I know that I have blogged about this before. I spoke to the salesrep at the builder.

I asked how long the price was good for, as I have possible buyers out of the state. She explained to me that prices are usually reviewed at their weekly sales meeting. They are not having one this week, but they are next week.

She said that prices will probably stay the same until the 3rd of Jan. Nothing is for guarenteed, as pricing decisions are made well above salesperson level.

Please, please, please,

If you are considering a home in the area, you need more on this newbuild. I have been scouting the Maricopa Real Estate market for 2 years now, and this is by far the best deal in those 2 years.

Up until now, the least expensive home was 1047sqft, starting at $99,000. That price DIDNOT include 9' ceilings, seperate tub & shower, covered patio, recessed can lighting.

The $105,900, 1600sqft does include all of those. Here is what it looks like.

Have a safe holiday!

Brand new. Now we have 2 sweet deals.

Builder decreased their prices. The difference between the 2 sweetest deals is that in these homes, the builder is including tile flooring in all wet areas and 1" mini blinds.

The  1434sqft home starts at 115k AND the builder will pay closing costs! Community amenities include 2 pools, lake, tennis, basketball, softball and much more. This builder DOES NOT allow investors or even 2nd home owners!

Build time is 4-5 months. Here is what a completed one looks like!

The land purchase fell through.

They are taking contracts for new builds. These are the best deals in town. Bar none.

$105,900

Which are the best? Call me for the latest! 800.207.6919 

For the past year, DRHorton has been selling homes with incentives.

For example base price of 1047sqft home was $151,900. They were offering a $40,000 incentive. Price client pays $111,900.

As of 12/15, DRH drastically lowered their base prices, and they are now offering a 3% discount on the price

Same home this month: $115,900 base minus 3%= $112,500

Same home, pretty much same price. Just playing with the numbers.

Yes, Santa is soon, but so is....

The final proposal will be voted on Mid-month!

The restaurant is set to be on 347 near Edison (just South of Basha's on the same side of the road! By the way this McDonalds is supposed to have a play area in it! 

Lennar homes is selling some model home furniture this weekend in Goodyear!

When: Friday, December 14th • 12pm - 7pm Saturday, December 15th • 8 am - 12pm Where: Vision at Pam Valley 16005 W. Glenrosa Avenue Goodyear, AZ 85395
800-864-1058
Copyright (c) 2007 Lennar Corporation. Lennar, the Lennar logo and the Crystal Home are registered service marks or service marks of Lennar Corporation and/or its subsidiaries. Sales by Lennar Sales Corp. US Home of Arizona Construction Company ROC#65983, Greystone Homes, Inc. ROC #110607, Greystone Construction, Inc. ROC# 123081, Lennar Arizona Construction, Inc. ROC# 228129, Lennar Arizona Inc. dba Lennar Homes ROC #232731. 12/07

Last 4 weeks Morrison was the place to buy. With their parcel sell out, the builder lowered their prices considerably.

Where will the deals be now? Stay tuned later in the week.

Apparently Lennar sold 11,000 lots across the US. I haven't been able to confirm if any of the lots were from the Phoenix/Maricopa market.

Also, Standard Pacific in Maricopa (subdivision of Glennwilde) sold the majority of their lots also.

What does this mean? Clearly, these, if not all the builders have ceased making a profit in this market. This will reduce the number of spec homes and make less competition for new home buyer and  resale sellers!

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS

November 2007

Spec Home vs. Resale Prices

This article offers an overview of the spec home list pricing trend and the resale sales price trend over the last couple of years. Contrasting these two trends provides valuable insight into pricing issues.

During most of this time period the median resale sales price has been basically flat, while for the past 12 months the spec home list price has been steadily falling.  It would be nice to look at both of these trends over the full time period, but unfortunately our source of spec pricing data is not available prior to June 2006.  However, the presentation of these 15 months of data does offer these valuable insights:

1. Spec list pricing has been falling for the last 12 months.

2. Spec list pricing is down about 15% in the last 12 months.

3. Resale sales price has fallen for the last three months.

4. Spec pricing began declining about nine months before resale pricing.

Spec Home versus Resale Home Price Performance

Resale Home Sales Price vs. Historical Norms

The source of the data for our spec pricing study is the specs that are listed in the Ultimate New Homes Database.  This is not an all inclusive list of specs, but is fairly representative of whole.  Some, but not all, of the spec pricing data includes some of the incentives being offered by the builders.  The source of the resale pricing data is ARMLS.

These statements above are facts.  The statements I am listing below are suppositions that I have made from these facts:

1. Spec new home pricing is leading the resale market by six to nine months.

2. There is a limit as to how far prices will fall.

3. Specs home pricing will reach that limit before resale home pricing.

4. Resale home prices will likely fall substantially more over the next six months.

4. The best economic time to buy is when home prices are nearing the lower limit.

5. Spec homes may be nearing that lower limit.

6. Because of pent up demand, pricing will likely rebound quickly once bottom is reached.

From my perspective, the bottom line is that now is a once in a lifetime opportunity to deal on specs.  For individuals open to considering a new spec home as a residence, don’t wait too long.  How many times have you heard, “If only I had acted?”  Don’t let this be one of those times for your clients.

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS

November 2007

Phoenix Area Real Estate Market in 2007 through 2009

What does the Phoenix Area Real Estate Market have in store for us in 2007, 2008, and 2009?  Hopefully, the material presented here will stimulate your thoughts in that area. 

The premise underlying this analytical approach is that there is a relatively constant long term real estate appreciation rate in a particular market, if you exclude outside influences acting upon that market.  Some examples of outside influences would be:

            1. A significant increase or decrease in interest rates

            2. A significant increase or decrease in the unemployment rate

            3. A significant change in the net population migration to that market

            4. A significant change in availability of credit

            5. A significant increase or decrease in investment buying

            6. A significant over or under building of new homes relative to the long term demand

When there is a significant, but temporary change in one of these variables, it impacts the short term appreciation rate but does not have a great impact on the long term rate unless it becomes a fundamental change, e.g. a significant increase in interest rates that remains in place for a number of years. 

Factors #1, #2 and #3 have been relatively constant since 2001. Variable #4 has been going through major turmoil for the last few months, and this is having substantial negative impact on short term home buying demand, which in turn is putting additional downward pressure on sales prices.  Item #5 spiked in 2004 and 2005, and the building industry responded to that increased short term demand by overbuilding (#6). 

Even though there has been huge exposure in the media about the “credit crunch”, I do not believe that factor #4 will have a major long term impact. Most of the changes being made in the mortgage process are to rectify unwise practices which became widespread in the real estate mania years of 2004 and 2005. 

Factors #5 and #6 raise the real question.  The building industry is making adjustments in their construction rate to compensate for the excess building that took place in 2004 and 2005.  In addition to the reduction in building rate, many builders have been using price incentives for most of 2006 and 2007 to draw more buyers.  More recently outright price reductions have been substantial.  How long will this inventory adjustment take?  That is the $64,000 question (probably more like $64,000,000 question)!

In an attempt to get more insight into the question of how long, we created the graph below which projects the historical median resale price appreciation rate in two ways:

            1. Equal to the rate of appreciation from January 2002 through February 2004 (4.2%)

            2. Equal to the rate of appreciation from January 2002 through February 2005 (12.2%)

The market will not return to a balanced state until the median price line moves back to near the normal appreciation.  When will that happen?  In the growing Phoenix metro market it may happen sooner than you think.  There has be a substantial move in the resale market in that direction over the last three months and the price of new spec homes has been coming down for the last twelve months (see our article  on Spec Home Pricing).   

If anyone would like a very comprensive report of the November Arizona Home sales data, please drop me an email at Brian@Maricopanewhomes.net

I subscribe to the info service and they ok'ed me to release the info to my blog readers. It is just an email I will forward you. I wont sell your email address and I won't even spam you!

Just let me know. The report is about 10 pages

Topics include:

Market Overview

Resale Sales Volume

Listing vs. Resale prices

Time-on market

New Homes 5-year picture

2007-2009 price projections 

Earlier this week Morrison Homes (recently Morrison Homes and Taylor Woodrow homes merged) sold approximately 200 of their lots in Maricopa to an investor.

Not normally big news except that Morrison has began building homes in the same parcels that were sold.

According to the investor, he plans to hold onto the lots for several years until the market turns, and will sell them back to a builder.

According to a source at Morrison, the homes were selling for a loss just to compete in Maricopa, and they would rather write off the land as a loss versus writing off land and homes.

For the past several weeks, Morrison had the best deals out there. Problem is.. they sold out all the remaining lots