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Wow! What a Super Bowl. It doesn’t matter who you were pulling for, if you are a fan of football, that was a great game. It was also a great kickoff to the Terravita Super Season for 2017!

Newer readers to this blog may not realize that the end of the Super Bowl signals the beginning of what we call the “Terravita Super Season.” Historically this period, from now until the end of May, can represent up to 75% of Terravita’s sales for that year, making it the best time to sell or buy a home.

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR . . .

As my readers know, I strongly believe that who you chose to represent you can dramatically effect your results and experience. If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling, I would like to humbly ask that you allow us to tell you why we could be your best choice. My oldest son, Ryan, has just joined the team and he is hungry to get started helping buyers find their new homes. Please email or give me a call at 480-634-5000!

Let’s get out there and have a great Super Season!

I found a fascinating article on home staging with tips that I thought you might find interesting and possibly useful. Click here> Oscar Winning Home Staging.

I am a huge believer in staging homes for sale and we have an amazing professional to help us stage every we home we sell, to some degree. This is one of the reasons we can guarantee to sell your home above market value. It is imperative that every home look its absolute best, and staging helps dramatically. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. This is particularly true with the photos. The photos are our first showing, where people decide if they are going to visit our home or not. We stage our listings not just for showings, but to look its best for photos as well.

In fact, while we are on that topic, I thought you might get a kick out of this. We recently listed a home that, for a number of reasons, we could not stage with furniture. I have never been a fan of showing vacant homes with no furniture for lots of reasons, many of which are mentioned in the article above. I particulary wanted to have this home staged because it is a great room home. Most people have trouble picturing how to decorate a great room, which staging could help with. But again – in this case we could not do it.

Rather than leave it to the home buyer’s imagination, we decided to virtually stage the home. We hired a company to “photoshop” the furniture into the home. I think the results and attention to detail came out pretty cool. They even placed items on the tables and shelves!

Below are some before and after shots. They are a little small in this format, so if you would like to see them larger, here is the actual listing: Click here> MLS

Great Room Before and After

Great Room Before and After

Guest Suite Before and After

Patio Before and After

November 1, 2015 Terravita Market Update

Eight homes under contract – that’s a decent October for Terravita home sales.

It’s actually not what I was hoping for, but it is double what we had last year. And the weather back east is really not doing its part at all. Chicago is forecast to be 72 degrees on Wednesday! Are you kidding me? I was back there to play golf last Halloween and it snowed!!

The weather does play a small role in deciding how much demand we have, but the largest reason we are not seeing more sales is a lack of inventory. Or at least a lack of inventory in what the market is seeking. There are a number of pockets of the Terravita real estate market showing very strong demand right now, and it is very important for sellers – and agents – to know what those pockets are and how to market to them.

A good example of a hot pocket is what I call “the exceptional market.” These are the homes the public views as exceptional or extraordinary. But they only pay exceptional prices if we help them view these homes as exceptional and show they are worth the extra money.

The percentage of the people who are willing to pay the numbers these homes command is fairly small – maybe 5% of the total market. But Terravita’s inventory has been so low for so long on all homes in general, and on exceptional homes in particular, that there is now a good pent-up demand for them. The home I just sold this month on 70th (33707 N. 70th) is a great example of this because it sold at $875,000 which is just over $300 per square foot.

When the current seller bought this home 17 months ago, I had it listed and was disappointed that we could only get $740,000 for the purchase price. (By the way, the current seller told me that the reason he hired me to sell the home for him now was because I was such a pain in the butt on price when he bought it. He wanted somebody to be that tough for him!)

At the time he bought the home there was a good bit of inventory on the market and consequently we heard quite a few reasons that people were not willing to pay an exceptional price for it. None of these reasons made sense to me – but if I have learned anything over the years, it is that “the market is what the market is.”

When he called me in July to sell his home, due to the low inventory this time around I felt we had a much better chance of reaching the home’s real value: the exceptional value.

He had done some upgrading to the home and that was going to help. To stoke the pent-up demand, we decided to do some pre-marketing, add some social proof for recent exceptional sales, and wait for the cooler days of October to offer the home. When we put the home back on the market last month we quickly had multiple offers, and wound up with a full price offer, all cash and it closed in 2 weeks.

A note of caution, though – it is not just about pricing exceptional homes high and selling them. That will not work.

They have to be marketed properly. Really. A lot needs to be done to help the market understand that these extraordinary homes really are exceptional, and then persuade buyers to pay prices that no appraiser would ever put his blessing on.

On the other side of the coin, pricing a home that is not perceived to be in one of these high demand “hot pockets” as if it is one of those homes, is a formula for frustration. We have numerous examples of listings that we have taken over where this was the case. The homes were on the market for almost a year before the seller called us to take over the listing. In each case we went in and reshaped the marketing, then relisted at the same asking price and sold it within 30 days.

Marketing matters.

Whatever “pocket” your home fits into, my team will make sure to get you top dollar.

Here are the October 2015 Terravita Real Estate Market Statistics:

What Every Seller Should Know About Comps

Comps – or recent comparable sales – may be clear-cut to you but sellers may be confused about the comparisons.

The Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index recently showed that home owners’ estimates of their home’s price, on average, are 2 percent higher than those of appraisers.

“It may not seem like home owners assuming their home’s value is 2 percent higher than appraisers’ opinions is significant, but it could make a huge difference in metro areas with higher average home values,” says Bob Walters, Quicken Loans chief economist.

Sellers who are behind on knowing about the latest market moves are especially at risk of overvaluing their properties. Also, due to the latest market demand, comparables may need to be adjusted too. After all, comparable sales can stretch back one month to three months or more. But the seller may need to be educated about the market activity of what’s happening right now.

As such, Steffy Hristova of HomeSmart in Scottsdale, Ariz., says she helps sellers visualize the data and provide a more realistic picture of the comps by applying a formula that takes into account the latest marketing activity. For example, “I adjust the price according to the following schedules: If there are showings and no offers, 4 to 6 percent off; if there are low showings, 6 to 12 percent off; if there are drive-bys only, 12 or more percent off,” Hristova says.

Hristova says she reviews her regional MLS and The Cromford Report – a provider of residential real estate research in the Greater Phoenix Area. “I review statistics from the MLS daily and from available and reliable research sources, study the market dynamics in the neighborhoods, and in the substitute market for the object property, and review the demand and supply numbers for the ZIP code and neighborhood and the sales trends,” Hristova says.

Also besides taking note of square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, age of the property, and energy efficiency in the comparables, Hristova says she also talks to her sellers about potential negatives that could impact the price of their home – such as location within the neighborhood and proximity to noise.
Source: “What Every Seller Should Know About Comps,” RISMedia (Oct. 17, 2015)

BREAKING TERRAVITA NEWS

We dont know much yet, but I thought all of the out of towners would want to know that Terravita had a major fire last night. From the photo below, it looks like it is the addition to the Desert Pavilion. Click the photo below for the news story.

August 1, 2015 Terravita Mid Year Market Update

Terravita sales make remarkable comeback in mid-2015

In an extraordinary reversal from last year at this time, Terravita sales are up 40 percent by mid-year in 2015—even after foreign investors have turned away due to the strong U.S. dollar. Prices have continued to rise all along, and inventory remains low.

Terravita’s current success is part of a growing national real estate market with national numbers on existing homes sales at 8-year highs. Greater Phoenix statistics look even better, as our inventory is far lower than the national averages. Contributing to this is the fact that lenders are finally easing standards for obtaining mortgages, attracting more buyers to the market. And this year “Boomerang buyers” — people who lost their homes to foreclosure — will be eligible for credit again starting this year.

Buyers have another solid reason to purchase: Most experts predict interest rates are poised to rise significantly by the end of this year.

Given the healthy real estate market, motivated buyers, and Terravita’s very low inventory, this Fall may be a strong season to sell or buy a Terravita home.

Below are the Terravita Mid Year Statistics. Have questions? I’ll be happy to answer them at your convenience.

Here are the June 2015 Terravita Real Estate Market Statistics:

June 1, 2015 Terravita Market Update

Terravita Economics 101

Terravita had another very large sales month again in May. The average price has dropped temporarily, but that is just the market cleaning up some old listings. Homes that have been overpriced for a long time (one over 500 days!) have finally had the market catch up to their levels.

I hate to continue beating the same drum, but this is a very good market, and looks like it will be for a while.

Demand is very clearly back to normal, and beyond. Supply is very low and will likely get lower over the summer months. If you believe in the principles of supply and demand at all, that has to be good for prices: Increased demand + decreased supply = Increased prices.

As I mentioned in April’s month end blog, for the last few months, I have been counseling sellers to wait to list their homes until next fall because I believe prices will be much better. This morning we have just 20 active homes for sale in the Terravita MLS. Since my sellers will not be jumping into the summer sales pool, this supply number is not likely to move up dramatically.

What will be left for summer buyers will be leftover homes that have not sold through the best selling season Terravita has seen in a while. It could be a frustrating summer for buyers who waited hoping to get a great deal on a great home.

Terravita is not alone in this improved selling space:

Pending US home sales jump to strongest level in 9 years

Here are the May 2015 Terravita Real Estate Market Statistics: