Comments on: Buyer’s Market in Green Valley?

by: Spencer

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 08:26:17 +0000

Does Quail Creek have more than one railroad crossing point yet? If I paid $400K for a house, I wouldn’t want to have to wait for a freight sitting on the tracks blocking the road to move on when I wanted to go to Safeway or Wal-Mart–and I wouldn’t want the fire department to have to wait when my $400K house was burning or I was having a heart attack.

by: M.T. Head

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 21:10:14 +0000

Having a “flipper” home on the market for the last year, I have started keeping track of the Star’s Sunday listing in its”Home Section.” With my recent travels for White House dinners and other such events like sitting in on Mel Gibson’s AA group in Malibu, I’ve missed a few Sundays. But here is he countdown.
July 16 — 67 sales with 16 over $300,000 and a high of $685,000.
July 23 — 44 sales, 10 over $300,000 and a high of $725,300.
July 30 — 29 sales with 11 over $300,000 and a high of $1 million.
August 13 — 34 sales with 9 over $300,000 and a high of $718,000.
August 30 — 38 sales with 9 over $300,000 and a high of $475,000.
Interpret these figures as you will but in the last week or two the GV Snooze or the Star reported sales remain strong in our area.
In John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” he had a line about “more scars on the land.”
Driving down from the OP it is obvious the scar called Quail Creek is becoming a very beeg scar on our land. And this is my theory as to why buyers there now are almost all above $400,000.
Folks like my friends from San Clemente who built a second home in Quail Creek I believe did it so they could say they live in Quail Creek without the stigma of living in an old people’s place such as Green Valley. It’s like those who will pay thousands more for a house so they have bragging rights to say they “live on a golf course.” Duh. All it means is you replace a lot of windows and wear a motorcycle helmet when you go outside.
In truth, Quail Creek requires that for 80 percent of its homes at least one person must be over 55 and 20 percent over 40 years old.
It would be interesting to have an aerial foto of GV when I moved here at the end of 1999 (one of you former spooks should be able to get a picture from Spooksville back in DC) and compare it to one taken now. It would be shocking, since there is a bulldozer on every spare piece of land here and I’m told even the state land west of us may go on the auction block.
Anyway, thanks to Rod-man for running a foto and other information about my “flipper” place at 1100 W. Circulo del
Sur. Some “bird” who has just sold his Nebraska farm for a jillion will walk in one day and decide it is the great property I immodestly claim it to be.
– JMM

by: ThinkingAhead

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 21:54:18 +0000

Agree with Spencer re boomer retirees..I am one of them and among
others soon to retire, doing advanced planning, seems lots here in
the east are looking west. When I’m out in Green Valley in August I
am going to be there with an eye on what I might buy now, rent out
until I retire (around 2011) then move in myself..that is, if I decide
to retire in G.V. Right now it’s a consideration, not set in stone.
Depends on how I like it. Have family in Tucson, they tell me it’s
lovely..so, I’m willing to take a look at the area and, I’d imagine, lots
of boomers are doing so, or will be, closer they get to retirement.

by: Spencer

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 07:38:59 +0000

I’m not sure why you think Phoenix is still hot. This is a bit of an article in the Wall Street Journal back in April:

“February sales were off year over year by about 19% in Washington, D.C., and down about 25% in and around Phoenix.

Nationally, housing sales are a mixed picture. While nationwide sales of existing homes increased 5.2% from January to February on a seasonably adjusted basis, new-home sales dropped 10.5%. Right now, economists say the housing market will have only a modest negative impact on the overall economy, which has been robust. They note that while sales are slackening, they aren’t collapsing — they are, in many cases, simply settling into a normal market pace. Inventories are rising but they haven’t reached an alarming amount. And while demand for homes is easing off in markets that previously sizzled, they are posting gains in cities where prices are still considered bargains, including Indianapolis, Albuquerque, N.M., and Houston.

But for cities like Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Phoenix and San Diego, the dropoff in sales and rising supply of homes on the market could soon put downward pressure on prices.”

Sounds to me like Tucson/Green Valley is very much in “lockstep with Phoenix”.

All last winter as I watched houses go up in Green Valley I suspected they were overbuilding on a short-term basis. But longer term, I think the demand from boomer retirees will be there.

by: Honcho

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 03:19:41 +0000

Timing is everything! We were looking in Green Valley but he housing prices were climbing so fast it scared us off. Maybe we should have waited another year before deciding. No, my wife wouldn’t have wanted to wait.