The Catalina Foothills

in contract last week, 2/16 – 2/22

From Monday February 16th through Sunday February 22nd, 22 single family homes went to contract in the Catalina Foothills.

18 were priced from $225,000 to $575,000
4 from $615,000 to $659,000
0 for anything above $659

Meanwhile, there are 217 homes listed for sale above $659.

With fewer contracts at the upper-end and new listings still pouring in the inventory is piling up. See the Market Snapshot for the latest. But even the market snapshot figures, while true, are misleading.

For instance, for homes listed from $1.0 to $1,499,999 there were 3 sales in the last 30 days.
Good goin’ and absolutely true, there were.

But one was listed at $1million and closed at $925k, another was also listed at $1million and closed at $945k, and the 3rd little piggy was listed at $1,045,000 and closed at $1,005,000. So yes technically all three were listed between $1.0 & $1.499. But at the very bottom of that range and 2 of the 3 closed below the range.

The same is true for homes listed from $1.5 to $1.999. I show 2 sales because there were 2 sales.  But one was listed at $1.695 (after dropping from $2.1) and sold for $1,395,000. And the other was listed at $1.650 (after dropping from $3.150) and sold for $1,525,000.
So, again, at the very bottom or below the listed price range.

I suppose the solution is to narrow the price ranges and add more of them. But doing so makes for a more tedious and un-Snapshot-like look at the market.

The report for the previous week is HERE

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

not until the price is right

3524 E Windy Point Dr sold for $1,325,000 in 2005 and was listed for $1,250,000 in 2013 – just 5.7% below its 05 sale price - while in the real world, prices were closer to 22% lower than 05 prices.

So nice try, but no one took the bait. By September 2014 it dropped to $1,149,000 and still no go. So it was relisted with a new agent and new broker at a new price, $1,045,000, and BINGO!, 43 days later it was in contract and sold today for $1,005,000 – 24% off its 05 sale price.

And while that may be a bit lower than where prices are today vs 05, sitting on the market for 18 months does not usually increase a home’s value in the eyes of buyers.

3524 E Windy Point Dr,Tucson, AZ 85718
(listed by Michael Chaisson at Russ Lyon Sotheby's International Realty)

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

OMG

901 E Magee Road, a gorgeous Spanish Hacienda which sold for $3,200,000 in 2009, and had a bunch of upgrades and improvements since then, sold today for $1,525,000 ($209/sf). That hurts. The biggest steal I’ve seen in the Catalina Foothills. Bar none.

Previously mentioned HERE   HERE    HERE

And no kudos to me either, I figured it was goner when it got down to $2.3 - $2.4, someone would offer $1.9, maybe $2.0 and that would be that.

901 Magee Rd Tucson, AZ 85718
(listed by Long Realty)

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to find your Catalina Foothills Home

prices in your favorite Catalina Foothills subdivision

We’re talking median sold prices last year v. median list prices so far this year.

Useful, but pretty dry stuff. To liven things up a bit click any of the subdivision names to see all the homes currently listed for sale. All of them. And if the Status of a home shows as Active Contingent or Active CAPA, that indicates it has an accepted offer and is in contract. 

The median list prices shown are based on the homes listed at the time I pulled the data (2/14/15). As new homes are listed and others sell or leave the market the median list $$ will change and the amounts shown will no longer be accurate.

Area	# Homes Sold 2014	Med Sold $$ 2014	Median List $$ today
All foothills single family homes	774	$400,000	$615,000
Bellas Catalinas	1	$570,000	$649,000
Bonita Ridge	7	$427,500	$444,200
Catalina Fthls Est 10	11	$975,000	$1,100,000
Cobblestone	0	?	$1,185,000
Eleven Arches	1	$1,010,000	none for sale
Finisterra	3	$775,000	$862,500
Foothills ll	1	$1,043,000	$1,237,500
Hacienda del Sol	3	$790,000	$802,500
Pima Canyon	12	$1,260,000	$1,347,500
Pinnacle Ridge	3	$780,000	$764,000
Sabino Mountain	19	$440,000	$870,000
Sin Vacas	12	$623,000	$585,000
Canyons	2	$2,937,500	$2,750,000
** La Paloma (not including La P estates)	12	$549,950	$560,000
** La Paloma Estates	6	$825,000	$1,250,000
Skyline CC	15	$775,000	$950,000
** Ventana Cyn Golf villas	7	$377,000	$399,000
** Ventana CC	18	$819,000	$1,149,000
Alta Vista	13	$725,000	$781,500
Catalina Fthls Est 1-9	51	$535,000	$729,900
Cimarron	21	$515,000	$659,500
Cobo Catalina Hills	2	$1,022,163	$1,000,000
Coronado Foothills	13	$550,000	$739,000
Fairfield/Sunrise	27	$390,000	$540,000
Flecha Caida	18	$434,000	$519,750
Foothills Clusters	14	$304,500	$350,000
Las Alturas	7	$401,486	none for sale
Shadow Hills	23	$440,000	$594,500
Skyline Bel Air	14	$410,000	$449,950
Villages of Ventana	9	$340,000	$360,000

** One other caveat. In Ventana (Ventana Cyn Golf villas & Ventana CC) and in La Paloma (La Paloma & La Paloma Estates) each of the 2 searches in those subdivisions will return all the homes for sale in the entire subdivision, and not just those in, say, Ventana Golf villas.

 
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to find your Catalina Foothills Home

in contract last week, 2/9 – 2/15

From Monday February 9th through Sunday February 15th, 23 single family homes went to contract in the Catalina Foothills.

15 were priced from $139,900 to $550,000
8 from $600,000 to $949,000
And that’s it!

As always, homes priced up to about $600k had another stellar week, and also a big fat week for $600 to $999k, but bupkes above that.

Check out the Market Snapshot for a closer look at what’s happening (or not happening) in this prime time market that we’re in.

The report for the previous week is HERE

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

a classic Joesler, transformed

Built in 1950 by Josias Joesler, this classic mud adobe recently had a big facelift. It was opened up, renovated and remodeled to better suit today’s lifestyles.

Thick mud adobe walls, mortar chinked clay tile roof, 2,717 sf, now with 2 Beds/2 Baths, big new kitchen adjacent to a magnificent family room, new baths, new floors, doors, windows and much more. And the views, how about N, E, S and West.  $595,000 ($219/sf)

I think Joesler would have approved. He was an eclectic, combining the best of what had come before and reinterpreting it to suit the southwestern desert and to best serve his Tucson clients.

And the icing on the cake, a terrific video to help put it all together,

5261 N Placita Cresta Loma Place Tucson, AZ 85704 (link expires 3/21/15) 
(listed by Mike Rapp, Tierra Antigua Realty)

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

a swing and a miss

Previously mentioned HERE , 6500 N Saint Andrews Dr,Tucson, AZ 85718, the first home listed at $1.0mil+ to go to contract this year sold today for $945,000 ($228/sf) from a $1,000,000 list. And that was a hit. But Zestimated at  $838,310. the big Z whiffed it.

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

hey, all you Zillow fans

Zillow is not just online anymore, they’ve actually just published a book, right, a book with words printed on pages made of paper, 288 pages, about buying and selling real estate.

Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate

Also available on Amazon as a Kindle download,

Inman.com, a popular RE industry site reviews the book.

Why real estate professionals need to read ‘Zillow Talk’

(Inman is a subscriber site, so if the link doesn’t get you in just Google the title and click the inman review, and you should get right in)

 

I haven’t read it but I will.

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

a peek at the market in the NW, NE and the N

While my focus is on the Catalina Foothills it’s a good idea to keep an eye on how the market is doing in other areas, particularly in the NW and NE, which bear some resemblance to the foothills (the N) in terms of housing stock and their proximity to the foothills. And occasionally I find that buyers who are interested in the foothills would also like to have a look in the NW and NE before deciding where to settle down. 

So here’s a broad overview of all three markets. 
The table shows the number of Homes listed for sale and sold in the last 6 months from $0 to $999,999, and from $1,000,000 & up, with the resulting MOI (months of inventory) in each area.

Status & Price	NW	NE	N
# Homes listed up to $999,999	1,388	250	370
# Homes Sold	1,388	227	329
MOI	6	6.5	6.7
# Homes listed @ $1.0mil+	62	20	100
# Homes Sold	12	2	25
MOI	31	60	24

** 1388 for sale and sold in the NW is not a typo, it’s just a weird coincidence.

With approximately 6 months inventory for homes priced up to $999,999 - which is considered a normal, balanced market, and yes the NW is ahead by a nose - all three areas are in the ballpark and in that regard are doing reasonably well.

But from $1,000,000 & Up, with 31, 60 and 24 MOI, all three areas are in deep doo-doo, with the NE in the deepest.

And PS – of the two sales at $1.0+ in the NE, one of them was in Tucson Country Club, which, technically is in the NE but in reality is its own little oasis that bears little resemblance to the rest of the NE.

Also, note that homes listed at $1,000,000+ account for just 4+% of the inventory in the NW, 7+% in the NE, but 21+% in the N.   

And what about median list and sold prices. And how close to list price are homes selling. (for homes sold in the last 6 months, list prices shown are the median list price at the time of sale)

	NW	NE	N
Med List $$	$225,000	$275,000	$399,750
Med Sold $$	$218,068	$265,000	$388,500
% List $$/Sold $$	97%	96%	97%

Pretty hunkey dory, eh. You’d think. But those numbers are for the homes that sold.

What about the homes that are still for sale, what’s the difference in the median list price of the homes still for sale v. the median list price of the homes that sold.

	NW	NE	N
Med List homes still for sale	$293,000	$382,500	$605,000
Med List homes Sold	$225,000	$275,000	$399,750
% difference	- 26%	– 28%	–37%

So, not so hunky dory. And it's all about what is selling and what is not selling.
Homes listed up to approximately the median list price are selling very well, while those listed above the median are not.

For example; 1400 homes sold in the NW (1388 up to $999k + 12 at $1.0+). 1013 of those homes sold up to the median list of $293,000, and just 387 sold above $293,000.

And that’s across the board, with the widest gap right here in the foothills. Due, in part, to our larger inventory of upper-end homes, plus the overall higher prices of foothills homes.  

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

in contract last week, 2/2 – 2/8

From Monday February 2nd through Sunday February 8th, 30 single family homes went to contract in the Catalina Foothills - amongst the highest number of weekly contracts we’ve seen in many moons.

23 were priced from $209,900 to $550,000
5 from $699,900 to $999,900
1 each at $1,090,000 & $1,650,000

A very solid week for the market.

The report for the previous week is HERE

Meanwhile, there are;
233 homes still for sale priced up to $599,999
139 from $600,000 to $999,999
100 from $1,000,000 to $7,900,000

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

 

someone got a hell of a deal

Last November I mentioned a home in Cobo Catalina Hills that was listed almost two years ago for $3,150,000 and after its most recent price cut was down to $1,750,000. I called it ‘a hell of a deal’. Since then it dropped another $100 thou, to $1,650,000, and went to contract last week.

And the sellers, they paid $3,200,000 in 2009. 

This is a magnificent home, very special, gorgeous, unique, large (7,294 sf), Spanish Colonial, on 6 acres in Cobo Catalina Hills. But with all that and an upper end price, it’s a home with very few potential buyers. Even though you couldn’t buy the land and build half that house for $1,650,000.

But the sellers wanted to sell, and they did what they had to do to make it happen.

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

how’s the market doing

In a word, it looks like it’s improving.
On January 21st I reported that the number of new listings were outpacing the number of new contracts by a whopping 228%.

But since January 21st the market has found some balance and new listings are now outpacing new contracts by only 73%.

 

And how about the list price of those new listings vs.. new contracts;
On January 21st I also reported that new listings were priced 53% higher than new contracts.

But new listings since January 21st are priced just 32% higher than new contracts. All in all, signaling a market that is becoming more balanced, or, at least, less imbalanced. A dramatic narrowing of the gap from just a few weeks ago.

What changed? Everything.

On January 21st we were at the very beginning of our high season here in the Catalina Foothills, vs.. now, mid February, when we’re in the thick of it, and will continue to be for the next few months.

And the price of new listing dropped a bit, while the price of new contracts rose quite a bit in the last few weeks. 

And that’s all good news,

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

Zillow, love it or hate it …

On January 4th I once again wrote about Zillow and it’s Zestimates – checking in with Zillow – saying “Like it or not, more home buyers and sellers are checking out Zillow’s Zestimates to help them come up with the right price for homes in the Catalina Foothills” etc., etc., and concluded, or predicted, that “As their technology becomes even more capable, and their database of home sales grows ever larger, Zillow will continue to sharpen their game. And as more younger buyers and sellers get into the real estate market it’s inevitable that the popularity and usefulness of online valuations will mushroom”.

And, coincidentally, that turned out to be a very timely posting. I wasn’t aware of it at the time but Zillow was, and is, in the process of severing its relationship with ListHub . ListHub is a big syndicator of home listings for MLSs and real estate brokerages across the country.

ListHub gathers listings from hundreds of MLSs and brokerages and distributes them, according to the MLS instructions, to the various public websites, including Zillow, Trulia, HomeFinder.com, HOMES.com and many others. Very similar to what a newspaper syndicator does when it distributes columns, comic strips and such to other newspapers across the country and around the world.

And apparently the break in the relationship between Zillow and ListHub is going to happen this April when their contract is up. And of course there’s a big brou ha-ha in the RE industry over the outcome of that break. (little did I know until today)

Some are betting that it’ll make Zillow even more powerful, because Zillow will then make direct deals with MLSs and brokerages, while others are sure that Zillow will suffer as a result of it.

If Zillow is not able to swing direct deals with the MLS or brokerages in a particular area it will cease to exist as we know it in those areas. And that includes here in Tucson. And I wonder how consumers will feel if  Zillow.com is no longer available. Sellers listings will no longer appear on Zillow, but no more zestimates to contend with either. And buyers won’t be able to search for homes and see sold prices, zestimates and all the other fun and useful stuff that people love about Zillow.

It’s certainly true that there is more information available today to buyers and sellers. And some of it comes from real estate agents, real estate brokerages and maybe even from an MLS or two here and there across the country. But there’s also no doubt that when Zillow and other public sites appeared on the scene providing the kind of information that consumers wanted, but that had never before been available, that that’s what woke up the real estate industry that they’d better get off their butts and at least make an effort to appear as if they were better serving consumers.

Prior to Zillow and others the RE industry had no competition, hence, the status quo remained the status quo. And if nothing else you have to give Zillow credit for that. That is unless you’re in the ‘hate it’ camp, and don’t want consumers to have more information.

And given the coincidental timing, I have a nagging feeling that there may be a connection between the lapse in the Zillow contract and the sudden appearance here in Tucson of the new Data Distribution Guidelines  which further restricts the flow of information available to consumers.

Here’s a link to one persons opinion regarding the Zillow/ListHub split, which I more or less agree with.

Love it or hate it, Zillow is here to stay

Be sure to read the comments, they’re mostly from Realtors and very illuminating.

I invite your opinions, comments, corrections, and anything else you would like to throw at me.
But please keep it clean.

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to find your Catalina Foothills Home

in contract last week, 1/26 – 2/1

From Monday January 26th through Sunday February 1st, 21 single family homes went to contract in the Catalina Foothills.

15 were priced from $254,900 to $585,000
3 from $635,000 to $750,000
3 from $1,045,000 to $1,295,000

Another very good week for lower priced homes. And with 3 contracts, a decent showing for the middle market, but 3 contracts at the upper-end is rare, so an exceptional week at $1mil+.

Meanwhile, there are still plenty to choose from;
233 still for sale up to $599,999
140 from $600,000 to $999,999
96 from $1,000,000 to $7,900,000

Just pick your price range and with one click see all the homes listed for sale.

And for a snapshot of the current market in the Catalina Foothills click the Market Snapshot tab up above.

The report for the previous week is HERE

And if you are wondering why I haven’t posted a link to the 21 homes in contract (as I’ve always done in the past) click the Data Distribution tab at the top right of the page to find out..
Thank you for your continued support,
John Schneider

 

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to find your Catalina Foothills Home

Open Houses, Sunday Feb 8th

We’re in the thick of the selling season, it’s a beautiful day and there are plenty of homes for sale - so make a Realtor® happy and visit an open house.

Click > OPEN HOUSE LISTINGS and see all the open house listings from all Realtors® & brokers.

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to find your Catalina Foothills Home

quick contract

On January 24th (prior to the Tucson Association of Realtors® publishing their new Data Distribution Guidelines - which restricts the information Realtors® can provide to the masses) 
I mentioned a new listing in Pima Canyon, and now, just 13 days later, that house is in contract.

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

 

Arizona Daily Star disses Zillow

Today, In an article titled, The scoop on Zestimates, The Star, via an article from Kenneth R. Harney rips into the big Z.

When “CBS This Morning” co-host Norah O’Donnell asked the CEO of Zillow last week about the accuracy of the website’s automated property value estimates — known as Zestimates — she touched on one of the most sensitive perception gaps in American real estate.

Shoppers, sellers and buyers routinely quote Zestimates to real estate agents — and to one another — as gauges of market value. If a house for sale has a Zestimate of $350,000, a buyer might challenge the sellers’ list price of $425,000. Or a seller might demand to know from potential listing brokers why they say a property should sell for just $595,000 when Zillow has it at $685,000.

Disparities like these are daily occurrences and, in the words of one realty agent who posted on the industry blog ActiveRain, they are “the bane of my existence.” Consumers often take Zestimates “as gospel,” said Tim Freund, a California real estate agent. If either the buyer or the seller won’t budge off Zillow’s estimated value, he told me, “that will kill a deal.”

Back to the question posed by O’Donnell: Are Zestimates accurate? Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff answered that they’re “a good starting point” but that nationwide Zestimates have a “median error rate” of about 8 percent.

Whoa. That sounds high. On a $500,000 house, that would be a $40,000 disparity — a lot of money on the table — and could create problems. But here’s something Rascoff was not asked about: Localized median error rates on Zestimates sometimes far exceed the national median, which raises the odds that sellers and buyers will have conflicts over pricing. Though it’s not prominently featured on the website, at the bottom of Zillow’s home page in small type is the word “Zestimates.” This section provides helpful background information along with valuation error rates by state and county — some of which are stunners.

For example, in Somerset County, Maryland, the rate is an astounding 42 percent. In some rural counties in California, error rates range as high as 26 percent.

Some real estate agents have done their own studies of accuracy levels of Zillow in their local markets. Last July, Robert Earl, of Choice Homes Team in the Charlottesville, Virginia, area, examined selling prices and Zestimates of all 21 homes sold that month in the nearby community of Lake Monticello. On 17 sales Zillow overestimated values, including two houses that sold for 61 percent below the Zestimate. In Carlsbad, California, Jeff Dowler, of Solutions Real Estate, did a similar analysis on sales. In one zip code, he found that Zestimates came in below the selling price 70 percent of the time, with disparities ranging as high as $70,000.

In 25 percent of the sales, Zestimates were higher than the contract price. In 95 percent of the cases, he said, “Zestimates were wrong. That does not inspire a lot of confidence, at least not for me.”

So take Rascoff’s advice: Look at Zestimates as no more than starting points in pricing discussions with the real authorities on local real estate values — experienced agents and appraisers. Zestimates are hardly gospel — often far from it.
____________________________________________________________________________

Well, gosh, no kidding. But the Star didn’t have to go to Virginia and California to find that out. They could’ve, should’ve, and I wish they would’ve, looked right here in their own backyard. They could’ve asked me, I’ve been tracking Zillow’s Zestimates vs. real world prices for years.

HERE  1/21/2009

HERE   8/7/2009

HERE   8/12/2010

HERE   4/10/2011

HERE   8/10/2014 - when I noticed that zillow was showing some improvement in the accuracy of zestimates

HERE   1/4/2015 – where I predicted that Zillow is here to stay and will improve and become more credible.

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

these don’t come along everyday

In Catalina Foothills Estates 9, a classic burnt adobe territorial that’s been remodeled, with a new kitchen that’s wide open to the family room, new baths and more, plus gorgeous Catalina mountain views. 

Built 1978, .98 acres, 3306sf, 4 Beds/3 Baths, pool, 2 car garage,

There are plenty of burnt adobe territorials to pick from, but fairly few that have been so nicely remodeled.

It last sold in April 2005 for $700,000, and came on the market today, now asking $650,000 ($197/sf).

6820 N Solaz Primero Tucson, AZ 85718
(listed by Lynn Kline of Lynn Kline Realty)

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

uh-oh, here we go again

On numerous occasions recently I’ve pointed out that the supposed recovery of the real estate market, and, more specifically, home sales in the Catalina Foothills, remain lackluster.

And lackluster performance is not unique to us. Many areas across the country have experienced and continue to experience similar or worse conditions.

And just in time, in steps Realtor® Mag, the OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® to the rescue. And they have a long history of coming to the rescue with just the right advice at just the right time. Remember their ad campaign in the early days of the real estate bust  “it’s a great time to buy or sell a home”
_______________________________________________________________________

From Inman News; July 2014

Realtor.com’s new economist won’t tell you ‘It’s a great time to buy or sell a home’

In the fall of 2006, as the world hurtled toward a financial crisis precipitated by loose mortgage lending practices that fueled one of the greatest housing bubbles in U.S. history, the National Association of Realtors launched a $40 million advertising campaign advising consumers that “It’s a great time to buy or sell a home.”

As it turned out, it was a great time to sell a home, if you could — prices in many markets had already peaked, and inventories were climbing. But many who bought at the tail end of the boom soon found themselves underwater.

(further down in the article Jonathan Smoke, the new economist for Realtor.com is quoted as saying’'; “I’ve personally never made a decision to buy or sell a home based on what the talking heads are saying, so I’m never going to presume that I can tell the entire market that they should be buying or selling.” 

Read all about it
__________________________________________________________________________

Well that’s very reassuring. But, my how things change, and so quickly too.
Looky here, six months later, in an article out just yesterday, (February 4, 2015) on Realtor® Mag, that very same Mr. Smoke, proclaims;

Home buyers need to move fast if they want to spend less, notes Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at realtor.com® in commentary at the site.

“Delayed purchases will only result in higher monthly mortgage payments as prices and rates rise,” Smoke writes. Realtor.com® is forecasting that affordability may decline as much as 10 percent over the year. [and he makes no bones about it, “… move fast…Delayed purchases will result …”and 10%, wow]
_________________________________________________________________________

If you google “it’s a great time to buy or sell a home” you’ll find that the mantra has already been picked up and is being regurgitated by the news media and other reputable sources.

My advice, have a large grain of salt handy when reading these “advice” columns.

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to find your Catalina Foothills Home

Catalina Foothills Home Sales for January 2015

An inauspicious start for the New Year
January is not known as a big month for sales and, if nothing else, sales for this January are further proof of that opinion. Of course, January home sales are to a large degree the result of December contracts, and with the holidays December is usually not a big month for deal making.

But still, rather than going up, sales this January were a tad lower than last January, and 20% lower than January 2013. Of the 45 homes sold this January - 38 sold for under $600k, 6 sold from $605 to $900k, plus 1 sale at $1.2.

And following in the footsteps of those weak sales sold prices also dropped – to their lowest in the last 13 months – and way below where they were in Jan 2014. 

The December 2014 report is HERE where you can check out the sales and price figures for
January 2013 thru December 2014.

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

still looking for that “shadow inventory”

Remember when “the shadow inventory” was the byword of the day and heard repeatedly from every real estate prognosticator’s lips. And I don’t know about the rest of the country but “the shadow inventory’' failed, miserably, to ever materialize here in the Catalina Foothills.

In 2014 there were 36 foreclosure sales out of 774 total sales of single family homes – that’s a teeny tiny 4.6% of sales.

2013 – 880 total sales, 70 or 8% were foreclosures.
2012 – 818 total sales, 95 or 11.6% were foreclosures.
2011 – 679 total sales, 100 or 14.7% were foreclosures.
2010 – 639 total sales, 94 or 14.7% were foreclosures.
2009 – 577 total sales, 49 or 8.5% were foreclosures.

And the further back you go the further down it goes. 
And today, out of a grand total of 466 homes for sale, 2 are listed as foreclosures – 0.429% – and there are 3 in contract.

Doing a search at Realty Trac they report about 35 homes in the Catalina Foothills are bank owned. But digging a little deeper it appears that most of them are actually not bank owned.

Because Realty Trac does a big back peddle, stating in the fine print;  
‘We have not received a status update on this property in xxx days (fill in blank, usually somewhere between 300 and 1500 days). The property may or may not be bank owned.  We recommend that you verify the status of this property with the lender or contact a local agent before proceeding’.  Okey dokey.

So I checked the Pima County Tax Assessor and none of them show as bank owned. And while that’s not ironclad I also checked Zillow and they don’t show them as bank owned either. And I am a local agent, so I checked the MLS and none of them are listed as bank owned.

So, as far as I know, the following homes are the only one’s that are actually bank owned. And none of them are listed for sale in the MLS.

4540 E CERCO DEL CORAZON, TUCSON, AZ 85718 - which sold for $672,500 ($237/sf) in 2006, and failed to sell for $400,000 in 2013 - is now in the hands of Wells Fargo.
Zillow Zestimates its foreclosure value at $399,152, which they claim is about $70,000 less than it would sell for in a traditional, non foreclosure sale.

5435 E Placita De Royale,Tucson, AZ 85718 – built in 2007, there is no previous sale and it was never listed for sale – is located in an un-subdivided area of the Catalina Foothills where the most recent sale (2013) was at $495,000($143/sf).
Zillow Zestimates its foreclosure value at $536,731, about $95,000 less than it would sell for in a traditional, non foreclosure sale.

5480 N Waterfield Dr,Tucson, AZ 85750 – listed for sale in 2012 for $222,000 but didn’t sell – is now in the hands of LSF8 MASTER PARTICIPATION TRUST.
Zillow’s Foreclosure Estimate is $208,507, about $36,000 less than a non foreclosure sale.

And that’s it. 3 homes. And I’ll admit that that seems like too few. So I’m probably missing something somewhere. But there’s nothing, not one iota of evidence that I can find to show  there’s a big “shadow inventory” lurking nearby and about to plunge our market into a big wave of foreclosures.

Realty Trac does list other homes that are in pre-foreclosure, but who knows what’ll happen, pre- foreclosure is kinda like being almost pregnant.

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home

now if only prices would recover this nicely

Looking at Median Cumulative Days on the Market (MCDOM), huh, median cumula WHAT?

Please explain. First CDOM, then MCDOM. For homes that sell, CDOM, cumulative days on the market, is the number of days a home has been on the market from the first day it was listed to the day it goes to contract. And if the listing either expired or was canceled and the home is relisted within 30 days, the CDOM clock keeps ticking, until the home goes to contract and sells.

But if it’s relisted more than 30 days after the previous listing was canceled or expired, the CDOM clock stops ticking, and is reset to 0 days for the new listing. So it’s a useful measure, but only up to a point. Median CDOM is the middle number is a list of sorted numbers. In this case the list of CDOM numbers.

DOM, days on market, on the other hand, is a much less telling figure, though it is also a more frequently quoted figure. Because with DOM, if the listing for a home is canceled or expires on Monday at 1 PM and it’s relisted on that very same Monday at 1:05 PM, the DOM clock resets to 0 days on market. Presto, like magic, it erases the past. So if you’re looking at DOM figures you may very well be seeing just the most recent phase in the history of that property.

Phew!! So here’s a look at MCDOM for all the single family homes sold in the Catalina Foothills from 2004 to 2014.

Looking at it over the years it’s seems pretty clear that in the last few years homes have been selling as quickly, or even quicker, than they were during the booom years of 2004, 2005 and into the first half of 2006 – after which it all started to crumble.

And that’s pretty fantastic. However, one (long winded) caveat. In the years since the bust it is much more likely that homes were listed and relisted and re-relisted before they sold, and some of them after waiting more than 30 days to do so, and therefore resetting the MCDOM clock to 0 days, than is likely to have happened during the booom years. Because during the booom years buyers weren’t very concerned about prices and homes were flying off the shelf without having to be relisted at a lower price.

And if  perchance your listing didn’t sell quickly during the booom you sure as heck didn’t sit around twiddling your thumbs for 31 days or more just to reset the damn clock. Whereas, during the bust, and in the years since, it was much more common for sellers to take a breather and sit it out for a month or more and come back as a shiny new listing with 0 CDOM.

So the MCDOM figures above are likely not telling the whole, absolute and complete story for the years of the bust and later. Nevertheless, we can at the very least surmise that, these days, once homes do get to the right price, whether they’ve been relisted or not, they are selling very quickly.

And it’s also true that more homes are now being listed at, or darn near, the right price, right out of the chute. 

see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home