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.

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.

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.

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!

There are not too many listings in the two prime foothills zip codes of 85750 and 85718; however, there are not many bonafide buyers out there either.  As a result, most realtors are now spending much of their time with buyers who are not really sure if they want to buy now, and they are not sure if they want to buy here or Scottsdate or Santa Fe, etc.  So if a house listed for sale gets 5 showings in one month, 4 are probably not motivated buyers and they are likely not to buy any house in the immediate future.  In a hot market most real estate agents would not spend  much time with these unmotivated buyers.  Since many of the homes stay on the market for over six months, more than a few Sellers are leaving the marketplace since they know in order to sell they have to sell their homes at a lower price than the last comparable home sold for and that house sold for less than the one before, etc. The good news about this situation is that there has been too much supply and way too little demand, so those Sellers who vacate the market are doing a big favor to those who most relocate and must sell their homes. In most price ranges, only the “real plums” are selling and they better be priced aggressively. The one exception to this is the price range between 1.4 million and 2 million; this price range seems to have picked up lately with more than a few homes getting multiple offers.  Since inventory is dropping, 2008 should be the bottom  as far as prices for the Foothills. I doubt that the prices will go up in 2009, however. My guess is the market will move sideways.  The buyers who are looking for great deals ought to get off their duffs now, because there truly will be even less to choose from soon and the only good news is prices for buyers  will not be going up for at least a year and probably longer.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely to lower the downpayment requirements in Tucson. Currently the minimum downpayment requirement for Tucson is 10%. That is likely to change to 5% downpayment with an effective date of June 1st.  Fannie and Freddie got a lot of criticism from the National Association of Realtors for chosing some areas as “declining” and therefore increasing the downpayment requirements. As a result, many realtors felt Fannie and Freddie were stigmatizing certain localities and leading to further downturns and problems in the local real estate markets that it noted were “declining”.  This should help homes that are listed for sale that are up to $438,000-where if one has excellent credit, excellent work history, etc, one can purchase a home with as little as 5% down.  Unfortunately this will not help  local purchasers who need jumbo mortgages (those over 417K). At the present time most lenders require a minimum of 15% down even with excellent credit scores.  If you would like me to refer you to an excellent mortgage consultant, give me a call at 520-918-2410.

I will be holding open this Sunday (May 4) from 1-4 PM  my listing in Sabino Mountain at 4134 N Boulder Canyon Place (range priced from 825K-875K). To see more details about this gorgeous home located in the Foothills premier gated community of Sabino Mountain go to my website at www.DonnaAnderson.com to the bottom of the first page–you will see photos, features and a floorplan. Hope to see you there; call me at 603-8622 to get the gate code.

Luxury Hotel rates drop on April 15th in Tucson. Try these hotels to get you started in your love affair with the beauty of the Sonoran Desert:  Westin LaPaloma, Hilton El Conquistor, Ventana Canyon Resort,  and the Star Pass Marriott.  And if you can spend the big bucks go to Canyon Ranch where rates will continue to drop through the Summer months. 

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It is apparent that the price range between $500,000 and $ 1 million is very soft in 2008. In fact, the number of sales has declined about 20% over the same period last year.  There are many reasons for this: Jumbo loans (those over 417K) are at least 1% higher than conforming loans (those under 417K); in the present tight mortgage market the minimun jumbo loan downpayment  has gone up to 15%; the self-employed who were used to low or no documentation loans in the past, now must give full documentation to get financing even when putting 20% or more down.   And perhaps the most important factors are:  those who can afford homes in this price range are tightening their belts since recession is either here or on the horizon, and there are those buyers that are still waiting for the perceived bottom of the market– they think it has not hit yet and are playing a wait- and- see game. 

However, homes priced lower than $500,000 are faring better.  FHA financing is becoming very popular with loan limits at $316,250 for Pima County; therefore, one can buy a home for approximately $326,000 and only put 3% down and credit scores do not have to be as high as those required for conventional financing.  Also up to approximately $460,000  home sales price, one does not have to pay the higher interest rate of a jumbo loan and one does not have to put down 15%–the minimum requirement is 10% for conforming conventional loans. 

This is a stressful time for Sellers, yet opportunity knocks for those motivated buyers out there.