Last month it was revealed that the monthly Phoenix real estate sales data being provided by Arizona State University’s Realty Studies department was fundamentally flawed.

Foreclosed homes - actual transactions (or non-transactions) taking place as part of a Trustees’ Sale on the courthouse steps was being included in the monthly sales report, inflating the number of sales reported in the Phoenix real estate market.

ASU’s report for May tries to correct the issue but still misses the mark. Foreclosed homes have been segregated on the report but …

“Foreclosed transactions represent home owners losing their property to successful individual bidders or the lender of record.”

A home being sold to a successful bidder on the courthouse steps is a sale. But a home reverting back to the lender of record after there were no bidders? Sorry, but no. There’s no sale taking place. It’s a non-transaction plain and simple.

These homes that revert eventually will return to the market as bank owned homes and, once sold, should count towards sales. But not when the house reverts to the lender as such a reversion indicates a lack of buyer activity, not actual buyer activity.

Jay Butler and his crew ought to know better.

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Tags: Phoenix Homes for Sale, Phoenix Inventory, Phoenix Market, General Real Estate by Jonathan Dalton
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Here was a unique situation … my buyers found a bank owned home that they really liked and made an offer. The house had been on the market for five days but they were fortunate - there were only two other competing offers.

(Wait … you didn’t know that multiple offers are standard for REOs in the Phoenix real estate market these days?)

Back came the bank with the nebulous, ominous counter … give us your final and best offer. At my advice, they held their ground at list price with a small seller contribution to the buyers’ closing costs. And they got the house.

Here’s the key element - the buyers didn’t bid against themselves. They decided before writing the original offer what their best offer would be. If it wasn’t enough then this wasn’t going to be the right house for them.

Holding one’s ground isn’t easy especially after you’ve decided this is the one house for you. But that’s often the best strategy. It’s just a matter of having either a buyer or (more importantly) an agent who has seen multiple offers in the past and knows not to panic - especially when that multiple counter doesn’t have a firm number written in already.

On a somewhat related note, the very wise BawldGuy has taken a long look at the Phoenix real estate market and come to a conclusion eerily similar to mine in its brilliance:

It’s a seller’s market for REO’s only. The rest of the market is still firmly ensconced in the buyer’s market column. FIRMLY. But as soon as the REO’s are gone — guess what? The next cheapest homes are gonna be the ones who’ve been stomped on and falling down the same stairs for nearly three years now. Suddenly, they’ll be the prettiest girls at the dance. They’ll begin to sell in ever increasing numbers.

Since everything’s still ongoing I can’t discuss details but I’ve seen this in action - with the bank owned homes out of the way, the next best priced homes become the centers of attention. It’s not mere speculation.

We may not be at the bottom but the pit doesn’t look nearly as bottomless these days.

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Tags: Phoenix Foreclosures, Phoenix Homes for Sale, Phoenix Market, General Real Estate, Tips for Buyers by Jonathan Dalton
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Online searches for real estate in Phoenix or elsewhere can be tedious. Enter the criteria for your search, look through the listings, then re-enter the same information the following day and watch your monitor fill mostly with the same homes you saw before.

Even if you’re on a site that allows you to save your search (as you can here, through our Phoenix real estate search), it’s impossible to avoid old listings you really don’t want to see day after day after day.

Enter the Just Listed page, new to AllPhoenixRealEstate.com.

Select the Just Listed page and you’ll have a list of just under a dozen cities from around the Valley, stretching from Scottsdale to Surprise, Buckeye to Anthem. Click on the link and you’ll go to a separate page with the listings that have come to the market in that city or town over the past seven days.

As homes come to the market, they’ll be added to the top of the list, making it a little easier for you keep track of the inventory in that city.

Of course, if you’re preference is to sort the listings you can do that as well … at the top of each list of homes there’s a link with the name of the search; click on that link, and you’ll go to the map-based search to which you’ve become accustomed.

My goal is to make your real estate search as simple and pain-free as possible. The good folks at Diverse Solutions are making reaching that goal as pain-free possible on this end by providing a product with a great deal of flexibility.

If there’s still something you want to see that’s not here yet, you know how to contact me.

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Tags: Phoenix Homes for Sale, Phoenix Market, General Real Estate, Tips for Buyers by Jonathan Dalton
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Let’s chalk this up the theory of always ask forgiveness, not permission.

In the interim, in my eternal struggle to find a decent solution for the demand for bank owned homes in the Phoenix real estate market (where the best solution, Mr. Bemis, would be for the miscellaneous field to be added to the IDX feed where I can filter for it), I present the bank owned listings from my brokerage, RE/MAX Desert Showcase.

Mouse over any of the markers for the basics, click on a marker for the full details. And as always, I’m here for any questions you may have.

Technorati Tags: Phoenix real estate, bank owned homes

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Tags: Phoenix Foreclosures, Phoenix Homes for Sale, General Real Estate by Jonathan Dalton
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Do you like the new toy? I think I do. This is a sneak peek of the new homes searches I’m putting into place with the assistance of the good folks at Diverse Solutions.

If you check the Phoenix Homes Search page, you’ll discover a brand new map-based search already in working order. No registration necessary as always unless you want to tap into new features such as the ability to save your favorite homes.

As for the below map, this is what’s for sale in Westbrook. Only 20 homes display at a time and I’m not sure if I can change that. Of course, the beautiful thing is I don’t really need to. With every click - changing the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, price or square footage - you’re changing the results yourself.

You’ll see these adopted on the neighborhood sites for Westbrook Village, Ventana Lakes and Arrowhead Ranch over the coming days.

In the interim, play with the map below or on the home search and let me know what you think!

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Tags: Phoenix Homes for Sale, Tips for Buyers by Jonathan Dalton
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