June 28, 2008 by Donna Anderson.

I just listed a ridge-top custom (almost 3,400 square feet), 2003- built home in premier, gated Sabino Mountain which is minutes from Canyon Ranch and Sabino Canyon. Sabino Mountain was the last ridgetop community built in the Catalina Foothills. It is a rare opportunity to have a large, custom, ridge-top home with incredible city views.  Almost every room has a  spectacular city view or a high Catalina Mountain view. This is very aggressively priced at 795K and should not last long. Call me for your private viewing at 520-918-2410.

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June 16, 2008 by Donna Anderson.

No matter what I read, I am stuck by my own interpretation of the market, which I think is “flat”.  The prices probably have bottomed and it is still a “Buyer’s Market”, with signs that the market for Sellers is slightly improving, with less inventory and prices that are no longer declining. Clearly, this year is worse than last year as far as number of sales and final sales prices, except for houses that are priced over a million.  Those who purchase homes over a million are many times not so affected by the harsher economic times. So if you are thinking of selling you should wait, but you will have to sit on the fence for over a year for prices to go up, although homes will sell quicker than they have been selling in the past six months, as the market is slowly improving.  For buyers, the present time represents the greatest number of houses to view for sale at the bottom price. Soon the price will be the same, but with each month, there will be less to chose from.

Another good piece of advice for Buyers: get your loan pre-approval before you look for a home.  Unless you are buying a house for 326K or less (and can use FHA  financing  if you do not own another home and are not an investor) financing is tricky and demanding even for those with good credit. Make sure you work with an excellent, seasoned lender. If you need a recommendation, contact me at Donna@DonnaAnderson.com or call me at 520-615-2598.

 If you have the money to buy, GO FOR IT! Now is the time and it is not going to get better than this for buyers in the Tucson Foothills.

 If you have to sell, call me for a professional market analysis with no obligation.

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June 7, 2008 by Donna Anderson.

Jumbo interest rates are back to being at least one and one half percent higher than the conforming interest rates. What this means is if you are going to get a jumbo loan–one at over 417K, you will have to pay a much higher interest rate than if you are getting a conforming loan–at 417K or less.  Additionally you must put down 20% to obtain a jumbo loan.  So this is a double-whamy for those wishing to buy a luxury home.  Most people are staying away from the jumbo loans, and as a result,  when purchasing a luxury home they have to put down a huge down payment to get down to a loan amount of 417K. For instance, when purchasing a home for $800,000, one would have to put down $383,000 to obtain a conforming loan with interest rates that are currently lower than 6.5%.  There are other areas of the country where there are highly priced homes like in the the Foothills, but many have a larger conforming loan cap up to the $700,000s. Pima County properties have conforming loan caps that are all given the same loan limit cap, and  since the average Pima County home price is much lower than the average price of a Foothills home, the cap is still only $417,000.  This unfortunately is keeping down the appreciation of homes and contributing to the slow sales in the Foothills.  This makes it more unlikely for buyers under 45 to be able to afford move-up houses, since most have not had time to save that huge chunk of money.  Additionally, since appreciation and equity in homes is erroding, the traditional method of getting money from your home sale to buy a move-up home is becoming much more difficult.

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June 5, 2008 by Donna Anderson.

Many people call me to ask what are the present Foothills list prices.  My websites:  www.DonnaAnderson.com, www.TucsonHomesite.com  and www.CatalinaFoothillsHomes.com shows what homes are for sale.  It is also broken down into the most popular Foothills communities, gated or non-gated; pool or no pool, etc. It has tons of information - take a look see!

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