my website, thefoothillstoday.com, is temporarily down.
Very sorry for the inconvenience, back up soon, I pray.
Thank you for your understanding.
John Schneider
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TheFoothillsToday.com is back up and running.
Thank you for your patience.
John Schneider
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TheFoothillsToday.com is back up and running on all 8 cylinders.
That should, I hope, be the end of outages for a long, long time. Hopefully forever.
is shut down for maintenance service
I hope it will be back up soon.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your very own Catalina Foothills Home
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Thanks to Josh White at Boundless design & marketing
Josh built TheFoothillsToday.com for me three years ago and this is the first time it’s gone down. And he got it back up as soon as he got back in town.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your very own Catalina Foothills Home
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My web site –TheFoothillsToday.com – is down.
We’re working on fixing it, very sorry for the inconvenience.
see TheFoothillsToday.com to find your very own Catalina Foothills Home
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UPDATE – 9/22/15
The technical difficulties we were having with search results has now been fixed.
All listing, including all new listings, from the Tucson MLS are now showing up in all search categories.
My thanks to the talented staff at Flex MLS for their professionalism and hard work in getting it resolved ASAP.
And Thank you for your patience,
John Schneider
It appears that new listings, those listed in the last few days, are not showing up on my web site – TheFoothillsToday.com
This glitch affects the following searches;
Just Listed
Quick Search
Search by Subdivision
Clicking any of those search tabs will not return new listings that were entered in the MLS in the last few days. All other existing listings do show.
However, using the Custom Search will return everything for sale within the parameters you set, including all the new listings. Odd, but true.
I’ve contacted Flex MLS and I’m sure they are working to resolve this issue.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your very own Catalina Foothills Home (as long as it’s not a new listing)
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7461 N Moon Spirit Lane Tucson, AZ 85718 in Cobblestone just sold for $975,000 ($267/sf) from a $1,000,000 list (reduced from a previous listing at $1,129,000) in 184 days. Zillow is onboard at $999,107.
But Zillow is still showing the old listing with the old photos and old list price - $1,129,000 - that dropped to $1,000,000 way back in May when it was relisted with a new brokerage and listing agents and new much better photos. The above link is to Realtor.com, showing the correct listing, photos and price.
It was one of the best looking houses on the market (my opinion). It feels very substantial, with lots of character and charm yet also feels very fresh and today. So why did it take 184 days to sell.
Could be;
- the old photos did not do it justice, not one wee bit. And the new listing with the new photos didn’t get into the MLS until it was relisted in May (after 3+ months on the market) and by then many buyers and their agents had already seen it on the MLS/internet (including on Zillow) and passed it by. (you only get one chance to make a great first impression)
- Zillow never posted the new listing with the reduced list price, and to this day continues to show the old listing, the old photos and the old price - $1,129,000 – a significant faux pas.
- it has just 2 1/2 baths. Could be a deal killer for some buyers who want 3 1/2 or more.
- it has a beautiful covered patio, backyard and pool area but they’re all west facing. A major turnoff from mid May to mid August when the afternoon/evening sun roasts everything in its path.
- because of its orientation the Catalina’s are barely visible from the house – with mostly west facing views to the less impressive and pretty far off Tucson Mountains.
- that’s probably enough to give more than a few buyers pause.
If I were the homeowner or listing agent I’d be furious with Zillow – check out their outdated version of the Moon Spirit listing and compare it to Realtor.com's and you’ll see what I mean. It’s one thing for their zestimate to be off, or way off, target,(everyone takes them with a grain of salt) but it’s quite another for them to be featuring a 3 month old canceled listing and not showing the actual current listing.
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your very own Catalina Foothills Home
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Because it’s been high on the list of ‘must have’ features of nearly every buyer I’ve worked with in recent years, and I can’t imagine doing without it myself, I touched on that subject in a blog post last April
And now an article in today’s Wall Street Journal takes it a step further; citing studies showing that homes without high speed internet service are increasingly tougher to sell and sell for less $$ than those with high speed connections. Which makes perfect sense to me – less demand = tougher sale = less $$.
From WSJ.com
In May, Kara Burke and Tom Cairns thought they had found their ideal house: a nicely-updated older three-bedroom home in Worthington, Mass.
But they didn’t make an offer because it didn’t have high speed Internet.
“We wouldn’t choose a house that didn’t have electricity,” Ms. Burke, 26 years old, said as she explained why. “It’s right on par with those things.”
As the Internet becomes central to the way Americans work and live, the digital divide is taking on greater economic significance. Students without Internet access at home may struggle to keep up with school assignments. Towns with less access find themselves falling behind economically, researchers say. Now, the availability of speedy Internet service is starting to affect Americans’ biggest purchase: their homes.
Real-estate agents across the country say more buyers like Ms. Burke and Mr. Cairns are turning their noses up at homes without fast Web access. Some studies suggest those buyers are having a keen effect on home prices. A nationwide study released on Monday by researchers at the University of Colorado and Carnegie Mellon University finds fiber-optic connections, the fastest type of high speed Internet available, can add $5,437 to the price of a $175,000 home—about as much as a fireplace, or half the value of a bathroom.
Continue reading - How Fast Internet Affects Home Prices
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The Tucson MLS listing sheet contains the category; Cable Available - Yes or No.
And it is not uncommon to find it is marked Yes, that cable is available, when in fact it is not. Though, perhaps it’s a matter of interpretation. Is DSL Cable, is Satellite tv/internet cable, is dial-up from a phone wire cable. No, none of those are cable. Cable, as it’s commonly understood, is the coaxial cable that Comcast or Cox Cable delivers to your front door to transmit cable tv and high speed internet access. (as far as I know Verizon’s FIOS and Google fiber are not yet available in the foothills) Though, Simply Bits may provide a viable alternative.
But the only game in town in the Catalina Foothills for actual cable access is Comcast. (Cox serves other parts of Tucson). And if having cable is important to you, you should call Comcast or go to their website to check whether they provide service to the home you are considering.
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your very own Catalina Foothills Home
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A reader wrote in to relay his recent frustrating experience with Zillow’s Zestimates.
“Had an interesting thing happen today that was very odd. Went in and updated our listing on Zillow with a current photo and changed one word in the description ("steam" shower to “spa" shower - do to a recent renovation). on hitting save Zillow came back with the following surprise”:
__________________________________________________________
I wonder if it were described as, “luxurious spa shower”, or, better yet, “spa shower fit for a king & queen”, what’s that worth $$$.
And more tales from the fickle algorithm;
“Zillow has also changed the detail they are providing in their historical Zestimate graph. We had a refi appraisal back in 2010 at $558K (knowing things change) which at the time matched the Zestimate pretty closely. Today that time frame is showing $400K +/-. Previously the Zestimate graph showed a $100K drop in value one day to the next. As you’ve been blogging, Zestimates can be a good starting point, but, they tend to be all over the map”
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your very own Catalina Foothills Home
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Just the other day I mentioned, “the only problem with the economy in Tucson that I’m aware of - as it relates to high-end home sales - is that there is no big, strong and growing industry that pays really well and would therefore contribute to a more competitive and vibrant upper-end market. And that’s a pretty big problem”. “Phoenix has lots of jobs, high paying jobs. We don’t”.
And just to rub it in, today WSJ.com reports;
Where will tech companies expand when they grow weary of soaring rents and prices in Silicon Valley and San Francisco?
At least one developer is hoping it will be 750 miles to the southeast in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Read all about it.
Silicon Desert? Developer Bets on Scottsdale as a Tech Hub
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home
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I always imagined that one of these days Zillow would branch out and become a virtual real estate broker and get into the business of listing and selling homes online. But someone has beaten them to it and added a very appealing twist to the standard listing/selling formula.
A service that allows homeowners to instantly sell their home online has raised an additional $20 million in funding and is expanding to two new cities.
Opendoor, which debuted two months ago in metro Phoenix, is adding Dallas and Portland to its list of available cities this year, CEO Eric Wu said.
The startup, which is based in San Francisco, has raised a total of $30 million in funding from Khosla Ventures and GGV Capital, both of Menlo Park, Calif., and a number of angel investors.
Under the service, homeowners wanting to sell their house or condominium enter their address online and submit some basic information about it. Within minutes, Opendoor, opendoor.com, provides a obligation-free offer to buy the home.
Nearly all aspects of the transactions are conducted online, and homeowners can close and receive funding in as little as three days.
Opendoor currently purchases about a home a day in the Phoenix market, Wu said.
In looking to expand, Opendoor, which employs three full-time and 13 part-time workers in Phoenix, searched for markets with 10,000 or more real estate transactions annually , Wu said. The company also looked at the number of days houses were on the market and the number of deals that fell through, Wu said.
Dallas and Portland were the best fits for the service, he said.
The company, which made the announcement Thursday, also reported that Glenn Solomon, a managing partner at GGV Capital, who has led investments in Square, Pandora and others, will join the Opendoor board of directors.
When buying a home, Opendoor charges a 5.5 percent resale fee, plus adjusts the amount it pays for a home to account for market risk, home maintenance and repair costs. After purchasing a home, the company makes it move-in ready and then lists it for sale.
The service is designed to make selling a home simpler and frictionless, Wu said. "We're trying to be a retail outlet for homeowners," he said.
Wu, who grew up in Glendale, started buying houses while a college student at University of Arizona. He previously founded Movity.com, a location data analytics company that was acquired by Trulia.com in 2011. He still owns about 100 rental homes.
The idea for Opendoor came about after Wu realized that a house, which typically is a person's biggest asset, is one of the hardest things for an individual to sell. For-sale homes generally stay on the market for weeks — the national average for January was 103 days, according to Realtor.com. Many home sellers can't buy another home until they sell their current one, because they can't afford two mortgages, he said.
Because it buys homes outright, Opendoor gets rid of the time-crunch factor, he said. There is a three-day inspection contingency on all transactions.
Besides Wu, the Opendoor team also includes executive chairman Keith Rabois, senior partner at Khosla Ventures and a former executive at PayPal, Slide and Square.
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Since Opendoor.com debuted in Phoenix and the founder, Mr. Wu, attended the University of Arizona here in Tucson, how long can it before they start opening doors here in Tucson.
This may not work for everyone but I’ll bet they’re on to something. No muss, no fuss, and quick as can be you’re out the door with cash in hand.
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home
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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.
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.
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home
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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.
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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
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Recently I’ve written (HERE & HERE) about the impossible time I was having trying to get Comcast to replace my main cable line – after Comcast informed me that the main cable line needed to be replaced.
There were countless phone calls trying to schedule appointments and multiple
no-shows when appointments were scheduled.
But now, finally, today Comcast showed up at 7AM and the new line was in and up and running by noon. And the internet is speedier than ever, and with no glitches.
Now if they’d only done that on the first or even the 2nd try, we wouldn’t have had to come to blows over a simple service call.
And I don’t know if this is the thing that did it, but one reader recommended that I go to the Comcast store at Craycroft & River, which I did, where you can speak to a live Comcast rep to plead your case. Which, incredibly enough, is what it often comes down to.
The End.
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Here’s a little video from our friends at Zillow explaining the hows and whys of their Zestimates. It talks about how they compute the Zestimate, how Zestimates differ from appraisals and from Realtor generated market valuations, and what we as consumers and real estates guru’s should expect from a Zestimate. It’s helpful and puts it in perspective.
And the chart below shows the accuracy of Zestimates throughout the various counties of Arizona. Notice that our very own Pima County, along with Maricopa, are deemed the most accurate for Zestimates in Arizona.
And a big thanks goes to a reader and client for sending me all this good stuff.
Take care,
search all the homes for sale in the Catalina Foothills
at TheFoothillsToday.com
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The Subdivision Searches on my web site > TheFoothillsToday.com < are returning incorrect search results. For instance, clicking on Catalina Foothills Estates 10 returns 552 listings. Gezz!
It appears to be an issue with flex MLS, the provider of our MLS services here in Tucson, and I’ve contacted them and they’re working on it. And for some reason it’s only the Subdivision Searches that are affected, the other searches are OK.
Sorry for the disruption.
visit TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your Catalina Foothills Home
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UPDATE- We’re back up, and I hope it sticks this time.
this blog was down on Saturday, back up on Sunday for a short while but went down again sometime Monday in the wee hours and is just now starting to come back. But it’s showing up in a very ragged and disarrayed format and so far it’s only available at > www.thetucsonfoothills.typepad.com < and not yet available at its main web address> is now available at www.thetucsonfoothills.com
The problem is that typepad, the hosting platform for the blog, was apparently the target of a large hacker attack.
Thank you for your patience.
John Schneider
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The good news is ‘we’re back up’. If you were trying to connect to this blog, but couldn’t, it was because of a denial of service attack on typepad, the service that hosts this blog.
Very sorry for the interruption.
John Schneider
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I’ve tried umpteen times to enter my areas of specialization > Tucson Foothills Tucson, AZ & Catalina Foothills Tucson, AZ & 85718 / 85750 < in my Zillow profile, but each time I enter them they do not show up in my profile.
I’ve also emailed Zillow help 3 times about this issue over the last month or so and still have not gotten any help. But each time I have received an automated reply -
Dear John Schneider,
Thank you for submitting your inquiry. Case #009 etc etc..
but no Help. HELP!
see thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Tucson Foothills home
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Long Realty just introduced a new mobile app that makes it a snap to search for homes.
You can easily enter a custom search, or just see all the homes in your immediate vicinity – wherever in AZ that may be – search open houses and see homes that are recently under contract and sold. And more. And it’s fun and easy to use.
And unlike Zillow and Realtor.com and the like, this app is custom made for us in Arizona, so it has all the listings and all them are up to date - updated every 15 minutes from the Tucson MLS.
Here’s a link to a short video that gives an overview of how the apps works.
Give it a try, here’s a link to download it > http://www.thefoothillstoday.com/pages/my-mobile-app < I should have a permanent link to the app on the home page of my web site next week.
And please, I’d love to hear what you think of it.
see thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Tucson Foothills home
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If you enjoy searching for homes in the wee hours on my web site or (God forbid) on other Long agent sites please be advised that the IT folks are planning an upgrade to all Long Realty sites. This is scheduled to begin at approximately 9PM on Saturday, February 23rd, and is expected to be completed by 7AM on Sunday February 24th.
During that time LongRealty.com, Long Realty Agent Websites, Agent Mobile sites and Virtual Home Finder will not be available. Including my site, www.thefoothillsToday.com
Sorry for the inconvenience. But tune in on Sunday Feb 24th after 7 AM and everything should be up and running smoothly.
see thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Tucson Foothills home
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is back up and running. Thank you for your patience.
see thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Tucson Foothills home
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My web site www.thefoothillsToday.com is down – very sorry for the inconvenience.
The tech folks are working diligently to get it back up,
see thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Tucson Foothills home
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but, as I’ve pointed out many times, a fair amount of it is incorrect and misleading.
Let the buyer beware,
I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the article regarding the practices that I find to be the most persistent.
From The Wall Street Journal / Market Watch;
10 things real-estate listing sites won’t say
Once upon a time, house hunting meant perusing local newspapers and being led through properties by a real-estate agent. Nowadays, most home buyers head straight to their computers: A record 90% searched online this year, up from 65% a decade ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. Trouble is, homes listed for sale online aren’t always actually available.
1. “The homes you’re looking at have already sold.”
More than a third of home listings that are labeled as “active” on third-party listing sites Trulia and Zillow are no longer for sale, according to a 2012 study by consulting firm WAV Group that was sponsored by online brokerage Redfin (which also lists properties for sale). For their part, Trulia and Zillow say such outdated posts can be the result of real-estate agents inputting information incorrectly or forgetting to make updates. Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, says both parties — the sites and the agents — are sometimes responsible for outdated listings. Either way, some buyers are wasting their time reviewing homes that have already sold.
In some cases, agents intentionally leave listings up after they’ve sold, in an effort to generate future leads, says Leonard Baron, principal of real-estate consulting firm LPB Services and a lecturer at San Diego State University. Buyers who are interested in the property will reach out to the listing agent, and the agent will tell them the home has sold but that they have other properties with similar features, he says. Of course, the other properties may not meet the buyer’s criteria, says Baron, calling the strategy a “bait and switch.”
(Trulia, Zillow and the like often have homes still listed as active that have long since sold.
And while I haven’t run into that on the MLS, occasionally I do see homes that are under contract still listed as active)
2. “The price is wrong.”
While most listing sites allow users to search by price brackets, the prices that come up aren’t always correct. That’s because the listing price is among the details that agents at times neglect to update in every version of their online listing. The problem with inaccurate prices, say insiders, is that most home buyers shopping online narrow their search based on their budget. If a price cut isn’t reflected on a listing site, the property might not even show up in a house shopper’s search results.
Buyers interested in short sales — that is, when homes sell for less than the owner owes on the mortgage — are particularly vulnerable to erroneous pricing. And the error can begin when the property is first posted, says Brad Hunter, chief economist at Metrostudy, a housing market research and consulting firm. With short sales, sellers and their agents decide on an asking price for the home and then list it online. In making that decision, the sellers and agents often don’t consult with the lender (usually a bank) to whom the outstanding loan is owed, even though the lender can prevent a sale from going through if the price isn’t high enough. That means buyers who make offers on the property — even if it’s for the full asking price — might not be able to get the home if the lender isn’t satisfied with the price.
Experts say lenders have the right to stop the process. These days, most short-sale agreements include a provision where the bank waives any right to go after borrowers for the amount they still owe after the home has sold, says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, which tracks short sales and foreclosures. So the bank usually eats the loss. Molony of the NAR agrees that deals may not go through if the price is set too low. In fact, he says, even though agents use their knowledge of the market to try to assign a price that will lead to a successful sale, it can take months for a bank to tell an agent whether it will accept a buyer’s offer.
3. “You say hole in the wall, we say cozy fixer-upper.”
Paul Howard, a buyer’s broker in Cherry Hill, N.J., says he’s seen his fair share of discrepancies between home features touted in online listings and home features in reality. They run the gamut from so-called fully redone basements that turned out to be only partly finished, to eat-in kitchens that had standing-room only, and inflated square footage claims for bedrooms. When he dug in to see where the misstatements originated, he found that many often appeared early on: in the listings posted on the local multiple listing services (or MLSs) — the databases where listing agents maintain their postings and other information relating to properties.
Much like online dating profiles, online housing listings can present a picture that bears little resemblance to reality, and often the mistakes are intentionally inserted to increase buyer interest in a property, says Mike Machinski, a broker with Weichert Realtors in Ridgewood, N.J. He says he’s seen listings that not only exaggerate the truth but also present falsehoods so extreme that they can even derail a sale. Some listings increase the number of bedrooms by claiming that a room without a closet or window is a bedroom. When an appraiser visits the home to determine its value — a step that occurs before lenders give borrowers a mortgage — he likely won’t count such a room as a bedroom, which could lower the home’s value, says Ken Chitester, spokesman for the Appraisal Institute. (Rules over what counts as a bedroom can vary by locality.)
Third-party listing sites say the home facts and features they display on listings come directly from the MLSs or brokers’ own listings. They also receive listings from companies that specialize in listing distribution and asset management. Trulia spokeswoman Daisy Kong says that to minimize errors the site prioritizes the data it gets directly from MLSs and brokers over other sites.
4. “History is told by the listing agents.”
A huge perk to listing sites is that many reveal details that can help buyers figure out how much to offer on a property. This includes the number of days a home has been on the market and its sales history. Of course, that data can be misleading. On some sites, the number of on-sale days are counted from the day when the posting went live on that site — which could be days or weeks after it first hit the market. Separately, a property that’s been listed online for months can get removed only to reappear a few weeks later as a newly for-sale property. Listing agents have been known to use that as a strategy for juicing demand, says Jack McCabe, an independent housing analyst in Deerfield Beach, Fla. (It can also happen if a new listing agent takes over.)
Such errors can have huge ramifications for buyers. They’re more likely to make lowball offers on homes that have been languishing on the market for months, while they’re more likely to be aggressive with a property that’s just come on the market. In the latter case, the buyer may put a full-price offer on it, says McCabe. “It creates a false sense of urgency,” he says.
Buyers also look at the prices a home previously sold for. Trulia and Zillow, for instance, say they pull these prices from county recorders’ offices and from regional firms in the U.S. that track sales data. In rare cases, errors can make their way in, says Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. A refinance, for instance, may appear as a sales transaction if a county mistakenly registers it as such; in that case, the mortgage amount the homeowner received — sometimes significantly less than the value of the home — can be is listed online as a previous sales price.
5. “Agents are turning against us.”
**Disclosure (Long Realty is a Berkshire Hathaway company & under the same umbrella as Edina Realty)
In May, Edina Realty, a Berkshire Hathaway-owned real estate firm with listings in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, announced it was pulling its listings from third-party site Realtor.com. A few months earlier, it had stopped sending listings to Trulia.com. In fact, the company says it has stopped working with all non-broker-controlled sites, partly because of concerns with data inaccuracy.
Some experts contend there’s more to the story. By reserving its listings for its own site, Edina ensures that buyers who click on the homes for sale will be directed to an Edina agent, increasing the chances that Edina will take on a “dual agency” role, says Doug Miller, executive director of Consumer Advocates in American Real Estate. That’s when the company represents both the seller and the buyer. (Under this arrangement, agents are prohibited from negotiating price and terms on behalf of either party, says Miller.) As a result, the company doesn’t have to share commission with another brokerage firm, instead receiving a double payment, he says. (Miller is also a real-estate attorney who helped win a lawsuit against Edina Realty in the early ’90s over undisclosed dual agency.) In contrast, many third-party sites tend to direct house hunters to agents who would be working for the buyer alone.
Bob Peltier, CEO of Edina Realty, says the critics are wrong: Edina Realty’s decision isn’t motivated by commissions. He says the firm is distributing its listings to other local brokers and MLS members, providing access to consumers who search its competitors’ sites and its own. Peltier says the company’s agents can also post their own listings on third-party sites if they prefer to.
6. “Good luck finding reviews of agents.”
In recent years, several real-estate listing sites have rolled out rankings on real-estate agents with the stated purpose of giving home buyers and sellers an informed way of picking an agent to work with. But it hasn’t always panned out. In September 2011, brokerage Redfin introduced its “Scouting Report” that publicized previously private information about agents, including the number of sales the agent made and the difference between asking prices and actual selling prices. Less than a week later, the company removed the tool from its site, citing inaccuracies in the data. Rachel Musiker, a spokeswoman for Redfin, says some of those errors originated from variances in how the agents input their information into the MLSs, and she says some agents asked the company to stop publishing this data.
Experts say house hunters will be hard pressed to find many sites that offer comprehensive agent review tools. While NeighborCity.com rolled out a rating system for nearly one million real-estate agents earlier this year, Cardella says agents have been pressuring the site to pull the rankings—arguing that they don’t present an accurate portrait — but that the company plans to continue with them. He says the lawsuits filed against the site’s operator, in fact, came within weeks after it introduced this tool. The two MLSs involved in the lawsuits declined to comment, citing pending litigation. (To determine the ratings, the site says it looks at the percentage of listings and the number of homes agents sell, the selling price, and the amount of time it takes for sales to happen, among other factors. It reviews agent records over the past few years and compares each agent’s performance against that of his or her peers.)
7. “Our inflated sales figures create demand.”
Since the first place most properties are listed for sale by real-estate agents is often on local MLSs, those databases might seem like they’d be a good source for accurate sales figures. In fact, the National Association of Realtors uses them to report existing-home sales. But last year, the NAR announced that the number of existing-home sales for every year from 2007 to 2010 was actually 11% to 16% lower than it had originally reported. The association said the revisions were partly due to problems with MLSs, such as properties being added to the system in more than one city or town. Then, when a home sold, it was registered as two sales when it was actually one. Molony of the NAR adds that a much bigger reason for the changes was a large decline in the market share of for-sale-by-owner properties.
For buyers and sellers, the errors distort reality. Buyers are led to believe that there’s more demand for homes than there actually is, which could result in them offering higher prices than they otherwise would, says McCabe. When it reported the error, the NAR said the corrections to the figures probably wouldn’t affect buyers and sellers, since the numbers that were revised were national whereas local sales figures are what typically drive prices up and down.
8. “Our maps create headaches for homeowners.”
It’s not just home buyers who are at the mercy of listing sites. In recent years, sites like Homes.com, Realtor.com and Zillow have introduced technology that gives homeowners (as well as casual home-site browsers and nosy neighbors) an estimate of what their home is worth. But critics say those values are often wrong, change frequently, and can create confusion. “A lot of times, estimates can be radically different from what true values are in their areas,” says McCabe.
In most cases, these tools rely on automated valuation models (AVMs) that calculate home prices based on several types of information, including previous appraisals and home features (like the number of bedrooms) included in county tax assessors’ files. The data though isn’t always up-to-date, like when homeowners haven’t informed the county of any extensions they’ve made to their home or when the most recent appraisal occurred many years ago. Also, AVMs tend to be most reliable when many sales transactions occur in a neighborhood — since they take the prices of recently sold comparable homes into account when determining a property’s value. Areas with a low turnover, on the other hand, are prone to more automated valuation errors and large swings, says Gary Painter, research director at the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California.
For their part, Homes.com, Realtor.com and Zillow say homeowners can use the valuations as a reference for their home’s value and the direction in which property values in their area are heading but shouldn’t rely entirely on the tool. “Homeowners need to be careful to not put too much weight in these numbers,” says Errol Samuelson, president of Realtor.com. Instead, they say, homeowners thinking about listing their homes should consult with local real estate agents and consider having their home appraised to get a more accurate valuation.
9. “Cold calling beats online deal hunting.”
As the number of homes for sale nationwide continues to drop, more buyers are bypassing online listings and taking matters into their own hands. They’re speaking with real-estate agents about the types of properties they want, and some buyer agents are placing calls and sending letters to homes that fit those descriptions, stating that there are interested buyers if the homeowners care to sell. In fact, 20% of sellers in the year ended June 30 sold their homes because they were contacted directly by a buyer, up from 15% in the year ended June 30, 2010, according to a survey by the NAR. These individuals never listed their homes, and in some cases weren’t even thinking about selling until they heard there was an interested buyer, says Molony.
This trend comes even as the percentage of buyers searching for homes online is at an all-time high. As inventory shrinks, home buyers are becoming desperate and looking for any possible leads, says David Kent, president of the National Buyer’s Agent Alliance. Kent says he too is about to start placing cold calls to homeowners on behalf of a client who’s been searching for a type of home that has yet to be listed online. But that’s not the only option, of course. In other cases, buyers are finding homes simply by word of mouth — like when a neighbor or friend tells them that they’re thinking about selling.
10. “Buying at auction is like buying with your eyes closed.”
Over the past few years, foreclosures have offered up some of the biggest deals — and risks — in real estate. In many cases, buyers incur risks at the point of purchase: Many foreclosures are sold in online auctions, and depending on the site, buyers might not have the opportunity to see the home before they bid on it, or they might only be able to see it from the outside, says McCabe. In these cases, they’re bidding strictly based on the information in the online listing, without knowing the true condition of the home.
Some sites provide more access, however. Auction.com, a listing site that auctions off properties ranging from foreclosures to luxury homes, hosts open houses on many — but not all — properties for interested buyers to visit in person before bidding. But buyers will need to check the site frequently for those dates; if they miss them, they won’t be able to arrange a private showing. They also face unknowns with the bidding process. While the site lists the starting bid it’ll accept, it doesn’t disclose what the reserve price is — the price that needs to be offered in order for the sale to actually occur. Separately, financing isn’t guaranteed. Monte Koch, co-CEO of Auction.com, says the site accepts buyers with mortgages for some transactions, but some foreclosure auctions are only accessible to cash-only purchasers.
Despite the setbacks, experts say such sites do offer buyers more access than in the past. It used to be that buyers had to know someone at a bank that was holding the foreclosed property or another insider to be aware of upcoming foreclosure auctions at all. With these sites, more buyers can engage in the process, if they’re willing to take on the risks.
____________________________________________________________________________
The other nagging bit of misleading data that is not mentioned in this article is how the
% of Sale Price/List Price is reported. For more on that see > checked your % of SP to LP lately
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Here’s a look at recent sales and their actual sale prices along with Zillow’s zestimate of their value.
These are all the single family homes sold in the last two weeks in the Tucson Foothills.
Starting at the top,
- 3657 E Canyon Wind Place Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $2,150,000 on 8/15
but Zillow has it at $2,350,580. My guess was $2,000,000.
- 1495 E Canyon Spring Court Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $985,00 on 8/10
and Zillow low-balled it at $862,790.
- 3395 E Placita De La Jolla Del Sol Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $875,000 on 8/14
but according to Zillow it should have gone for just $783,392
- 6119 N Pinchot Road Tucson, AZ 85750 sold $779,000 on 8/10
but Zillow says $716,162
- 4920 N Avenida De Vizcaya Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $735,000 on 8/08
And Zillow was fairly close at $706,557. I’d of said $650,000, tops, and not a nickel more.
But with the scarcity of homes for sale the forces of supply & demand exert a more potent influence.
- 4445 E Saranac Drive Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $635,000 on 8/10
and Zillow, $694,227.
- 7023 N Camino Sin Vacas Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $622,500 on 8/15
Zillow was in the ballpark anyway at $596,135
- 6541 N Pontatoc Road Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $565,000 on 8/16
the big Z hit the bulls eye at $567,720
- 4170 N Camino Gacela Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $490,000 on 8/9
and Zillow’s at least on target at $511,391
- 5761 N Placita Del Trueno Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $452,500 on 8/10
and again, Zillow $472,834
- 5585 N Paseo Ventoso Tucson, AZ 85750 sold $435,000 on 8/15
and again, Zillow $417,143
- 5447 N Via Velazquez Tucson, AZ 85750 sold $420,000 on 8/6
Zillow called it at $386,264. Not too bad. But this house is in Fairfield and Fairfield is a fairly cookie-cutter type community and therefore should be fairly easy to price.
- 4361 N Wilmot Road N Tucson, AZ 85750 sold $397,500 on 8/8
at $405,258 Zillow virtually nails it again.
- 4980 E Calle Guebabi E Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $390,000 on 8/8
Zillow, bingo! $391,250
- 6138 N Campo Abierto Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $371,000 on 8/10
your edge in real estate had it at $391,193
- 6226 N Camino Arco Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $302,500 on 8/8
and Zillow had it at $292,899. Close, very close.
- 261 E Calderwood Road Tucson, AZ 85704 sold $296,000 on 8/17
Zillow, no zestimate on this one. And that’s odd because this is in a small new home development (Miramonte at the River) on the southwest edge of the foothills and about as cookie-cutter as it gets.
are we done yet? almost,
- 5570 N Suncrest Place Tucson, AZ 85718 sold $280,000 on 8/17
Zillow nailed it at $292,705.
- 323 E Croydon Park Road Tucson, AZ 85704 sold $269,900 on 8/8
this is another ‘Miramonte at the River’ home, but Zillow called this one at $253,586
- 251 E Calderwood Road Tucson, AZ 85704 sold $280,000 on 8/7
Zillow low-balled it at $262,169 – also ‘Miramonte at the River’, where they’re having a big week
- 5011 N Post Trail Tucson, AZ 85750 sold $283,500 on 8/10
a hole in one - $283,603
- 3755 N Tanuri Drive Tucson, AZ 85750 sold $235,000 on 8/16
Zillow - $258,392. Interesting, along with their $258,392 Zestimate, Zillow noted that it’s for sale for $250,000.
and finally,
- 425 E Wine Plum Drive Tucson, AZ 85704 sold $223,900 on 8/7
but Zillow also low-balled this one at $202,156.
So no surprise, Zillow did much better at predicting value at the lower end of the market than at the mid to upper end. And that makes sense. The more expensive homes are more likely to have more custom or special features, along with being on great lots with good views, than lower priced homes. And though Zillow is not able to accurately evaluate those special features or views, they’re worth $$$ to foothills buyers.
THE END
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Yesterday I wrote about the 3 homes that sold in Pima Canyon. And I meant to include Zillow’s zestimate for each of those sales, but I was rushing and forgot.
So just for fun, here it is. The list price , the actual sold price & the zillow price
2042 E Quiet Canyon Drive – listed $1,199,000 – sold $1,034,000 – zillow $1,019,100
1308 E Desert Garden Drive – listed $899,000 – sold $840,000 – zillow $733,800
1980 E Desert Garden Drive – listed $1,049,000 – sold $1,001,000 – zillow $971,900
With 2 out of 3 close to actual sold price, zillow did well. I think.
And this is interesting, if not also confusing. For the last house, at 1980 Desert Garden, zillow shows a $28,200 increase in value over the last 30 days. While for 1308 Desert Garden, it shows a $28,800 decrease over the same period. And for 2042 Quiet Canyon it shows a $0 change for the same 30 days. huh ???
And these are all in PC and all in close proximity to each other. Is there a zillow expert out there who can explain why and how there are or could be such differences in values over the past 30 days for homes in the same community.
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Until recently I’ve been very critical of Zillow’s zestimates, terming them useless and worse. Dangerous really, because so often they were so off target, yet people were using them to value their own homes and homes they were interested in buying.
But more recently I’ve noticed that zestimates have improved and are more accurate than they were. And I said so – HERE But the question is, are they accurate enough to start using them as a guide to home prices here in the foothills.
I’ve gotten some pretty awful ‘professional appraisals’ lately – and many other agents have as well - and they cost $500 or more, but they’re also way more dangerous than a zestimate. They’re lethal really. Because everyone, including the lender, regards them as the sacred source for reliable home valuations. And often they’re not at all accurate or reliable, and often they’re not even close. And much of that is thanks to the really smart, fair and efficient new system we’re stuck with for choosing appraisers that’s been imposed by Obama-Dodd-Frank. We often end up with an appraiser who’s never stepped foot in the foothills, or who has barely. Someone who, if you spun them around, couldn’t find their way from Craycroft to Swan without a map and a compass. And that’s who’s been anointed to value the highest dollar transaction of your lifetime. Don’t get me started.
So back to zillow, here’s another look at the actual sold price vs. the zestimate on a dozen homes that sold since March 1 in the Tucson Foothills. And I think zillow’s doing pretty good, but you be the judge,
4927 N Louis River Way Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $385,000
Z – $376,200 (home run)
6745 N Shadow Run Drive Tucson, AZ 85704
sold – $425,000 (btw, sold for list price)
Z - $391,400
6306 N Calle Del Halcon Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $463,100
Z - $464,200 (out of the park)
4750 N Calle Desecada Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $482,500
Z – $354,600 (struck out)
2681 E Miraval Place Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $500,000
Z – $492,400 (home run)
6752 N Altos Primero Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $595,000
Z - $629,900
4949 N Camino Antonio Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $700,000
Z - $1,008,800 oh, if only it were true
6456 N Desert Wind Circle , Tucson, AZ 85750
sold – $925,000
Z - $831,100 (no cigar)
1886 E Quiet Canyon Drive , Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $950,000
Z – $844,900 (yourrrre out)
5122 N Soledad Primera Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $900,000
Z - $865,200 (triple)
4803 E PLACITA PROVIDA Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $1,010,000
Z - $930,700
1347 E Desert Garden Drive Tucson, AZ 85718
sold – $1,075,000
Z – $1,028,000 (home run)
see thefoothillsToday.com
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In the past I’ve taken issue with Zillow’s zestimates because I’ve often found them to be wildly inaccurate in zestimating single family home values here in the Tucson Foothills.
They were either way high or low vs. a home’s actual (and eventual) selling price.
And then with a straight face they’d cover their bet with a ridiculously broad ‘value range’, e.g., zestimate $740,000 (value range $610,000 to $890,000) Well gosh, give me a dart board and I’ll gladly take my chances. (and don’t miss the caveats, disclosures and ….)
And after deliberately ignoring zillow for some time now, I’ve started checking in with them again. And it looks to me as if they’ve made some real progress and sharpened their game a bit. The zestimates are still hit or miss, but more often it’s closer to a hit than to a miss.
I’ll list some examples in another post soon.
And why did I start checking in with Zillow again. Well at least partly because so-called professional appraisals have become such a total crapshoot – and are so often so far off the mark that they’ve become a real handicap to making a sale. And that’s not to say that we can use Zillow to rebut an appraisal, but just as another opinion – and from what I can see, a more useful opinion than in the past. I must admit.
And of course these wacky appraisals are thanks to the new and improved regulations that now govern who and how appraisers are assigned. Which may result in the appraisal and valuation of the home you’d like to buy being in the hands of an appraiser from Vail or Glendale or Apache Junction, or who knows where – who has little or no experience in the foothills.
And boy if that’s the case hang on to your hats, because, even with local experience, it’s often tough to do a proper appraisal in the foothills.
At least when Zillow offers a valuation you’re free to accept it or reject it with no further consequences. But a so-called professional appraisal will make or break your sale.
Here’s some further reading on the appraisal problem >
Flawed real estate appraisals create problems for buyers, sellers, refinancers
and my personal experience with a wacky appraisal,
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I received the following email, purportedly from Google, but obviously from some ill disguised cretins who are trying to boost my Gmail account without breaking a sweat.
Dear Valid User,
Our Account users discovered series of illegal attempts on your Gmail account from different IP locations.This is for your own safety to avoid your account closed, you will have to verify your account by filling out your Log-in below by clicking the reply button. Account will be de-activated and erased from our database if no response in 72 hours. We apologies for any inconveniences.
After receiving the information requested you will be able to continue using your Account.
User name:..
Password:..
Date Of Birth:..
Occupation:..
Country Of Residence:..
Yeah sure, no problem, and while we’re at it how about my ss #,
This message came from Gmail Team @ [email protected]
Aha,
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Finally, The Wall Street Journal reports on the murky business of Internet home valuations.
Read all about it> From WSJ.com
By ALYSSA ABKOWITZ
How to Figure the Fuzzy Math of Internet Home Values
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zillow’s zestimates is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. So near and dear that I’ve railed about it for years now. Why? Because here in the Tucson Foothills zestimates are not accurate and they’re not dependable and they can be very misleading.
And surprisingly, in the course criticizing zestimates I’ve taken some heat from readers of this blog. And while they didn’t necessarily disagree about the lack of accuracy of zestimates, they still defended Zillow. Why? Because they like Zillow, they like it a lot, for all the other fun and useful tools and information that Zillow brings to the party.
And because until Zillow came along, the Realtor® organization held all the cards and they held them very close and only doled out information as they saw fit and, often, only when and how it served their purposes. ‘It’s a great time to buy …’ho-ho-ho
By putting all that information in the hands of consumers Zillow has changed the game, big time, and in doing so they also forced the Realtor® association to either wake up and get with it or go the way of other dinosaurs.
And that’s all great and good, but I still don’t like zestimates, not for here in the foothills. Because, at best, they’re still hit or miss.
here are a few of my past rants on the subject of zestimates in the Tucson Foothills;
it’s been awhile, (and things are slow) so let’s check in with Zillow
(check out the comments)
and finally,
checking in with Zillow
There are more, but why beat a dead horse.
In a comment to one my posts, a reader (Rebecca @ www.littlered.com) offered what I think is the most apt advice on how to approach zestimates,
“ the zestimate is a fun toy -- a strange barometer not unlike a horoscope that shouldn't have too much stock put in it. when it makes you happy, that's great. but don't let it get you down”
see thefoothillsToday.com
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I was trying to make calls this afternoon and I could hear everyone I was calling but no one could hear me. All they heard was a jumble of noise that was completely unintelligible.
So I ran over to the Verizon Wireless store on Oracle Rd & Wilmot and explained the situation. The customer service rep called my cell phone and verified that she couldn’t understand a single word I said. She couldn’t even make out words, just a jumble of noise.
So she smiled and said ‘well it’s under warranty’ .
Then she told me they don’t have any replacement phones in stock and they’d have to ship it from the warehouse. What! You mean to tell me you don’t have an HTC Incredible in stock and no other store in Tucson has one either. Well we don’t have replacement phones in stock.
No replacement phones. What does that mean. If I wanted to buy one, you’re saying I’d have to wait for it to be shipped from the warehouse.
Oh no, you could buy an HTC Incredible, those are new phones and they’re available.
Oh really. So I had to do the old ‘let me speak to manager bit’ because I didn’t believe that what I was being told could actually be true. It couldn’t be.
But it is. The manager of the Oracle/Wilmot store said that’s the best they can do. They don’t stock replacement phones, that is used phones. And it doesn’t matter that you’ve been a customer for 6 years, that’s the best Verizon can do.
You see the replacement phones are factory refurbished phones – aka USED PHONES. That’s right, you sign up with Verizon Wireless, you pay for the new phone along with signing a two year contract, and they smile and are nice, but if you need a replacement phone because yours broke down during the warranty period, you’re out of luck. You have wait for a used phone to be shipped from the factory.
So now that they’ve got you for two years, Verizon doesn’t give a damn about you. Is that slimy or what.
Can you hear me now,
_______________________________________________________________
The upshot,
I got up on Saturday morning and my phone worked just fine. Clear as bell.
After all that!
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it’s that time again, time to have another look at Zillow’s zestimates vs. real world prices – the last time I looked was last August. (it’s been awhile, (and things are slow) so let’s check in with Zillow) And in that time Zillow may have gotten better at this zestimate thing. So let’s see.
I used the following simple criteria in selecting the homes to use for comparison;
-single family homes in the North area (the foothills) of Tucson, sold for $400,000 or more in the last 30 days. Period, no further criteria, filtering or preferences.
And just to be sure there was no cheating or preferential treatment, rest assured,
I was blindfolded during the entire process. 33 homes met the criteria and starting with home # 1 I selected every other home for inclusion in the comparison – so a total of 17 homes. That seemed like plenty.
And to be crystal clear, here is Zillow’s explanation of their Zestimate and Value Range; A Zestimate home valuation is Zillow's estimated market value. It is not an appraisal. Use it as a starting point to determine a home's value. Learn more
The Value Range is the high and low estimate market value for which Zillow values a home. The more information, the smaller the range, and the more accurate the Zestimate. See data coverage and accuracy table
Now, ta-da, the results;
| Address | SOLD for | Zestimate | Value Range |
| 4350 N Camino Ferreo Tucson, AZ 85750 | $400,000 | $340,000 | $279K – $374K |
| 5921 N Placita Tecolote Tucson, AZ 85718 | $410,000 | $414,000 | $348K – $472K |
| 7638 E CMO AMISTOSO Tucson, AZ 85750 | $420,000 | $394,500 | $335K – $454K |
| 5560 N Via Velazquez Tucson, AZ 85750 | $425,000 | $459,000 | $386K – $519K |
| 5288 N Sunset Shadows Place Tucson, AZ 85750 | $445,000 | $381,000 | $312K – $423K |
| 5771 N Camino De La Sombra Tucson, AZ 85718 | $510,000 | $504,000 | $408K – $580K |
| 4054 N Boulder Canyon Place Tucson, AZ 85750 | $535,000 | $440,500 | $379K – $515K |
| 6498 E Paseo Otono Tucson, AZ 85750 | $540,000 | $502,500 | $412K – $568K |
| 6269 N Paseo Valdear Tucson, AZ 85750 | $555,000 | $597,500 | $490K – $687K |
| 5151 E Mission Hill Drive Tucson, AZ 85718 | $600,000 | None | None |
| 6334 N Pinnacle Ridge Drive Tucson, AZ 85718 | $715,000 | None | None |
| 6079 E Red Cardinal Tucson, AZ 85750 | $715,000 | $655,000 | $531K – $727K |
| 4625 N Rocky Crest Place Tucson, AZ 85750 | $872,500 | $668,500 | $541K – $749K |
| 7827 N Ancient Indian Drive Tucson, AZ 85718 | $1,200,000 | None | None |
| 5920 N Via Serena Tucson, AZ 85750 | $950,000 | $884,000 | $716K – $972K |
| 3271 E CAMINO JUAN PAISANO Tucson, AZ 85718 | $1,640,000 | $1,146,500 | $871K – $1.26M |
| 3252 E Camino Boscaje Escondido Tucson, AZ 85718 | $1,750,000 | $1,106,500 | $797K – $1.31M |
Like it or not it’s still hit or miss with zestimates - some nice hits, but some very big misses too. And in the past I only looked at homes in the $750 and up range. And that may not have been completely fair, because it’s obvious that Zillow is much more on their game at the lower end where, generally, the homes are more alike, even cookie cutter, and getting it right is about as tricky as hitting the broad side of a barn, than they are at the higher end where everything doesn’t stack up quite so neatly.
see thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Foothills home
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I’ve had my fill of them lately. A few months ago my gmail account was hacked and I lost all my saved emails – a couple a thousand of them, both personal & business. But thankfully I was able to recover my gmail account.
Then more recently, and for no apparent reason, I had a bout where perfectly legitimate emails were ending up in my spam folder. Which of course I didn’t discover until way too long after the fact. So if you emailed to inquire about me representing you in a mega $$$$ deal and I didn’t reply, it wasn’t me, I swear.
And today this;
> Gmail [email protected] to 
[email protected]
date Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 9:11 AM
subject Email Alert
Dear Email Client,
There was a failed attempt to login into your account from a blacklisted IP.
Kindly login below Click Here <
and when I clicked Click Here I landed here;
on a page that looks exactly like a legitimate Google sign in page,
except for the address in the address bar, which- you probably can’t read - reads ; http://www.clubvanvrijdenkers.nl/logo/gmail/signon.html
(whatever the hell clubvanvrijdenkers.nl/… is)
instead of something like this;
be careful, it’s no fun getting hacked,
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I wonder if anyone has a recommendation for a company that does state of the art electronic home automation, including audio/video & home theatre
I appreciate it, thank you
JS
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I heard today that some 40,000 gmail users lost all of their saved email.
I love gmail, but g, this is getting to be a regular thing.
It happened to me some months ago, I lost them all, but so far it looks like I’ve escaped it this time. But I have noticed that in some cases, email that is clearly not spam, clearly to me at least, is ending up in my spam folder. Who knows.
So if you’ve emailed me recently and I have not replied, I’m not ignoring you - that is unless you’re trying to sell me something - it’s just that you’ve probably ended up in my spam folder. I apologize. It’s tedious, but I’m going through them one by one and de -spamming you.
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Some cretin hacked into my GMail account last night and got hold of a bunch of names and email addresses and is sending out SCAM emails to friends, family and clients.
The subject of the scam mail is EMERGENCY and it goes something like this or a variation of;
I really don't mean to inconvenience you right now but I made a quick trip to the UK and I lost a bag which contains my passport and credit cards. I know this may sound odd, but it all happened very fast. I've been to the US embassy and they're willing to help me fly without my passport but I just have to pay for my ticket and settle some bills. Right now I'm out of cash plus i can't access my bank without my credit card over here. I have contacted them but they need more verification. I'm just gonna have to plead with you to lend me some funds right now? I'll pay back as soon as I get home. I need to get on the next available flight home.
Please reply as soon as you get this message so I can forward the details as to where to send the funds. You can reach me via the hotel's desk phone if you can, the numbers are, 011447024065511 or 011447024064567 You can also email me via my yahoomail, as I can easily access it here …
______________________________________________________________________________
It’s a SCAM, please IGNORE IT. And I apologize for the inconvenience.
Meanwhile my GMail account> [email protected] has been frozen, so no email, no nothing.
However, you can reach me at > johnschneiders@hotmail.com
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as you can see I’ve been fiddling with the look and layout of the the blog. And so far I’m pretty happy with it – except the mountains are all squished and weird, it’s a work in progress.
JS
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The setting for links from flexmls has been changed to 1000 from the previously feeble 100.
So no more having to lay out 3 or 4 links. YEAH!
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when the news hits, people flock to read it. The next day, traffic drops off. Your home listing, says Redfin chief executive Glenn Kelman, “is just another momentary media phenomenon in an ADD-addled world.”
Good Point
From WSJ.com. Read on about yet another reason why it’s more important than ever to price your house right, right from the start.
Redfin: For Real Estate Listings, the First Week is Crucial
thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Tucson Foothills home
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I was at the office this morning doing some work on the internet and was, at every chance I got, complaining about Comcast.
Well it turns out that Long Realty has a Comcast sales rep who amongst many other things, can help with knarly technical issues.
I gave Jimmy a call and related my latest experience with Comcast, and without further ado he was at my house 2 hours later. And bing-bang-boom, had me up and running at high speed in no time. He was also ashamed for the atrocious service that I got from Comcast.
Anyway, he made things right and thanks to Jimmy I’m up and running and no longer cursing Comcast.
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Monday morning 8/16, after a stormy night, my COMCAST internet service was dead. So I tried calling COMCAST but after being on hold for eons I gave up. So I went to my office to use the Qwest DSL lines, which were up and running, and I saw a COMCAST tech guy in the parking lot. He informed me that internet service was in shambles all over Tucson due to the lightning and storms during the night. And that it would, hopefully, be up later in the day.
OK, mother nature, there was a big storm during the night. So no service on Monday, OK. But on Tuesday morning there was still no service. So I called 1 800 COMCAST customer service to see when service would be restored. They had no knowledge of the storms, storms, what storms. Nope, they had no record of a service outage here in Tucson. Nothing. OK, never mind, but I don’t have service so we made an appointment for the next available time – Wednesday 8/18 between 3:00 & 5:00 PM.
But come Wednesday at 5:00 PM, no one from COMCAST had showed. And no one had called. So once again I called
1 800 COMCAST and went through the whole rigamarole again and was put on hold while they checked with dispatch and eventually was told they were running late – gee whiz no kidding - but they would be here by 5:30 to 5:40. OK fine.
At 6:00 they still hadn’t showed so I called 1 800 again. This time I was told that the technicians were on their way and would be here by 6:30 or so.
Great. But while I was on the phone with COMCAST 1 800, being told that the techs were on their way, the techs called and left me a message that unless I called them right back that they were going home. I called them back as soon as I got off the phone with 1 800 and I got their voicemail and let them know that I’d been waiting 3+ hours and, yes *&%&$$, I expected them to show. They did not call back and they did not show.
I then spent the next 2 hours on the phone with COMCAST 1-800 trying to get customer service to send someone out. I was put on hold for eternity and, finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and hung up. But I called back again, still hoping to speak with someone who might actually be willing and able to help me. But no, that didn’t happen. Instead I was told the next available appointment was Friday. FRIDAY, wait a minute, lets see if I’ve got this right; I’m without internet service for three days, COMCAST totally blows me off and doesn’t show up for the service appointment and I get pushed to the back of the line and have to wait two more days to see if they’ll show up. Does that make sense. It made perfect sense to the COMCAST customer service rep I spoke with. Actually it made perfect sense to all three COMCAST customer service reps I spoke with.
I went ballistic.
(And btw, my experience with COMCAST is that getting them to show up does not mean that your problem will be fixed. No, no way. Last time I went through this with COMCAST, they sent five different tech guys over a weeks time before they were able to figure out how to restore my service.)
This is my little problem. But it is also the reality of the shoddy service you can expect from COMCAST in the Tucson Foothills, 85718. Buyer beware. COMCAST service is inept and, worse yet, COMCAST does not even care. They just want your money.
COMCAST is a cable monopoly that should not be allowed to exist.
Julius Genachowski, are you listening.
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big storm last night, comcast internet service still out,
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Based on the dismal lack of accuracy of Zillow’s zestimates when comparing it’s valuations of foothills homes to real world prices the other day, I thought it would be worthwhile to drop down a notch in price, to $500,000 to $749,999, and see if Zillow does any better at this lower price point.
Presumably, lower priced homes are more similar to each other and have fewer custom amenities and variations, than higher priced homes, and should therefore be a slower moving and easier target for Zillow to hit. So, except for the price, I used the same simple criteria as I did the other day > it’s been awhile, (and things are slow) so let’s check in with Zillow
The criteria;
I ran a search in the Tucson MLS for single family homes in the foothills that sold from July 1, 2010 thru August 12, 2010, listed from $500,000 to $749,999 and sold at whatever price they sold at.
A grand total of 18 homes matched the criteria. But rather than going through all 18, which didn’t seem necessary, I used every other home on the list starting with the first one. So Away we go,
1. 4971 E Avenida Del Cazador Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $429,000
Actual Sold Price - $480,000
3. 2300 E Corte Ingles Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $622,000
Actual Sold Price - $550,000
5. 3900 N Pontatoc Road Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $452,000
Actual Sold Price - $550,000
7. 2430 E Placita Sin Lujuria Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $499,500
Actual Sold Price - $520,000 (BINGO!)
9. 5444 N Maguey Place Tucson, AZ 85750
Zillow says - $393,500
Actual Sold Price - $547,500
11. 6500 N Campbell Avenue Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $746,000
Actual Sold Price - $560,000
13. 4735 N Camino Antonio Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $783,500
Actual Sold Price - $575,000
15. 4210 E Pontatoc Drive Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $743,000
Actual Sold Price - $645,000
17. 5700 N Williams Drive Tucson Tucson, AZ 85704
Zillow says - $527,500
Actual Sold Price - $680,000
Judge for yourself, but I don’t see much improvement, if any, in the accuracy of these zestimates, at this lower price range, vs the results from the other day.
And granted, if we get down to real cookie-cutter homes, I have no doubt that Zillow’s accuracy will zoom into the stratosphere.
But big deal, at that point, it’s like hitting the side of a barn, and who needs zillow for that.
The other reason I ran this comparison again is because I was surprised, amazed really, to find that no one seems very concerned that zillow’s valuations are so far off the mark.
And I understand, and have no issue with, the other cutting edge and very useful tools and features that zillow does provide. Only the valuations, and only in the Foothills, which I know are very important, and I wanted to run this up the flagpole again and double check.
And maybe it’s just that I’m way behind the crowd on this one.
Whereas everyone else has long ago accepted that zillow just doesn’t do accurate valuations in the foothills, and they’ve gotten over it and moved on. Is that it?
Maybe. But there are also many other buyers and sellers out there who are not quite as savvy about zillow’s valuations, and are using them to help determine value. And I wonder, to what degree are those ‘off the mark’ valuations (off the mark is, I think, a very kind way of putting it) contributing to the confusion about prices in the foothills and adding to the inability of buyers and sellers to see eye to eye.
We can probably debate that all day long, but one thing I hope we can all agree on is that Zillow’s ‘off the mark’ valuations are certainly not helping things one bit. Nor do I see how incorrect and misleading information can possibly contribute, even one teensy bit, to the empowerment of consumers and greater transparency in real estate transactions. Do you.
thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Tucson Foothills home
and see if, after all this time, they’re still as far off the mark in their valuations of Foothills homes as they’ve always been.
The criteria;
I ran a search in the Tucson MLS for single family homes in the foothills that sold from July 1, 2010 thru today (8/12/10), listed from $750,000 to $1,250,000 and sold at whatever price they sold at.
That’s it, nice n’ simple, with nothing to complicate things or throw a monkey wrench into Zillow’s sacred secret formula.
A grand total of 8 homes fit that criteria -
So without further ado, here they are, along with Zillow’s Zestimate of their value vs the actual sold price of the 8 homes as reported in the Tucson MLS.
1. 6005 N Pontatoc Road, Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $764,500
Actual Sold price - $747,000
2. 6616 N Los Leones Dr, Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $1,082,000
Actual Sold price - $725,000
3. 4210 N Saranac Drive, Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $636,000
Actual Sold price - $790,000
4. 6920 N Solaz Primero Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $610,500 (range $488K – $684K)
Actual Sold price - $840,000
5. 3141 E Crest Shadows Drive, Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $751,500
Actual Sold price - $887,500
6. 7915 N Sendero De Juana Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $738,500 (range $583K – $812K)
Actual Sold price - $915,000
7. 3250 E Sun Cloud Place, Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says - $1,140,500
Actual Sold price - $1,000,000
8. 2801 E Plaza Encantada, Tucson, AZ 85718
Zillow says – we won’t even guess
Actual Sold price - $1,149,000
Please note that Zillow provides the following explanation/disclaimer of the Zestimate:
A Zestimate® home valuation is Zillow's estimated market value. It is not an appraisal. Use it as a starting point to determine a home's value.
That’s a good one, a starting point. Try a dart board instead, at least you’ll have a few laughs.
PS- and given the lack of anything remotely resembling accuracy in the very important area of home valuations in the foothills which Zillow, nevertheless, seems to pride themselves on, I can’t help wondering why so many real estate agents continue to advertise on and associate themselves with Zillow. Since doing so is clearly an endorsement of zillow.
thefoothillsToday.com
to find your Tucson Foothills home
If you are using my web site – www.thefoothillsToday.com – to search for a home, you may encounter errors or missing listings.
We know that searching Ventana CC is returning fewer homes than are actually available and that Fairfield, and possibly others, may be in the same boat.
A person who was using my site alerted me to this issue. Thank you. And the tech crew has now been trying to unravel it since yesterday morning. So please stand by.
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Chris Fountain, a Connecticut Realtor and blogger extraordinaire,
talks about why sellers should listen and learn from “unvarnished” comments about their property rather than just getting pissed.
And gee, doesn’t that make sense.
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From all the agents I’ve spoken to, and I’ve spoken to many, feelings about the new flex mls system run the gamut from ‘Why the &$^&$%did we switch to this’ to ‘I hate it’. Beyond that there is very little disagreement. I work out of the Foothills office of Long Realty, the busiest, most productive real estate office in southern Arizona. And I’ve yet to meet one agent who is positive about the switch to flex. Not one. At best, everyone seems to be enduring it as if it were a punishment we somehow deserve.
And I’m fairly certain that other agents throughout Tucson are also unhappy with, or maybe even hate, flex.
If so, please, write in and let’s hear. A simple thumbs up or down will do. Let’s get something going. But if you’ve been complaining about flex, yet still refuse to step up and speak out, then forgetaboutit.
OK, it’s been 2+ weeks since we converted to flexmls.
How’s it going.
We want to hear everyone’s opinion, from both Realtors and the public. And hey, if you’ve got a gripe and you let us know, maybe we can get it fixed.
And if you haven’t tried it yet, the public search is at http://www.tarmls.com/
Then click Comments at the bottom of this post and fire away.
Thank you.
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The new public mls search site from flexmls and the Tucson Association of Realtors® is up and running as of today. One day earlier than promised. You can find it here> http://tarmls.com/
And already a reader has weighed in with his opinion of the site.
I’ll post his email here, in the hopes of getting the ball rolling, and look forward to others letting us know what you think.
(just click> Comments at bottom of this post, and fire away)
Bruce wrote;
John
I am not a realtor, just a old banker trying to research and buy a home in Tucson. The new MLS system is a major step backward (from a consumers standpoint); maybe realtors have more bells and whistles. In my industry, to survive as an independent community bank, you have to be on the cutting edge in terms of technology to both retain customers and reduce costs. If TAR’s moved to the new system to save money, they got what they paid for, an inferior product! The old system had more search options, ran faster, and was more intuitive to use. If there are some ‘great tools’ out there with this system, make them available to sophisticated buyers trying to use them. If what that is available with the public options is it, too bad for the prospective buyers.
When you live over 1,000 miles away and are trying to research the options available by area (now only 3 choices) and in a house (about 1/3 of the search options as before), it gets real frustrating. Maybe we should look at other areas where the data are more readily available. Transparency, access, and speed of delivery of relevant information over the internet is what customers demand in the 21st century, not a striped down inferior product such as ‘flexmls’ offers. Did the committee selecting this product miss the internet as an important channel to market and sell their products?
bbm
__________________________________________________________
Though it appears in the Comments section, I thought it only fair to prominently post an opposing point of view, so here’s Jim, a reader who seems to be enjoying the new flexmls system,
This new MLS search site seems faster to me, especially when using the map in conjunction with search criteria. I've been using the old system for a year now and was frustrated at how incredibly S-L-O-W the map refreshes were. This new format will take some getting used to (as all things do) but in just an hour or so, this 50 year-old didn't find it all that challenging. I think this new MLS search site has potential to be more useful to this buyer. I definitely wouldn't be writing it off so soon. BTW, John, I've been meaning to compliment your blog for some time. I've enjoyed it for many months now and look forward to your take on listings I've seen and homes I've visited. It is refreshing to read your unabashed commentary.
Jim
________________________________________________________
please, let’s hear more,
I’ve been absent from the blog today because, unfortunately, I’ve spent more time with the conversion to our new MLS system than I ever imagined I would. More time trying to learn the new system –
it is complex - and more time working with a handful of other agents trying to identify ‘features’ that we think need to be changed.
By the time we’re done we’ll have spent countless hours changing the new system to make it look more like the one we already have, and like.
If you’re an agent in Tucson we’d love to hear what you have to say about your experience with the flex system and your opinions regarding the conversion to flex.
thank you,
I first wrote about the flex conversion here, which started a little firestorm > regarding the new flex mls system that we are moving to -ps- be sure to check out the comments
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It has come to my attention that some readers of this blog may be under the impression that homes that I mention here are my listings.
In fact they are not. Please note, unless otherwise clearly stated that a listing is mine, I assure you, it is not. As a matter of fact, as of 12 midnight tonight, February 15, 2010, I do not represent any sellers and will, for the foreseeable future, only represent buyers of homes in the Tucson Foothills or anywhere else in the Tucson metro area.
Furthermore it is not, and never was, my intention to lead readers to believe that I am ‘advertising’ other agents listings on this blog.
I thought it was crystal clear, but apparently it is not, that my only purpose has been to provide information, along with my opinion, that may be helpful and useful to those who are interested in Tucson Foothills real estate and choose to read this blog. Be they buyers or sellers.
I apologize for any misunderstandings.
Please add your comments, point of view and criticism as you see fit.
I look forward to hearing all of it.
