Donna Reiner, a local historian and a good friend of Get Your PHX, has written many articles over the years for the Arizona Republic and others about what came before us. We use her services when we list properties of historic significance to help us tell the stories behind the homes.

We are happy that Donna is allowing us to re-publish some of her articles on a monthly basis. If you or your business ever needs a historian, let Donna know at laydeescholar@hotmail.com.

One of the basics we learned at an early age is to share. Share our toys and games, share our room/space, and maybe even share our clothes. But….it may not have been easy,.

A delicate balance between the needs and wants of city and county governments seems to exist in many areas. But sharing a building? How much and in what form will or could it take place? At one time, the Arizona territorial government shared the upper floor of the first Phoenix City Hall until the capitol building was completed in 1901 (it was understood that this situation was temporary). But that building is long gone from the memories of most residents. Nevertheless, there is one quite striking example of sharing that still stands out: The County/City Administration Building at 125 West Washington.

The building reflects first upon the growth of this urban area, both city and county, and also the mature local governments of Phoenix and Maricopa County. By 1920, Phoenix had surpassed Tucson in population and the county was more populated than any other Arizona county. Having status as the location of the state government also lent importance to these two governing bodies. Thus when it came time to provide larger quarters for their respective administrations, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce suggested (perhaps pressured is more appropriate) the city and county to join efforts to build a magnificent structure in the center of downtown.

A design competition narrowed the field to seven architects and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors selected Edward Neild from Shreveport, Louisiana in September 1927. And here’s where those “sharing” problems began to arise. The City of Phoenix preferred the local firm of Lescher and Mahoney. So, what could be done to solve what might have been a dreadful impasse?

Each governing body decided that “we can do this” using both architects with Neild being the overall supervisor on the project. Neild designed the Maricopa County portion on the east side of that building on West Washington, and Lescher and Mahoney designed the City of Phoenix portion including the interior on the west end. Two separate entrances mark the difference between the two governments.

By the 1950s, both bodies had outgrown their respective sides and made plans to build SEPARATE buildings. Sharing was no longer a viable option.

While most people see a unified building on the exterior, on the interior you encounter the now non-functioning doors between the city and county sides. Who knows if these differences have actually saved this historic building from demolition.

Phoenix gave Landmark status to Historic City Hall in 2004.

Donna Reiner is the co-author of three books on Phoenix history.

We are watching a hot market for the April 2018 Market Update.

First, here’s the perspective of the numbers crunchers over at the Cromford Report:

For the monthly period ending March 15, we are currently recording a sales $/SF of $159.67 averaged for all areas and types across the ARMLS database. This is up 0.3% or $0.55 from the $159.12 we now measure for February 15. On March 15 the pending listings for all areas & types shows an average list $/SF of $166.06, up 1.5% from the reading for February 15.

Translation: the market update shows  that county-wide averages for prices continue to inch upward, but not at a dramatic pace.

The CenPho and historic markets, more narrowly defined, are active, but not what Cromford would consider “hot”, especially at the higher price points.

Look at these three charts measuring the “contract ratio”. Remember, the contract ratio measures the number of completed sales contracts relative to the supply of active listings.

1. Valley-wide contract ratio for single family residences, all prices. Notice that we are in the “hot market” band of the chart.

2. If we just look at Cenpho and historic neighborhoods, we go from hot to warm. Why is this, given that no new homes are being built in this area? Shouldn’t it be hot?  It may be that people have been listing a little too high for the market, and their listings are staying on longer, or are dropping off. This is true, wether we are looking at all homes (52.6%) or just homes below $500,000 (62.2%)

3. If we look at Cenpho, historic, same area and above $500,000, we see that the Contract Ratio drops to about ____.  It is normal for more expensive homes to take longer to sell and for more of them to drop out of the market. So, this is not alarming.

What it does seem to show is that the historic markets, while active, are not as hot as the over-all county. It is hard to say why –and perhaps the wonderful nerds at the Cromford Report would disagree– but I believe it may be that sellers might have priced too high at first in the historic neighborhoods. Combined with possible uncertainty on the part of buyers about whether they should buy now or wait for a market shift.

While I’ve been expecting a market shift for some time, I’m starting to believe that it may not come as soon a I originally thought. This is probably due to two things. First, there are no new houses to speak of in CenPho. Second, with a high stock market, people are still looking to real estate as a place to park their money.

We are watching the market closely. If you are thinking of buying or selling, use a team that knows the numbers. Call us at 602-456-9388.

We were pretty excited to learn about the new working urban gardens and restaurant concept for Los Olivos Park at 28th and Indian School: The Farm at Los Olivos.

This is a public-private partnership with Greenbelt Hospitality, who’s owners are well known for their work in the community. Matthew Moore’s family has farmed in the valley since the 1920s and he currently lectures on art and agriculture across the country. Aric Mei is most known for The Parlor Pizzeria, proclaimed by The Food Network as the best pizza in Arizona.

Have a listen to this KJZZ news story on the possible development.

The project will take the western 30% of Los Olivos park to create working urban gardens and community space, along with dining. It will consist of beautifully designed organic produce gardens, an art and education center, and healthy concessions that will provide a unique and delicious food and recreation experience for its visitors.

The ultimate goal is to build a stronger and more resilient food culture in our community while providing an educational experience for visitors.

The City of Phoenix issued an Request for Proposal (solicitation) for the creation of a new Park amenity with agriculture, education, and concessions as the core requirements. The Greenbelt team responded along with other proposers.

After a independent review process, Greenbelt was selected as the highest scoring applicant. Through this new public/private partnership, the new amenity will be financed and operated by the Greenbelt team and will require no taxpayer dollars.

Additionally, the land itself will continue to be owned by the City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department, and most importantly, no park land will be sold.

Now, here’s the most important thing to know. There will be a city council meeting for final approval on March 22nd. Be sure to attend if this issue is important to you!

Learn more at their Facebook Page.

There will be a public charrette on March 10th to consider ideas of what could be done with the State Fairgounds.

What is a charrette? Well, first, a little background.

About every ten years, we begin to hear rumors that the State of Arizona wants to relocate the State Fairgrounds from its current location at 19th Ave and McDowell to some unknown location.

Thus far, the move has never come to pass.

This time, there seems to be a stronger push for a relocation. The Governor’s office issued a request for information (RFI) last March to get ideas of what the public would like to see happen. Some folks wanted to keep the fair where it is. Some wanted to move it and build homes. Some wanted a public park. One of the tribes even offered to take the fair to their land.

There are many ideas, plus most of us want to be 100% certain to preserve the historic buildings on the fairgrounds.

So, what can you do when there are so many competing interests? Well, you get them all in to a room with some smarty-pants architects and city planners for a day and share as many ideas as you can come up with. At the end, the architects and planners lock themselves in a room and come up with some ideas, which the present to the public.

That’s basically what a charrette is.

I have my idea of what should happen, but your ideas are just as important.

So, you can learn more on the State Historic Preservation Office’s Facebook page. Better yet, you can join us on March 10th.

We’ve issued a new price –down to $435,000– for this beautiful downtown town home –2br/2.5ba, 1,664sf with a 2-car garage. No parking headaches for you downtown if you live here!

This property represents downtown living in a rare and roomy town home, in the thick of all the fun. You can live about 200 yards from the Gold Spot Market, 1/8th mile from light rail, and a quick hop away from all of the entertainment, education and shopping downtown.

Have a look at our listings page for more information and lots of beautiful photos.

Please also see the video that we produced to give you a tour of the home at this link.

All this with a garage and quick access to the freeways. This town home was built in 2015 with added extras, chosen by the owner: upgraded floors and kitchen features.

So, if you love the historic neighborhoods and that front porch experience, but don’t want the historic home maintenance, this property is for you.

This home is priced competitively with the almost identical (but slightly smaller) MetroWest town homes nearing completion around the corner at 2nd Ave and McKinley. Have a look at this link for the story I did on that new development.

With everything happening downtown, you won’t want to miss this.

Michelle Conley, the quieter and more dignified half of the Get Your PHX team, has just a price reduction on her  listing in North Central Phoenix, to $584,900.

This 4br/4ba home has a den and a roomy guest house. It has one of the coolest back yards we’ve ever seen, on an expansive 10,698sf lot.

Check out the beautiful, state-of -the art kitchen with breakfast bar, granite counter tops, high end appliances, pantry, and complete with wine cooler. All bathrooms have been updated to perfection.

The guest house is large and is perfect for your in-laws or college student, with a security system with cameras and hard wired Ethernet.

The backyard is an entertainers delight complete with built in BBQ, outdoor speakers and fans. Full size washer and dryer in main home and guest house convey with the property. This property has been totally updated and is a fantastic family home! Schedule your private showing today!

You can see all of the photos and details for this new listing in North Central at Michelle’s special listing page.

Don’t miss out on this huge price drop on this beautiful 1928, 5br/3ba, 3,700sqft Spanish Mission style historical home.

You might have seen this home on our Listings Page. We are so proud to represent this listing. Have a look at the listing and photos that capture how beautifully this home has been maintained.

You can see the video tour that we put together for your viewing enjoyment on YouTube.

Check out the crafted woodwork, the coved ceilings, the luxurious grounds and the attention to detail and respect for this home’s origin. The current owners have added just the right touches, including a beautiful pool. You can have all this, as well as easy access to downtown, transportation corridors, shopping, entertainment and a peaceful urban neighborhood.

Source: Arizona Republic Archives

The home was built in 1928 by Harry Tritle, the son of former territorial governor F. A. Tritle. He was the Assistant Secretary of the Territory of Arizona starting in 1897.  He was also the editor of the Arizona Gazette. Many years later, in 1926, he was appointed to the Industrial Commission of Arizona.

This home has seen so much of Phoenix’s growth since then. We are still working on compiling the history of the home since that time. So, stay tuned!

If you have a historic home that you hope to sell with the help of a qualified and successful team that also respects the importance of the stories behind historic homes, please contact us at 602-456-9388.

Source: Arizona Republic

When you are selling your home, are you required to disclose if your home was used as the setting of an adult movie?

Yep. I couldn’t help myself. The question is designed to catch your attention –clickbait style.

The Arizona Republic already covered the question in this story just the other day.

However, its worth a look because disclosure rules are very, very important –whether you are the buyer or the seller.

If you are selling, the first thing a good you will be asked to, do after you sign your listing agreement, is complete a Seller Property Disclosure Statement, or SPDS. And the general rule is, “when in doubt, disclose.”

In other words, if you can’t remember whether you had that roof repaired after that monsoon five years ago, it is better to disclose what you know. If you don’t and the new owners find out that you knew a material fact that you should have disclosed, you could be in legal hot water.

You can best protect yourself by being honest. If the buyer walks because they don’t like something, its better than lying about it and possibly suffering greater losses later

However, there are some things that you are not required to disclose (and which your agent can’t disclose).

• If the home was the site of a natural death, suicide or homicide or any other crime classified as a felony.
• If home was owned or occupied by a person exposed to HIV or AIDS.
• If home being located in the vicinity of a sex offender.

Why do we have this list? Simple, these things could unfairly tarnish or sour a home unnecessarily.  When it comes to these items, it is the responsibility of the buyer to check it out.

So, let’s go back to the issue in the article, from the buyer’s perspective. Is it relevant that the home was the site of adult movies? Nope. Not as far as the contract is concerned. How it is material to the sale? Was there damage to the property? Probably not. (Maybe just a slight embarrassment, though.)

In Arizona buyers can cancel the contract during the inspection period for almost any reason. However, in this case, if the buyers had hoped to cancel the contract (and keep their earnest money) after the inspection period, they could not do it on this basis. Its unfortunate that the buyers did not learn about this before they finished the inspection period.

So, if you are buying a home, Michelle and I are going to advise you to complete all of your inspections –including talking to the neighbors about the “scoop” on the home– before you complete your 10-day inspection period. We have never heard of a client regretting knocking on a few surround doors and talking to the neighbors.

Do you think these buyers would have learned about the previous videographic uses of the home had they paid a visit to the neighbors? We think they probably would have.

Not that we think the production of some skin flicks is going to permanently tarnish a home. But if knowing that such movies were made in a home give you the heebie-jeebies, be certain to learn everything you can.

We are a couple of experienced and licensed agents who pride ourselves on understanding commissioner’s rules.

If you have questions about the home buying or selling process, give us a call at 602-456-9388.

I’m at odds with my friends at the Cromford Report in this March 2018 Market Update.

I wish I weren’t.

They are seeing a continued upward trend in prices, although slight.

I’m seeing the beginnings of a shift.

First, their comments:

“For the monthly period ending February 15, we are currently recording a sales $/SF of $159.13 averaged for all areas and types across the ARMLS database. This is up 1.0% or $1.53 from the $157.60 we now measure for January 15. Our forecast range midpoint was $159.14, with a 90% confidence range of $155.95 to $162.31. The actual result was just 1 cent below the mid-point, which means the forecast we gave last month was our most accurate ever.

We are therefore predicting a similar rise over the next 28 days to the one we just experienced between January and February. So far in 2018, with a month and a half of new listings to go on, we have seen a 1.5% decline in new supply over the same period in 2017. Obviously this not going to rebalance the market in favor of buyers. Prices will continue to trend higher until we see either far more supply or much lower demand.”

Second, what Michelle and I are seeing:

In speaking with other agents and in our recent experience, we are seeing less activity above $300,000. Below $200,000 is as hot as ever.

The Cromford Index shows a continued upward climb. There was a bit of a dip a month ago, which I reported. But it is turning around.

However, we are seeing a slightly lower contract ratio. “The contract ratio indicates how “hot” a market is. It specifically measures the number of completed sales contracts relative to the supply of active listings. The higher the number the greater the buying activity relative to supply. If this number rises then it is a sign of growing contract activity and a positive signal for sellers.

Conversely a falling number is a sign of a weakening market – either supply of active listings is increasing or contract activity is slowing, or both. In a balanced market for normal market segments, the value of the Contract Ratio is usually between 30 and 60.”

Call me paranoid, but I think we are due for some sort of a correction. The only caveat is that this may be less pronounced in a dense urban area, such as right downtown.

Here’s where I could be wrong: the contract ratio often pushed back upward in February and March. I say, if we don’t see that happen when we get the numbers this month it may be a sign.

If you are thinking of selling, let’s get it done right away and let’s be ready to price aggressively.

Call us at 602-456-9388 and we can help you navigate the market.

Donna Reiner, a local historian and a good friend of Get Your PHX, has written many articles over the years for the Arizona Republic and others about what came before us. We use her services when we list properties of historic significance to help us tell the stories behind the homes.

We are happy that Donna is allowing us to re-publish some of her articles on a monthly basis. If you or your business ever needs a historian, let Donna know at laydeescholar@hotmail.com.

The old Ellis Building (photo courtesy of the McCulloch Brothers Collection, ASU).

Are you the type who buys new clothes each year to keep up with that year’s changing styles? For buildings, changes to a “new” style may be as simple as applying stucco over bare brick or removing parapets. Change is something we all encounter or recognize. Or do we?

Whether you are a long time resident of Phoenix or not, you may not realize that a number of fairly well-known buildings have a new outer shell. Yes, over time, upgrades were made to “modernize” their exteriors rather than starting from the ground up and you may be surprised by which ones.

The Ellis Building with its “new” clothes (photo by Donna Reiner)

The Ellis Building dates from 1923. Considered modern with its four stories and elevator, two additional floors were added in 1928 to meet the demand for local office space. By the 1950s though, the interior desperately needed upgrades with office and lobby space configurations and new elevator equipment. Still the exterior remained the same. However, the Ellis Building’s owners did something dramatic in 1962 before its fancy tall sleek new neighbor, the Arizona Title Building at 111 W. Monroe, opened in 1964.  But check for yourself when you drive by the former City of Phoenix Human Resources Building at 135 N. 2^nd Ave.

The original Korricks. (photo courtesy of the Phoenix Public Library)

Korricks “new” covering (photo by Donna Reiner)

Korricks Store at 106 E. Washington was one of the leading shopping places for Phoenicians to frequent in downtown Phoenix along with Goldwater’s, Hanny’s, and Switzer’s. Like the Ellis Building, its interior had been upgraded to keep up with the times and there had been some changes to the exterior. But the major changes would come later after it had served as the home for Maricopa Technical Community College for a number of years.  The new owner gave it a contemporary exterior and a new function: an office building.

In 1960, Fred Guirey, a local architect designed the Coronet Hotel at 1001 N. Central (the northeast corner of Roosevelt and Central). Later it was converted into office space. But in 1984, the building was stripped to its bare steel bones and concrete, received an entire new skin of glass which is the way you see it today. More square footage was added along with a parking garage.

The Coronet Hotel with a modern face. (photo by Donna Reiner)

If you are anxiously awaiting the opening of Cornish Pasty Company at 3 W. Monroe, try to imagine how the building once looked with its exposed red brick.

Sometimes we love the new clothes and other times we wonder what were we thinking. The same goes with alterations to buildings. Do you like the new look or prefer the old?