Betsie Melter's Real Estate Blog: November 2009

Well, according to an article in the Arizona Realtor Magazine, it might possibly be so. I know I think it is! But seriously, we do have two things going for us: Affordability and Weather (it is going to be 79 degrees today :) ) The average price for a 1900 sq. foot home is $170,899. According to Tom Ruff, 83% of all household incomes can afford that. That is excellent news for our real estate market! We have 88, 484 homes that have sold year to date. We only had 56,420 sell in all of 2008! Foreclosures are down and the active trustee notices should peak this quarter. The market is recovering.

Our appreciation this month is -15% compared to this time last year. But on the bright side we were at       -18.4% last month so it is showing signs of slight appreciation. These are all clues that now is the time to buy. I think we will see stable prices for 6 months to a year, but then we will increase and buyers will say "why didn't I buy last year?"

If you want any information on different areas of Phoenix Metro, please feel free to contact me or visit me at www.betsiemelter.com

Numbers and statistics provided by The Cromford Report www.cromfordreport.com

Sometimes I think we forget the importance of walk thru's in our business. We know that it is a formality to do one before closing escrow, but do we do them just because it is on our checklist, or do we actually take our repair list and go through the house to make sure the repairs were made?

Most of the time, buyers are excited about getting their keys and making all of the arrangements with the movers and turning utilities on, but do we really do a thorough job at the walk thru? The most important thing to keep in mind is that we are not looking for new problems, but we do need to make sure that the main items work (a/c, heater, plumbing etc) and that nothing is considerably different than when the offer was accepted. Walking through the house and turning on the water, flushing the toilets, turning the a/c on to see if it is blowing cool air, opening and closing the garage door are all tasks that should be done at a walk through to make sure the buyers are moving into a livable house.

If repairs were part of the negotiations, then we need to check to make sure they were completed. There are a few ways that the buyer's can be sure that the repairs were made. First, they can get copies of the receipts that show the repairs were made by a licensed contractor. Secondly, if the repairs are harder to notice than just by looking at them, then they can have their inspector come back to the house and re-inspect to make sure the repairs were, in fact done.

It is also important to make sure that the items that are supposed to stay with the house have remained inside for example refrigerator, washer, dryer etc.

I think walk thru's are more important in today's market then in the past because of all of the the vacant foreclosed homes. Vandalism has become very prevalent. It is a smart move to swing by the house one last time just a few hours before recordation to make sure there have been no break ins and the house is still in one piece with nothing missing or broken.

Well, unfortunately, I found out the hard way yesterday that getting an FHA loan on a manufactured home wasn't going to be easy. I knew there were stipulations, but the lender never disclosed or announced to my buyer or myself that there may be an engineering certification of the foundation that needs to be approved by FHA. What is that you might ask? That is what I said too (especially since we were supposed to get docs yesterday). Apparantly an engineer must inspect the foundation and certify that it is correctly attached to the ground in order for FHA to approve the loan. OK, so that is my first hurdle that I am working on today.

Secondly, just found out yesterday that most banks have pulled loans on manufactured homes, period. OK, so now what? We are looking for banks that will do a loan on a manufactured home that is located in a 55+ community. Any suggestions?