Our friends at Don’t be a Chump, Check for a Lump are taking a run at “Non-Profit of the Year” in Foothills Magazine.

This is one of those things where you can vote by checking in at the Foothills websites. So surf on over and give them a vote!

Check for a Lump is one of the groups that we’ve supported over the years through our Charity Referral Network.

If you send us a referral for a home sale or purchase, and that transaction closes, we will make a donation to the charity of your choice. We will post on our blog and on Facebook that your referral was instrumental in making that donation happen.

Just this month, we made a contribution to Check for a Lump, as well as the Osborn Education Foundation, as a result of referrals from caring individuals.

You are cordially invited to attend a community forum to express your views and hear those of other Phoenix residents on the future of the Arizona State Fairgrounds, including its historic buildings. This community forum, hosted by Arizona state representative Ken Clark, Phoenix Historic Neighborhoods president G.G. George, Phoenix Historic Preservation Commission chair Bill Scheel, and Arizona Preservation Foundation president Jim McPherson, will be held at the Encanto Park Club House, 2605 N. 15th Avenue, on Wednesday, April 5, 2017 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

Final Four recycling

I’m watching for news of how the City of Phoenix did in trying to meet their Zero Waste Goal, but congrats to the city for trying during the Final Four championships. Learn more here.

“The city of Phoenix, in partnership with the NCAA and the Phoenix Final Four Local Organizing Committee, has set a goal to reach a zero waste diversion rate during the four days’ worth of activities at the Fan Fest at the Phoenix Convention Center and the Music Festival at Margaret T. Hance Park. To achieve this, Phoenix Public Works will be working very closely with the event’s waste management contractors, who will provide three types of containers for Fan Fest and concert-goers to use as they sort their waste into recycling, composting and trash.”

I wish them the best. I remember as a teenager in Germany, where I was stationed with my family, that they recycled almost everything. There were three types of bins at the average gas station. They were that good at their zero waste goal, and that was in the 1980s!

Typically, in America, if you put out three types of bins with instructions, you get a lot of trash mixing and vocal complaints about “why we have to do this, anyway,” along with some ill-informed statement about how it all goes in to a landfill and its all a scam.

Not true, by the way. The city has a robust recycling program. I know, I’ve toured the facilities and its all there. They sell the materials on the open market.

Be that as it may, kudos to the City of Phoenix for continuing the long, long education process.

Now, let’s find a way to get recycling in to commercial businesses and then we are really moving the ball forward on a zero waste goal.

Our friends at the Cromford Report paint a picture for this April Market Update of a stable, but upward-trending price line, probably fueled by a reduction in supply.

This may be why we all keep getting those annoying form letters in the mail offering to purchase our homes. (But we all know that those buyers are just fishing for people willing to sell their homes at a discount, don’t we?)

Anecdotally, for this April Market Update, we see lots of buyers coming to us. We’ve also had a fair number of sellers talking to us about selling. Not all are pulling the trigger, so there might be some hesitancy on the selling side of the equation.

There could be many reason for that. Despite record stock market highs, folks might be a little uncertain about what is coming next, and whether they should sell now or wait.

Anyway, so sayeth Cromford:

“Supply is significantly down from last year, especially in terms of active listings that are not in UCB or CCBS status. A drop of 12% is not to be sneezed at and makes life hard for most buyers.

The monthly sales rate is very strong, up almost 11% from last year, though this year over year growth is a little less than we saw last month. Surprisingly, we are not seeing the same growth in pending listings or in listings under contract. These are running close to last year’s numbers.

Pricing continues to advance, though not at any alarming rate. In fact the median sales price is unchanged from last month. This just shows one of the disadvantages of medians – they tend to cluster at round numbers, like $230,000, and resist moving by small amounts. Our more reliable indicator, average $/SF indicates an appreciation rate of 6.1%, better than last month’s 4.8%.”

Michael Reyes is a fighter, thus “Pinche the Warrior.” After a bout with a potentially cancerous medical issue, (which after surgery left him without a food truck), Reyes is now rising up again. Pinche Taco truck will be partnering with Bar Smith and serving the community just like before.

Many of us remember spending long nights on the Paz Cantina patio, laughing with friends, eating those damn delicious tacos. Then after development, we’d flock to fill the picnic tables outside his food truck.

Michael is a warrior, and his weapon isn’t an arrow, nor an axe, it’s not even a hammer. Michael’s weapon of choice is food. This is the one constant that any Anthropologist will tell you “connects every human together”, food is culture’s glue. By wielding his weapon, he continues to bring us all together.

Like any warrior, Reyes’ battle ground may change, but his passion and purpose never falter. From his food truck, Reyes and his team served over 30,000 tacos and burritos to the homeless. Now, his step one in the plan is to bring a brand-new food truck, Pinche Tacos, to the streets that will serve the customers at Bar Smith, and spend off times serving at rallies and First Fridays. As he puts it, “This truck will be on the streets when it’s scheduled to and when it has a purpose.” With the city and downtown-devotees help, Michael hopes to open a new brick-and-mortar in December.

“This is my Phoenix,” Reyes said. “We all have more passion than we do money. But we’re dedicated to this, to this street. This is our home, our world. Between ‘the sevens.’ That’s what we fight for. That’s why we cry, and that’s why we fight, and that’s why we hurt.”

As Michael has always put it, “I will be back, delivering burritos to my people.”

Join us in celebrating Michael Reyes, Pinche Truck and the passion and purpose again in Downtown Phoenix. Celebration at Bar Smith, see event details below.

When: Thursday, April 20^th from 5:30PM – 7:30PM
Where: Outside of Bar Smith: 130 Washington St, Phoenix, AZ 85004
Note: Free raffle ticket for all those that attend!
RSVP: Click here
Check out the Facebook invite here.

The March Get Your PHX with “F.U.N” story telling is a first for us, and we are pretty excited to bring it to you.

But, first, let’s get this out of the way. “F.U.N” is an acronym that we can’t really spell out on a G-rated website. It stands for f***-Up Nights. (Go ask your parents to explain.)

“F.U.N.” Phoenix, made its debut October 13 (The International Day For Failure). It is part of a global movement where stories of failed business and projects are told, questioned and celebrated. “F.U.N.” began in Mexico City in September 2012, and now as many as 200 cities in 70 countries participate in sharing the failure.

It has become an event where entrepreneurs, soon-to-be “f***-upreneurs” and others gather to listen to three or four stories about failure. It is something between a party and a casual business conference. The purpose of the event is to break free from the stigmas surrounding failure and to see it as a positive step everyone must overcome on the road to success. Especially since the majority of professionals don’t create the project of the year in their first attempt. Moreover, we can learn more from stories of failure than from stories of success.

We ask you to sign up for this even for a free “ticket” via this link, so we can have a reliable RSVP list. Watch for updates on our Facebook event page.

Where: Trunk Space. 1124 n 3rd st, Phoenix, Arizona 85004
When: March 23rd starting at 5:30.

Interest rates are on the way up!

We’ve been hearing talk of it for a while, but now its probably going to be a reality — not once, but maybe three times in the next 18 months.

So, what does this do to the price of a home? As you can guess, a lot!

For instance, if you buy a $200,000 house at 4.5% interest with a 5% down payment, your monthly payment (before taxes and insurance) would be $962. The same house at 5% interest would cost $1,019 per month.

That extra $57 per month difference may not seem like much. However, that is $684 per year or $20,520 over the life of the loan!

I don’t know about you, but I can think of a few things that I could do with that money. There are a few countries on my bucket list that I’d like to visit and I don’t want interest rates to keep me from going.

Another way to look at it is that in order to have the same payment every month that you had at 4.5% interest, you could only afford a house that costs $189,000 at 5% interest.

So, what does this mean? It means that you want to consider getting in to the market before interest rates go up.

It also means that you probably want to act before both prices and interest rates go up, which they are doing now. That is to be avoided!

Further, we’ve been hearing news stories that the Federal Reserve bank may be thinking of raising interest rates multiple times in the next 18 months or so. If prices in Phoenix continue to go up at the same time these interest rates are going, that could be a problem for you.

What’s the take-away? If you can buy now, you might want to make it happen.

Give me a call. I’m more than happy to help you navigate the market: 602-456-9388.

News from the City of Phoenix:

General Contact:
Ed Lebow
Phone Number:
602-495-0197

Spring is almost upon us and for a lot of folks that means time to organize and freshen up their home after a long winter. Now, before you start breaking out all your cleaning supplies, let me give you several reasons why switching to green cleaning products is the way to go this spring!

1. Healthy Home – Chemicals will no longer absorb into the skin or be breathed in. No longer breathing in harsh chemical cocktails from your typical household cleaners can reduce the risk of asthma, which is one of the most common chronic illnesses.
2. Pure Environment – Using greener methods to clean, reduces the pollutants released into the environment. This means less contaminated water and air. Most green cleaning solutions are made from recyclable packaging which also reduces waste.
3. Safe Products – Typical household cleaners pose the risk of chemical burns to skin and eyes. Green cleaning products are non corrosive and have stricter standards regarding toxicity, combustibility, and skin absorption.
4. Better Air Quality – Strong chemical cocktails come with a strong chemical odors. Green products usually include soft, pleasant smells, often from natural essential oils.
5. Less Expensive – Most green cleaning methods can be made right at home from ingredients you already have in your pantry. Why go out and buy expensive products when you have what you need at home?
6. Knowledge of Ingredients – Government regulations do not require ingredients be listed on cleaning products. When you’re making your own green cleaners at home, you know exactly what you’re using.

These are just a few of the many reasons people are switching to green cleaners. Not only is it better for the environment, but for your and your family’s health! So, before you start checking things off your spring cleaning checklist this season, consider cleaning GREEN!

I should also ad that it’s kinda fun to make your own products to clean around the house. I never even thought about it, but it kinda is!

We love and use our friends at Going Green House for their good work and their tips. We use them for our clients, too!

Its that time of month when we remember to check our fire alarm batteries, we clean out the gutters after all the rain and, oh yeah, we check in with our friends at the Cromford Report.

Around mid-month, they saw a sales $/SF of $147.97 averaged for all areas and types across the ARMLS database. This is up a very strong 2.0% from the $145.07 we now measure for January 15.

They caution, however, “This may sound like a big difference but the monthly average $/SF can change quite a bit over a short period. For example between January 16 and January 21 it rose from $144.88 to $147.00, a change of 1.5% in just 6 days.”

This seems to track (in the very short term, at least) with a small down-tick in “month’s supply of homes.” In other words, if no more homes came on the market today, how many months would it take us to exhaust the inventory? Supply goes down, prices go up.

In the CenPho market, we are seeing a small up-tick in days-on-market. I think this is probably still reflects those folks who listed around the holidays and just accumulated days-on-market, while everybody else ate Thanksgiving dinner and celebrated the New Year, nary a thought of buying a home.

Anecdotally, we are still seeing strong interest from people who want to sell their homes and we are constantly getting calls from new buyers. Over-all right about where we would expect to be this time of year.

See below for the monthly info-graphic from the Cromford Report Folks.

If you are looking for more statistical information for your home sale or purchase, hit us up at 602-456-9388.