculating what your commission will be based on the co-broke in the MLS.

The rules involve knowing the contract - not just knowing of it, but knowing the contract backward and forward to the point that your client won’t be disadvantaged when you run into an agent who really does know the contract.

The rules involve knowing the local MLS rules. There was a long debate in my office on Thursday about the best way of avoiding short sales in the local MLS (at the instruction of a buyer, of course.) One agent suggested a search for listings without “short sale” in the agent remarks. Which is fine, except agents aren’t required to use the words short sale anywhere in the listing.

Agents are required to mark the “Lender/Corp Approval Required” field. Not that all do. In 90 listings last week I found two dozen violations.

(Another agent argued that you may lose REOs - bank owned homes - if you exclude the Lender/Corp Approval Required field because some listings agents mark that field for these properties as well. Those agents are doing their client a disservice since there’s a separate field for Lender Owned Properties.)

None of us come out of real estate school knowing all there is to know. For all of us, there is a constant educational curve. Assuming, that is, we choose to pay attention to such things.

For many, a license is enough and the rules of the road aren’t too important, at least until they are. Just like not knowing that there’s no such thing as a “goalie kick” isn’t all that important until it becomes so.

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For those who haven’t tripped over this information in the past, I’m currently the president of the Board of Trustees for my synagogue, Temple Gan Elohim. We’ve rented space at a number of different churches over the past seven years and currently are trying to work out the feasibility of buying a place of our own.

Editor’s note - No, this isn’t a fundraising appeal, especially on Shabbat … but checks always are welcome.

We’ve talked on and off about starting a serious capital campaign but the question was raised of whether this is the right time. After all, with the current economy, is this really the time to solicit donations?

And that got me thinking …

There’s no question the cost of goods and services is on the rise. Sticker shock at the gas tank is one thing but it happens every time we buy a gallon of milk as well. In fact, the only things that don’t seem to be rising are the Dollar Menu at McDonald’s … and the cost of housing here in the Phoenix real estate market.

If you were to argue that we’re currently in a recession I probably wouldn’t disagree. But from the standpoint of the housing market, the recession started nearly two years ago when sales began to slow and prices started to fall.

And just as the housing sector was the first to enter into the recession, housing historically is the first sector to recover as well. I believe the term’s “leading indicator.”

Some folks I know who are debating whether to sell are being urged by friends and family not to do so, to wait until the market “gets better.” I don’t necessarily disagree, as long as they understand that someone paying more for their house will mean they’re paying more for the house they purchase when they sell.

Sometimes the debate over whether “it’s the right time” has less to do with timing and more to do with looking for outs, for reasons not the purchase. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the indecision usually doesn’t go away.

Years ago, when I was a reporter covering the Arizona Legislature, one member of the state House asked when my wife and I were going to start a family. We’d been married for about three months. I told him we’re going to wait until we get settled and until the time was right.

“Jonathan,” he said, “if you wait until the time’s right you’ll never have any kids.”

With three running around now - one with her first real boyfriend (ugh) and the other two with their assorted mishegas - I see how right he was.

Maybe there’s an outright wrong time for things - for purchasing a house, for raising funds to purchase a synagogue’s first permanent home, for having children. But a right time? It’s a fairly elusive concept.

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As of 10:30 a.m., the house is cat free. This wasn’t intentional by any stretch but rather a case of Father Time taking its toll on all of us and those with four legs all the harder and more quickly.

Princess was anti-social bitchy annoying my wife’s cat. She spent four years feuding with one of my two cats, Ebbets, until Ebby no longer was here to fight back. She was a ghost in the night, hissing and mewling when Ebby came near and once in a while appearing to eat or use the litter box.

She got along much better with Griffith. But with Griff’s passing in January, Princess became the lone cat in a household with two dogs. She became more adventurous, actually stepping out of the master bedroom when she heard her food being prepared, and she started to sleep on the bed … on my arm, exactly where Griff had been for 15 years.

Princess was best known for her own rendition of “3 a.m.” … every morning at 2 a.m. she would start to meow until she was fed. This started a couple of years back, then stopped and then started again over the last two months. She also had developed the habit of walking into the bathroom and laying down on the occupant’s feet while they were … um … otherwise indisposed.

Dementia was setting in to some degree and attempts with kitty valium were fruitless (she’s high as a kite in the photo to the left, which led to an evening of trying to jump onto the bed and slamming into the side of the box spring.)

Tomorrow will be the first day in nearly 17 years that there isn’t a cat in my house. And what’s fairly ironic is I’m not a cat person. Not by a long stretch. But Ebby adopted me and then Griff needed a home and then Princess was a package deal for the wife.

But now all are gone. Tobey and Morgan will need to find new creatures to chase.

Here are two songs for your Friday afternoon and for Kathie’s Cessica.

… and one more …

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