Tucson For-Sale Inventory ‘Continues To Grow’
The Arizona Daily Star has this update on Tucson. “The median home price in Tucson decreased by 4 percent to $218,000 last month from $227,000 in February. After frenzied sales and month-to-month price increases of $5,000 in the first half of last year, the median price appeared to stabilize at or just below the $220,000 mark.”
“The figures point to a steadier market, said Paul Olson, president of the MLS. ‘We’re seeing a really healthy market right now,’ Olson said. ‘I do know our listing inventory continues to grow and even though that is happening, our market time has been stable for three months.’”
“Last year, houses sold the same day they were listed on market, sometimes within a couple of hours of being listed. The number of homes for sale jumped to 7,577 last month from 3,493 last March, a 117 percent increase.”
And the Arizona Republic. “A Las Vegas developer with plans to build more than 20,000 homes outside Kingman has claimed the water needed for his project, leaving a shrunken supply for another builder with even bigger plans.”
“The state’s finding allows Mardian, in effect, to reserve the water he needs, removing it from the pool available for other projects. That could affect a pending application for water by Jim Rhodes, another Las Vegas builder who has outlined plans to build about 130,000 homes in northwest Mohave County.”
“At stake is a potentially lucrative piece of the southern Nevada housing market. Both developers plan to sell their subdivisions as affordable bedroom communities for workers in the Las Vegas area, which will be more easily accessible when a bridge bypassing Hoover Dam is finished in 2008.”
Perhaps readers from Tucson and Kingman can give us a local viewpoint. If there isn’t enough water for the hundreds of thousands of homes developers would like to build, why is the land being priced at residential levels?
And they call it a healthy market. These guys should quit selling real estate and start selling the hallucinogens they are currently imbibing.
Unfortunately, these developers are what has increased Kingman prices to ridiculous levels.
Land prices have gone up 20 to 30 times from the prices of 1-1/2 to 2 years ago. Acreage in Golden Valley that was under 1000 an acre is now as much as 50000 an acre. Most of this land has no utilities available and some are totally inaccessable without a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Unbelievably, they are selling for these prices and ads for Golden Valley say that these investments will double or triple within 1 year.
Acre lots in Kingman city limits that were 20-30,000, less than 2 years ago, are now as much as 250,000. The houses that were previous built on these lots sold for under 200,000. Now they are building houses in the 500,000 and up range because of the land prices.
This is a link I saved from last fall about the land “shortage”.
http://kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=18&ArticleID=8398
Kingman..it’s a truck stop in the desert! It will be years before they recover from this avalanche of spending. Waht is the price of Alfalpha these days? The best I can offer about Kingman is they have gas stations and a Cracker Barrell, and I almost forgot I remember a KMARTand a small (very small) landing strip with a wind sock on a pole ..Well that’s your basic Saturday night entertainmment.. $80,000 an acre? WOW! and I thought ” (Insp) was once over priced!
Todo we’re not in Kansas anymore!
ben, i think that here in kingman every seller has a price that the buyers wont pay. so its a stalemate betwen buyer and seller. 1 acre lots in golden valley sold 2 years ago for $18,000 and they are asking $80,000 now. thats with out water. they water haul to a lot of propertys.every time i go to walmart the parking lot has several pickup trucks with water tanks in the back. so i guess every time they go to town they fill up with water. the sellers think that the californians are comming with all that home equity, i am one of those californians ,renting, waiting for a bottom.
any tucson locals here? big favor. drive by these lots and tell me what’s going on. construction? for sale signs? they belong to a flipper who i’m not too fond of.
1252 N CALLE RINCONADO PC
1256
1258
Are you sure it’s correct addres ?
I could’t find directions to
1252 N CALLE RINCONADO PC
It’s in Vail, not Tucson proper. The flipper might not have seen the properties & got duped. I think that area has manuf homes & trailers. Not sure that trailres or manuf homes EVER made for suitable flip material.
I understand they are planning to build a new super Malls of America type mall in Vail. This is from one of my building contractor friends and from my ex-wife who owns property in Vail. Sorry but this is just on heresay.
The image is probably 2-3 years old, but if you want a satellite view of the lots, try maps.google.com and type in “1252 N CALLE RINCONADO, vail, az”.
jimmy carter’s economist thought upsate NY would boom cause of all the water
wow, was he wrong
Not to mention the natural gas wells. Opinion - upstate NY is dragged down by property taxes. Also, they are not represented well as NYC dwarfs them in population.
OT, but the 30yr T-bond yield has reverted by 50bps or so since BB took over at the Fed (six long weeks ago!), back to 8/04 levels. Another 50bps increase will bring the long-bond yield back to mid-2002, at which point fundamental considerations suggest housing prices should also drop back to 2002 levels, given the tight connection between T-bond yields and mortgage interest rates.
GetStucco, agreed but would add “drop back to 2002 levels adjusted for rental inflation”.
GeStucco….I luve your work Babe, but in Tokyo - 1% didn’t bring back prices after the manic top was placed! In the mortgage markets OLD levels of support versus interest rates have been “scorched” with the 18 months of 1% Fed Funds rate, ARMS, 0 down, negative AMs. and FRAUD of the last 24 monhts, ……
It will be a long time before interest rates are the primary causal effect on home prices from here on in!!!…………..
Both developers plan to sell their subdivisions as affordable bedroom communities for workers in the Las Vegas area, which will be more easily accessible when a bridge bypassing Hoover Dam is finished in 2008.”
And It will be a good time to buy there when monkeys fly out of my ass!
Kingman is way, way too far out. They aren’t even going to sell the houses at very low prices, relative to Vegas. Even if they built all these houses, the drive to Vegas would be horrendous, the traffic unbearable. I don’t believe these homes will ever be built. Remember the great Vegas condo craze? All gone now.
Agreed, and it is a sign of a true mania when a developer can look lenders/public officials in the face and say they want to build 130,000 houses out there.
Ah good, I don’t have Alzheimers yet :).
Sorry; as an Australian I have driven through Kingman exactly twice, when I was in the US on holidays in early 2001. The second time I was heading from Flagstaff to the Hoover Dam and then Las Vegas to do touristy stuff.
My memory was that it was over an hour’s drive from Kingman to the Hoover dam, and another 45 minutes or so to the centre of Las Vegas. When I started reading about bedroom communities for Las Vegas, I was wondering about my memory going.
Kingman is a bedroom community to Las Vegas…oh that is funny!
Then Bakersfield is a bedroom Community to LAX!
The report from Tucson:
Estimated inventory is 8103, up from 7727 on March 13. (Typical is 4000-5000)
The “Carlsbad Jim” Ratio is 3.827. It has been channeling between 3.8 and 4.0 for the last month.
Today’s high temperature will be 96. Yesterday I switched the central air from “heat” to “cool”, signifying the beginning of 5-6 months of heat, a time when it is too hot to attend open houses.
All that is true… but strangely given all of the bad RE publicity & negatve sentiment, in the past month, I’ve noticed in my neighborhood A LOT of SOLD signs. A flipper property that sat 7-8mos among many others? I am seeing new signs going up to take their place and summer is coming fast… that’s not typically peak selling time.
I think the dead cat bounce just passed….
YES YES…if a may use a stock market analogy!
there came a wave of sellers, that overwelmed the large standing buy orders and the maket fell immediately to the next support level until the sellers overwlemed those resting buy orders and it fell again, until it found support against the 20 year tend line, but no reilef bounce occurred, thank God the final bell rang! But what will Monday bring?
Someone on a earlier post called it a “24/7″ pizza oven….
Naaa, that’s PHX. Tucson’s cooler in the summer and in normal years there are spectacular T’Storms in the summer afternoons that drop the temps into the low 80s. PHX stays above 105. Not saying that it’s cool in Tucson but I’ve lived in PHX - consistently much hotter in Jul Aug & Sep.
Yea love those thunderstorms. Nothing like watching one of those roll over the mountains in to town.
Can’t wait. I always look forward to it. It’s my favorite time of year. Trouble is, the monsoons have been a no-show for quite a while. Last good season I remember was in 1999.
I agree, Tucson is just flat out hot during july and august. Maricopa County (Phx) on the other hand should be refered to as hell during july and august.
chicote, What does the ratio mean? Months on the market? Thanks for any info as I don’t know “Carlsbad Jim’s” thing.
http://www.bubbleinfo.com/statistics-2006/2006/1/16/the-jim-ratio.html
Great! Thank you you very much.
Holy hot water, batman. You have the heat turned on just below 96? Man, those AZ dudes make me feel wimpy.
phoenix zip today 42,404. how we doin’ oc?
Jim - are those the monkeys from the Wizard of Oz? At least they have wings.
Kingman a bedroom community of Las Vegas? Surely, that is a joke. And please don’t call me Shirley. Someone was smoking something funny. Are all the baby boomers going to park FEMA trailers in the desert when their ARM HELOC resets and the Hummer is repo’d? LOL
Google maps shows Kingman as being 100 miles from Las Vegas. How can developers possibly market Kingman as a bedroom community of LV? That’s a lot of road to cover twice a day, even if the posted speed limit is 75 mph(?) What am I missing here?
$3.00+ a gallon gas should help. Oops, scratch that.
Maybe solar powered cars…
Yea, there’ll be enough sun and heat to power them
It’s 100 miles from the city limits, the speed limit is 70 ( although most drive faster). It takes 1-1/2 to 2 hours now, from the city limits. Because of the way Kingman is built, it can take 30 minutes or more to actually get to the city limits. The realtors and builders insist that all the Las Vegas speculators are actually going to live here once the bridge is in. Right now they are just busy doubling the house prices and flipping to each other. The bridge only adds maybe 15-20 minutes to your trip.
from kingman it takes me 2 hours to drive to vegas, on a good day when there is no traffic. some times with traffic on the dam its 3 hours. i work in laughlin nv,towelboy at the ladies sauna !!!! and it takes me 45 min to drive to work.
cereal,
Those addresses are in Vail, 25 miles from downtown Tucson.
is that out in the stix?
There are no stix in tucson. A better way to ask that question is just how deep in the desert is that and how many miles is it too a drinkable water source. 25 miles from downtown in any direction is smack dab in the middle of nowhere.
I might be showing Aussie ignorance here, but I always thought Vail was some high-end ski town.
Or is there more than one Vail in the South-West :)?
When Kingman is a suburb of Las Vegas is when Needles is a suburb of Los Angeles. When a elephant flies in the circus (excluding Dumbo).
No joke, I own a small piece of land on the way to Needles…it should actually be worth something about the same time that the entire surface of the Earth is covered with buildings (like Asimov’s ‘Trantor’). Very beautiful in spring, though, and trilobite fossils can be found nearby…
DC bubble believes that DC is somewhat insulated from a sharp downturn in the housing market. Like other regions of the country DC experienced a quick, emotionally exubarant, price rise.
But unlike other areas, DC has undergone a major tranformation in the past five years. Many parts of the city are reviving. There are new drivers downtown — Verizon Center (aka MCI Center), baseball stadium, retail and movie theaters opening downtown etc.
http://www.dcbubble.blogspot.com
broken record?
“no bubble in dc” (skip), “no bubble in dc” (skip), “no bubble in dc” (skip)…
Two words: dirty bomb. Watch it crater…
Bubble-mentality leads to “revitalization” ask any dot con area.
And maybe if you tell yourself that enough times, you’ll fall over in a dead faint and won’t have to face the truth anymore.
Are you just trying to get a rise out of the bubbleheads? Wait to see what happens when (IF) the budget cuts begin to hit. The former slums will revert back to slums - Business as usual in the crackhouses and $15/hr motels…
Bob Dole! is that you????
if all take the time to read what i posted you will see that i acknowledged prices in dc have and will come down.
part of the rise tho in DC, not the suburbs, is that dc has undergone a major revitalization crime is way down, more retail and entertainment and a greater interest in urban living.
Not to “burst your bubble”, but I don’t care enough to read what you posted, or to click on your link, because you CONSTANTLY post a link here in an effort to direct traffic to your blog, which is annoying.
sorry my signature offends you. at least im not writing LMAO.
many yesterday asked why doesn’t dcbubble respond to our criticisms. im responding.
That greater interest in urban living by people likely to pay taxes will wane and then vanish as the crackdealers move back in and reclaim their territory, complete with new Viking ranges and granite countertops…
yeah but think of those long lines of powder they can razor-blade on nice granite counters
D.C. D.C. isn’t that where even the Mayor is/was a crackhead.
D.C. is always listed in the top 10 most dangerous cities.
I walked on K street today and saw a burglary taking place; cops had their guns drawn.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6555449/
All of these great things have one thing in common - LOW WAGE SERVICE JOBS!
How much does it cost to own…how much does it cost to rent? Do the math and you can easily see if it’s a bubble. If the prices are more than 200 times the monthly rental then by historical standards the price is high. Below 100 times, it’s a bargan.
SPAM - Ben this is SPAM
DC bubble believes that DC is somewhat insulated from a sharp downturn in the housing market. Like other regions of the country DC experienced a quick, emotionally exubarant, price rise…But unlike other areas, DC has undergone a major tranformation in the past five years. Many parts of the city are reviving.
DC Bubble is either 1) a crack baby; or 2) A Real Estate Tout running a false-flag operation on a site that is far more popular and influential than those regurgitating NAR propaganda.
I’ve been to DC. Trust me, the “revitalization” is an ice-thin veneer over a fundamentally dysfunctional city run by criminals and incompetents (I give you Exhibit A, Marion Barry). There “crime numbers” are cooked as well, and even the most expensive downtown D.C. neighborhoods are not immune to the depredations of street thugs. And don’t even THINK about putting your child in the DC public school system.
Gold set to pass $850/oz
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={F3D1E4C3-2FF4-49F0-A96E-472D5A2DA0EF}&siteid=mktw&dist=
BB may realize that double digit funds rate is reqd. Anybody bold enough to make calls of 100point fed funds increases next year, instead of rate cuts….
I wonder if that turns the italics off.
They have already overbuilt the towns 40 miles west of Kingman. See Article: http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2006/03/18/news/top_story/top1.txt
Bullhead City and the surrounding communities are already bubbleicious with growing inventories that are 25-40 % over priced.
Golden valley used to be considered the affordable community for the Laughlin casino workers…that is, till the prices of a single wide on a “dry lot” sky rocketed above 30K. These workers can’t hardly afford a bicycle let alone a trailer anymore. now it’s all speculation there.
I remember seeing an add in the kingman daily miner from a used car dealership that offered a free 10 speed bike with every vehicle because you we’re expected to break down. (it was much safer than hitch hiking)
That area has got to be the food stamp capital of AZ.
It’s worse than that. There are 140 mobiles listed on Realtor.com in Golden Valley and only 26 are under 104,900. The cheapest two are both 49,900, both with mobiles from the 70’s. There are 57 stick-built houses. Only 3 are under 150,000 and 36 are under 200,000. There is no where for the average families.
CNBC, Closing Bell 4/13/06, Ron Insana basically just briefed all the negative numbers such as home sales down, prices going down, ARMs resetting without mixing words at all. I thought he was bulling on the housing market up until now?
Running out of land near Vegas……sort of:
Apr. 13, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Drive to sell land begins
Boulder City man launches campaign
By HENRY BREAN
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Sherman Rattner strode into Boulder City Hall a few minutes before closing time Wednesday and officially launched his campaign to turn everyone in town into a millionaire.
Already, though, city and state officials are predicting a swift death for Rattner’s get-rich-quick scheme.
The idea involves selling off 107,000 acres of vacant city land in Eldorado Valley to developers and dividing the proceeds among every resident, young and old.
oh, for pete’s sake. Kingman??? I can’t even sputter a response, although I hope those developers realize that the Golden Valley area is meth lab central.
Tucson (according to my realtor friend there, who will tell me the truth) is floundering like a lizard that fell into a Shasta pool. Typical of everywhere in AZ. Soaring inventory. Statewide. Period.
You guys…pay attention!!!! Arizona, statewide, is in a WORLD OF HURT. I can’t tell you the level of panic I’m hearing from people trying to sell and they aren’t even the flippers…! There are many, many, many who bought 2 years ago, waited until the capital gain thingy passed and now they want to cash out to fund their early retirements/new careers/new home in Taos. They bought high, just about at the peak….there is shock, awe, and some brewing anger out here in AZ….I can’t stress enough the readers here, this situation is going to heat up to epic…ness.
And…we are in worse….drought….ever.
Hey Catherine
My golfer friend with the house in Cave Creek has given up her FSBO and listed the house for 419K. I checked and she bought it in 2001 for 190K. She was the one who bragged about how much her house was worth everytime we played golf. The houses still sell in a couple of days - they just don’t take down the signs. She bought a Toll Brothers Condo and it should be complete pretty soon. The price of her house has come down 10K to 409K but still not selling. How can I find out how long it has been on the market? The MLS is 2488530
I agree with you KINGMAN! you got to be kidding.
Per ziprealty, on the market 34 days. 1700 sq ft, $409,900. She’s dreaming if she thinks it’ll sell at that price.
This person is in complete denial. I don’t particularly like her so I have been keeping my mouth shut or saying stuff like I’m sure you will get you price, Cave Creek is such a nice area. I hope she ends up with two mortgages and has to follow the market down in price. Unless she has taken out equity she should have plenty of room to drop her price but, I don’t think she will.
What about Prescott, AZ?
Catherine,
Is it fair to assume you are a realtor? Curious how you happen to have your ear so close to the ground…
Train wreck.
Now averaging 90-100 new listings per day….(this number has jumped significantly in the last two weeks…before it was a steady climb)
Population about 150,000 - 200,000, maybe 225,000 including rural outlying areas. Consider THAT math.
Seeing some slight price reductions/some significant…
Lots of escrows falling out due to contingencies not met…ie..that swell home in CA didn’t sell so that they could buy the mini-ranch out here.
It’s amazin’.
I am another addicted to this forum. THANKS Ben!
I am a native of Tucson and am moving back in May. I currently live in the God forsaken state of Florida. Actually Vail isn’t a bad area. The desert out that way is pretty lush and hilly, with the Rincon mountains as a backdrop. There is plenty of shopping nearby and even an NHRA sanctioned dragstrip. I’d have to guess that most of the population in the area is supported by one of the area’s largest employers, Raytheon, who operates a very large manufacturing plantsite south of Tucson. Raytheon, if I had to guess employs 11,000 people. Being that they are a Govt contractor, business tends to follow a 7-10 year bathtub of up and down employment levels. I was employed there for 11 years back in the 80’s-90’s. The company has been smoking hot for the past 8 years or so and so I can see the possibility of cutbacks in the future. Not to be a doomsayer, but that’s the history. Additionally Davis Monthan AFB is in Tucson and has been on the base closing list several times. If any major reductions in force take place at either location, people will be packing up and leaving, leaving the guy who is printing all those FOR SALE signs a rich man.
Sorry to ruin your memories, but there’s nothing “lush” in AZ right now and hasn’t been for the past 4-5 years of the drought…there was a wet winter last year, which really helped, but the outlook is quite dismal. Something drove the Hohokam Indians out of the desert areas (currently being developed into golf courses and park-like sub-divisions) centuries ago, and it wasn’t dinosaurs!
Look for price hikes on city supplied water (to all cities) and water restrictions….and AZ Dept of Water will start to clamp down on well drilling by private landowners, and make the whole state under one active management area.
Really…a housing bubble is just part of problem.
Hey Catherine: What are you hearing about Flag and Sedona/Oak Creek Canyon? Are they getting real on prices yet? I get a newsletter every month from a realtor there in Sedona and the guy seems like he’s on crack. He still proclaims it a seller’s market.
Crack for everyone!
It’s still a stand-off between buyers/sellers, and while I don’t have the exact numbers on Flag/Sedona…that inventory is rising just like other areas…it’s High Noon at the Ok Corral…I think the shooting will start this summer…people still think spring is magic time, and are waiting for those buyers from California with their bags of money.
Bummer to hear that Catherine. I have been away for about 6 years. I do recall them closing Mt. Lemmon and had all the parking spaces blocked due to fire danger. I used to go cycling in the area out by Vail/Collosal Cave and in the National Monument east. Bummer to think of the area as parched.
Bummer they closed Mt. Lemmon not cool. I used to cycle that same area man that was a nice ride. Haven’t been back to Tucson in years tho last time I drove thru a few years back seemed like they had developed a lot since I had been there
Definitely not as lush now but still pretty around the monument. I ride out towards collosal cave most weekends, nice bike lanes now.
One thing for sure… You’ll have a lot to choose from if you decide to buy a home
i know a guy who bought 6 properties in tucson at the top. 3 lots in vail, 2 sfr’s and a 4-plex. he spent at least 150k on rehabbing and pulled $750k out of his santa monica property for initial purchases. monthly negative is about 4k i’m guessing. Total invested so far is 950k.
i watch 3 of his properties languish on the mLs daily.
he screwed me out of $200,000. this is poetic justice.
$5.00 fine to sammy for not closing italics
Can we do it? I tried with a less than slash i greater than but it didn’t work. I’ll try a slash em.
testing italics turn off
didn’t work
Yes, this is strange. I tried further up the thread, and my post vanished but some of the italics seemed to renormalise at the same time.
I can remember back around 1970 going over to visit Ted DeGraza in Tucson. I wanted my kids to see his place last summer and I had to get maps and still drove by it several times before I found it. In 1970 it was about the only thing out that way.
I will be driving through No AZ next week. WIll stop in Kingman .
What great info from Cathrine, AZ Bubble and others…I have such fond memories of Tucson…I played for the Cleveland Indians in the early 70’s so we trained @ Hi-Corbett field….Little sandwich shop on speedway I recall (eggie’s) ?…Drive’s up to Mt.Lemmon etc…Sorry to hear about the drought…
Kingman a commuter suburb for Las Vegas? Don’t make me laugh. The drive from Vegas to Kingman takes about two hours, with no traffic. Plus no one who works or owns a business in Vegas is going to want to live in Arizona, even if it is “right next door”…Arizona has much higher taxes than Nevada.