So, I’m not usually one to use my own blog to complain about customer service.

But, here’s an issue that I can’t find any other way to get an answer to.

Let me explain.

A few years ago, I purchased a copy of Quicken, which allows me to sync with my bank so that I can keep track of my accounts.

Sounds like a standard feature and one that I expected to be part of the software that I purchased, in perpetuity.

So, I was shocked to get this email a few weeks ago. The long and short: “You must pay to upgrade to the latest Quicken or we will shut off that feature that allows you to sync with your bank.”

I can keep the software and do other things, but I can’t do that really, really important thing that I bought the software to do.

Isn’t this coercion? Isn’t this like holding my software hostage until I purchase their expensive upgrade.

Will somebody who knows more than I do about this please let me know if I’m totally off my rocker here?

—————–Update——-

Here is Quicken’s response: https://qlc.intuit.com/questions/160620

 In brief: they maintain servers which allow users to access their banks.

My response: I still think this sets up a system of holding software ransom. Even if I did not believe that, I think Quicken did a terrible job explaining the “why” behind this decision, let alone being available when I tried to reach them via the website for an explanation. I should not have to go to Twitter and my blog to get an answer.

Ever wondered about the history of your home?

Not, you know, that home built in 1998. I mean your older home. You know, was there anybody famous who lived there in the 1950’s, for instance?

Well, now you can find out for yourself. Join local historians John Jacquemart and Donna Reiner for a class on how to do a history of your own historic property.

If you own a historic property, then you know that we are all  simply caretakers for these beautiful homes. So, it stands to reason that some folks might like to learn more about their properties and maybe even record their histories for future generations.

To learn more, call John or Donna at 602-819-3727 or 602-258-5613, respectively.

I was asked about desert landscaping this week, so I thought I’d do a little post on it.

I believe that lush desert landscaping can help your property values. Look at this image to see how the presentation improves.

Plus, Arizona does have a legitimate issue with where it will meet its long-term water resource needs. It feels good to do good by saving water in the desert. Plus, there is that little thing about saving money every month –which, of course, varies depending on how much grass you had before switching to desert.

The important part is to plan it all out. Many people fill their front yard full of rock (they may or may not kill off all of the grass) and it just looks like a parking lot.

The key is in the word “lush.” You can make a plan that reduces or eliminates grass, which is dense, lush and which has flowers all year around.

(I have to insert my apologies to my neighbors right now. My transition from grass to lush desert is taking longer than I thought it was. I’m a perfectionist.)

However, don’t expect that you will be able to have plants that only survive when it rains. Even desert plants need watering, especially when you first get them.

To do this right, I suggest the following:

Vision: a  yard with a number of lush desert plants that each bloom at different times of the year, thus bringing bird, hummingbirds and butterflies, but which don’t require much water.  

I got rid of my grass and saved so much water, that I put in two fruit trees, and I’m still using less water than before.

1) Study and reflect on what you like.
— Go to the Phoenix Botanical Gardens and just look around at what you like.
— Check out the very handy SRP landscaping guide.

2) Draw a plan for yourself about what you would like.

3) Contract with a landscaper to lay out the irrigation system that you will need, if you don’t feel comfortable doing yourself.

These systems are relatively easy to put in, so you will be able to do some work yourself to save money if you want. Talk with the landscaper to see what you can do. For instance, you can choose the rock you like and have it delivered. You can spread that out yourself in a day or two.

Personally, I try to do this part myself. It usually entails about 50 trips to Ace Hardware. In my most recent yard, the disaster of an irrigation system left by the previous owners necessitated that I get a professional landscaper.

Here’s a great resource to find a landscaper who understands desert landscaping.

4) Don’t worry about putting every plant in right away. Just lay out the system to where you want plants to be and know that you can add plants as time goes on, if you can’t afford them all at once. You can also build in an area dedicated to wildflowers if you want.

Expect the cost to include pulling up old sod (it goes deep in to the soil), laying down irrigation pipe and drip hoses and laying in new rock (maybe build a decorative mound).

I do believe that a lush desert landscaping job will make your house stand out and it will give you plenty of beautiful things to look at every day.

If you have more questions, or if you need help planing out a purchase or a sale, please contact me at 602-456-9388 or at ken@getyourphx.com

The market so far this year has exhibited some odd, maybe even contradictory, behavior.

The question is, what do you do in this situation?

Here are some cases-in-point from our friends at The Cromford Report.

1) The beginning of 2015 so far has been disappointing for sellers. We can tell you that its been tough for ours. The listings are beautiful and well-priced. But the buyers continue to sit on the fence. The only thing to do is wait and continue marketing the listings. See below for a break-down of cities and whether they are a buyer’s market or a seller’s market. The Cromford Index shows this –if the index is over 100, it is a seller’s market. Under 100 is a buyer’s market.

2) Interest rates are even lower. I spoke with one of our favorite lenders last week who told me that he was seeing 30-yr fixed rates consistently under 4%. That’s like free money almost! This will definitely prime the pump.

3) FHA financing has just gotten less expensive. This means that the sector of the market that uses FHA financing (low to moderately-priced homes) can now afford financing again. According to Mike Orr at Cromford, “The reduced mortgage insurance premiums for FHA loans are having a significant effect according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The biggest change affected FHA refinance applications which rose 76.5% for the week ending January 30.” That’s a huge leap in activity!

4) Over-all, the market is a bit better now than it was last year. Its very similar, but a smidgen better. Again, Cromford:

“From the normal snapshot as of February 8, we can pick out the following improvements for sellers over the last 12 months:

• Active Listings (excluding UCB) – down 5% from 22,872 to 21,750
• UCB Listings – up 38% from 1,825 to 2,519
• Pending Listings – up 14% from 4,404 to 5,036
• Days of Inventory – down from 138 to 132
• Months of Supply – down from 6.1 to 5.6 months
• Contract Ratio – up from 27.2 to 34.7″

What this tells me is that buyers and sellers are uncertain. The data would say that it is a good time to make a move, but most people don’t see the data.

The advice I have for this situation is that every market has opportunities, even the worse markets. The challenge is to know how to take advantage of those opportunities. Give us a call and we can help you make a plan. 602-456-9388.

I was honored to be invited to the public presentation of a new pre-fabricated home that has been built for a returning war veteran named Said Ali, by a group called Rebuilding Together.

I was not part of the project, but I got a tour. This new home was build with impressive energy efficiency measures. It had solar hot water, a tankless water heater, energy efficient appliances, lots of insulation and LED ceiling lighting. I encouraged the planners to follow low water use landscaping for a lush desert look at the home, rather than grass, which would saddle the owners with huge water bills.

This use of energy efficiency in homes is not an academic issue. Let’s look at the numbers.

In a house this size, the inclusion of solar PV, solar water, water and electricity-efficient appliances and smart landscaping will save the owners between $150 and $200 per month. That is a savings of between $1,800 and $2,400 per year. If the owners of this home were to put that money in savings every month, they will have around $30,000 set aside for their young son to go to college 14 years from now.

That ain’t chicken feed.

If you read this blog much, you probably have a lot of time on your hands and a high threshold for eye-glazing data.

You also probably know that I am a fan-boy of The Cromford Report. Why? Because they are more often correct than any others I’ve seen –and that benefits the clients who are wise enough to work with our team (hint, hint).

Case in point, their predictions last month were spot on regarding where we would be this month. To quote CR,  “(f)or the monthly period ending January 15, we are currently recording a sales $/SF of $130.38 averaged for all areas and types … This is 0.7% below the $131.28 we now measure for December 15 and represents a small slide in average pricing, as expected. Our forecast range was $127.10 to $132.28 with a mid-point of $129.69. Last month’s forecast proved reasonable and the actual result was only slightly above the mid-point of our predicted range.”

I like to compare their county-wide averages to the Historic Trend Line that I often report on. That is condos and single family residents in zip codes dominated by historic neighborhoods, non-distressed and between $75k and $1 million.

I found it interesting that the historic trend line dropped very slightly, while the over-all bumped slightly upward. Cromford folks think all of this is generally a state of equilibrium (balance of sales and purchases), and that’s a good place to be.

The question is whether this is significant. Historic homes tend to out-perform “regular” homes. So, while the price per square foot is $6 higher, above, the trend line is going the other direction.

Click to see our sweet, sweet listings.

I think it is too soon to tell. My gut tells me that these prices will start moving upward again as we get away from the Super Bowl and in to the high market months (February through June). Also, I heard of lending rates at around 3.8% for a 30-yr fixed loan. That’s incredible and jealousy-inducing for me, personally (’cause I want that rate!). More importantly, it will probably pump the market.

Cromford is expecting an average monthly sales $/SF on February 15 to be $131.77, which is 1.7% higher than the January 15 reading.  This follows a pattern which is common in most years where a stronger February follows a weak January after a strong December.

A little more from Cromford:  “We are seeing stronger sales counts in the first half of January than we did in January 2014, 7% higher year to date. However pending listing counts and under contract counts are showing no improvement over last year so our enthusiasm is tempered.”

This tracks with what I am seeing in historic, with some listings sitting on the market for much longer than they should.

They finalize by saying that there is no cause for prices to fall except in a few small areas with excessive local supply.

What does this mean in the Queen’s English? I dunno. But in American English it means that prices are stable, interest rates are so low its almost like free money and that you should jump now if you are thinking of buying.

If you need to sell, the interest rates will help you motivate buyers and the prices are still better than they’ve been in years –just don’t expect strong up-ward pressure any time soon.

Give me a call if you need to make the big jump and we can build a strategy around your specific needs. 602-456-9388.

I want to introduce you to a measure that we use to see how the market is doing in terms of sales.

“Listing success rate” is the percent of homes that, once listed, sell. Specifically, they do not expire or the sellers do not cancel the listings. This is a great way to see whether the market is stronger or weaker for sellers. When we see a big shift either way, we may be able to see where the trend is going.

Here’s the listing success rate this month.

Pretty dramatic decline, huh? So, does this mean that you should not list your home?

You know I’m going to say “no”, right?

There are two factors to consider here.

First, in the words of The Cromford Report’s market guru, Mike Orr, “Overall the listing success rate is down to 60.5%, which happens to be very close to the 14 year long term average of 60.7%. It is slightly improved from January 26, 2014 when we saw 60.0%, but not by enough to be able to claim any significance.

In other words, it is a matter of perspective. If you first started thinking about listings in most of 2013 or June of 2014, this rate does not look too good to you. But, we are right on the long-term averages for this market.

Second, this is a city-wide rate. If we could break this down to zip code (which is tough because the data sets become very small at that point), you would probably see that listing success rates vary in different areas. The historic neighborhoods and CenPho tend to do better, if you are priced right.

That brings us back to the quality of the work that your realtor does. Yep. You guessed it. This is the part where I say that you should call me if you are thinking of listing your home. We can dig deeper in to these numbers and create a strategy for you to succeed. Call me at 602-456-9388!

Thank you all for an amazing 2015 Phoestivus. We had about 3,000 people visit each night. The early numbers suggest that our vendors sold about $90,0000 worth of goods. That’s an incredible support for locally-owned businesses.

A special thanks to our sponsors, CenPho.com, Co+Hoots, Core Crossfit, Downtown Phoenix Partnership, SRP, Ruby Ride, Local First Arizona, New Times, Oasis on Grand, Public Market Cafe, Blue Sky Airport Parking, Roosevelt Row, Bookman’s, SunBelt Rentals, Yelp, Best in Show, Phoenix Ale Brewery and, you know, me –Ken Clark, HomeSmart Realtor.

Get Your PHX is kicking off 2015 by celebrating not one but two fantastic concepts to arrive at Civic Space Park: Fair Trade Community Kitchen & Grid Bike Share.

So, on to the January, 2015 Get Your PHX event. Fair Trade Café owner, Stephanie Vasquez, along with her long-time friend and fellow foodie, Ingrid Hirtz, are taking vegan and vegetarian cuisine to the next level at their new Community Kitchen concept.

“My Community Kitchen focuses on organic vegetarian cuisine. This is very important to me for many reasons. I believe that it is far too difficult to find conscientious food options affordably,” Stephanie says.

And with such close proximity to the ASU campus, Stephanie felt she should be doing more to provide good food to developing minds, adding, “… It is partially my responsibility to provide healthy delicious options to our future leaders.”

Along with a plentiful menu throughout the week, Fair Trade Community Kitchen offers a ‘pay-as-you-can’ weekly family style dinner every Sunday where meals are donation-based intended to make nutritious meals more accessible to all.

“Basically, we offer family style dining which previews that week’s take out menu prepared by Ingrid who owns and operates Your Community Cook in addition to the ‘pay as you can’ program.”

Civic Space Park also recently installed Grid Bike Share, the newest concept to hit downtown Phoenix.

Ladies, break out your pedal pushers!

The share program is simple: Pay hourly, monthly or annually and ride as much as you’d like. Grid Bike members also receive special benefits such as collecting reward points for locking up outside certain locations, which can then be redeemed at participating businesses.

And riders aren’t the only ones that benefit – businesses earn more too! Researchers found Nice Ride Minnesota users, a bike share in Minneapolis, “spent an extra $150,000 at local businesses near the bike share station.”

Now that’s a lot of dough!

As a special treat, you just might get your chance to test out the new neon green cruisers for yourself because Grid Bikes has generously donated a one-year membership to our raffle, valued at $79!

You won’t want to miss this month’s Get Your PHX pick as we check out Grid Bike Share and enjoy fresh and delicious samples from Fair Trade Community Kitchen.

Please remember, this is NOT at the Fair Trade on Roosevelt.

Also, please RSVP here.

Where: Fair Trade Community Kitchen (at Civic Space Park): 424 N. Central Ave. (Map it)

When: Thursday, January 22^nd, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

In the last post, I told you all about the problems that my real estate partner, Michelle, and I have had with the Big Banks and how we want to discourage any of our clients from every giving them their business.

Now, I want to tell you some of the true horror stories that we’ve seen.

Horror Story #1: I had a client who was buying a house in downtown Phoenix back in 2011. Let’s just say that her bank had the initials “W.F.” Really, they should have had a T between the W and the F. We were five days away from closing and the bank, which had all of the information for months (this was a short sale) suddenly decided that they would not lend on this property because the HOA dues were too high. Luckily, I sent my client over to Jeannie Bolger at Nova Home Loans, who got it her underwritten, cleared and closed in four days. It was like watching a ninja clean up a the mess after a drunk, washed up welterweight started a fight with a bunch of angry cowboys.

Horror Story #2: I had a client who had been contacting her bank for three years trying to re-negotiate her loan in order to avoid a short sale. Let’s call the bank “Bank of Absurdity”. They ignored her pleas, so she contacted me to short sell. Once we listed and had a buyer (after about a month), she contacted the Bank of Absurdity to tell them the good news. They said…..wait for it…… that she would have to go through the process of attempting a renegotiation before they would allow her to short sell. Seeing no other route, she submitted the child-sized stack of paperwork only to be given such horrendous terms on a renegotiation that she had no other choice but to short sell. I’m not kidding. Her monthly payments would have been more than they were before. They pulled other such pranks for the next six months until we finally closed. But, I can tell you that they would have done much better to just renegotiate in the beginning.

Horror Story #3: Just this month, our clients struggled with the banks they chose. One was “WF”, again. The other we will call “US Borg.” In the first case, they never issued the Loan Status Reports that they are required to issue so that our clients can meet their contractual obligation to report their loan status to the seller. Not once did they call our team to update us on the progress of the loan. Only when my business partner (and a woman with the patience of an angel wielding a battle ax) called them many times did they send over what they were supposed to have produced at the beginning of any real estate transaction. The loan officer with US Borg delayed closing by at least a week because he was clearly over-worked and waited until the last minute to do everything. His boss was at a conference when we escalated that situation. The boss, by the way, never returned our phone calls. In both cases, closing was delayed. When you delay closing, much of the paperwork must be updated and the closing costs re-calculated and the sellers tend to get a little hot under the collar because, you know, their entire life has been put on hold because some Big Bank can’t be bothered to spend a little more money on customer service and a little less on their corps of Washington lobbyists.

Do I sound frustrated? Pardon me. I need a moment to re-compose myself.

Thank you.

In the end, interest rates and closing costs mean a lot more than some inconvenience that you or your realtor suffers during the transaction. After all, it is our job to take those frustrations on your behalf.

But I can’t escape the thought that it simply does not need to be this way. Our clients and the clients on the other side of the transaction should not have to be inconvenienced in this way. More important than a little transactional frustration, our clients lose time, money and market value because of the sloppiness of the Big Banks.

Oh, and in case you want to know, I have been in transactions with mortgage brokers that were difficult. But in every one of those cases it was because the other side’s lender was not on top of it or because our clients did not disclose all of their finances or lines of credit. Even in those cases, our mortgage brokers pulled them across the finish line.

So, that is why we always recommend mortgage brokers. There are five of them in our list of favorites, which we share with our clients. We encourage you to call them up and just see if there is a fit. They are all very qualified and very driven. Call me at 602-456-9388.

And, if you don’t like any of our suggestions, please shop around. But, please, please never use the Big Banks.

For years I’ve been advising my clients to avoid the Big Banks and credit unions like a fly in your guacamole.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ll do my banking any day at a credit union over some national bank. In fact, I did move all of my banking from some Big Bank™ to a local credit union. As you can learn from Local First Arizona, the more we support locally owned businesses, the more we help our economy. Further, the big national banks don’t deserve our business, after tossing our economy off a cliff like a sad rag doll.

But, when it comes to loans, I can only go on my experience. And I have found that you will always do better with a mortgage broker than a Big Bank. If I really, really had to rank them, I’d go with a local credit union before any national bank. At least with a local credit union, you can elevate a problem to somebody higher up than some sad bank worker in a broom closet.

Still, from time to time our clients insist on using their Big Bank, even after our warnings. So, I want to take this time to express to all five of you who read this blog some of the intractable problems with the Big Banks.

First, a myth. Just because you bank with a company, does not mean you will get the best terms. If you take the deal offered to you by a Big Bank to a mortgage broker, you will probably find out that you will get a better deal. And, if you don’t get a better deal at first, it is only because the Big Bank has not yet had an opportunity to change the terms just in time for close due to some unforeseen circumstance. (Yes, this has happened enough times for me to feel comfortable leveling this charge.)

Second, another myth. Some folks think that if they go with their Big Bank, the bank will hold that loan and not sell it. Thus, you will get to keep all of your business in one place. While many Big Banks will continue to house their loans, there is a very good chance that your loan will be sold off.

Yes, mortgage brokers will sell off your loan. While that is annoying, it is not the end of the world. Its not like the Big Banks are really that good at customer service, anyway.

Problem #1: Bank employees are not typically as qualified as mortgage brokers, in my experience. When we have found a person at a Big Bank who is really smart and committed, we usually see what their own bank bureaucracy puts them through and we certain that they are probably quietly filling out a resume to leave this job to work for a mortgage broker. Many employees are not given a monetary incentive to do a better job. They work for salary, not a good commission.

Problem #2: The really big banks often split the loan and transaction process up in to little bits on a conveyor belt, so that one poor person is just dealing with one part all day, over and over again. They don’t have pull with the underwriters to solve problems and they can’t even see the entire process from where they sit.

Problem #3: Bureaucracy. These banks are so big that you have to spend ages on a phone tree and sometimes you don’t talk to the same person who actually knows you. This is true both during the home-buying process and afterwards.

Problem #4: Attitude. I will illustrate this with a couple recent stories next week. But, by and large, the attitude of the Big Banks is that you and I need them. They don’t need us. Can you blame them? This is the message that they got loud and clear when we bent over backwards to keep them from splitting apart (as they should have done) during the Great Recession.

For now, I need to take a deep breath and do some yoga. If you want to see the second installment of this tirade, have a look here.**

**NOTE: My friend Jeannie Bolger from Nova Home Loans added the following to clarify that loan officers with banks and credit unions don’t have to be licensed to help you with you loan.

“Bank and Credit Union LO’s are not required to be licensed – they are registered, but not Licensed.  They did not have to pass a State and Federal test to get the ability to originate a loan.  Nor are they required to take licensing hours each year like your and me to stay up to date on the guidelines and once again pass a test to show you are competent to continue to originate a loan.
 
The banks and CU’s lobbied to be “Waived” from having their employees licensed mainly due to the fact they have the call centers and none of those people could have passed the Federal and State test.  It’s expensive and the banks did not want to take on that expense and because they are so powerful they won!!!
 
So basically, I’m held to a higher standard because I am licensed and I have no problem with that.  Just know when you go to a Bank or Credit Union the Loan officer your speaking to is not necessarily Licensed and did not have to pass an Arizona or a National test to originate loans.  They could have been a shoe salesman at Macy’s 2 weeks prior.  Buyer be aware!!!!”