Last week, I shared details of the actual percentage of the increasing value of homes in the downtown Phoenix historic districts between January 2011 and October 2012. This week, I’ll open it up to CenPho, still focusing on the historic neighborhoods. You’ll find this very interesting and informative…

The bold numbers are the percecentage of change in those areas that follow:

No Change

I believe that we have not seen much change in these historic neighborhoods because they are so small and unique. We just have not seen much turnover in homes here.

Ashland Place Historic District
Hoover, Vernon and Ashland Avenues between Central Avenue and Third Street

Alvarado Historic District
Central Avenue, Oak Street, 3rd Street and Palm Lane in Phoenix
Note: I have a great listing at 140 E Coronado, directly behind the Phoenix art museum. This is a great, stable neighborhood.

East Alvarado Historic District
Central Ave., 3rd St., Oak St. and Roanoke Ave.,

East Evergreen Historic District
McDowell and Fillmore Sts., Central and 7th St.,

Up to 15% increase
This is generally the same as those areas noted above. This is a relatively small area and there is not a lot of turn-over.

La Hacienda Historic District
Thomas Rd. and Earll Dr. between 3rd St. and 7th St.

15% – 24.9% increase
The change in these areas is a result of some really nice renovations of historic homes. You are not seeing the huge increase in prices, as with those areas further down in this post because these areas remained surprisingly stable throughout the recession –at least by comparison. These areas prove my premise: that historic neighborhoods survive shocks better than other neighborhoods.

Campus Vista Historic District
Osborn to Thomas, 7th Avenue to 15th Avenue.

Cheery Lynn Historic District
Flower St, Earll Drive, Randolph Road, and 16th Street.

Country Club Manor
7th St. Osborn Rd and Thomas Rd

Del Norte Historic District
Virginia Avenue to Encanto Blvd, 17th Avenue to 15th Avenue

Encanto-Palmcroft Historic District
Encanto Bvd, McDowell Rd., 7th Ave. and 15th Ave.,

Encanto Vista Historic District
Encanto Bvd, Thomas Rd., 7th Ave. and 15th Ave.,

Fairview Place Historic District
15th Ave., McDowell Rd., 18th Ave., and Encanto Blvd

F.Q. Story Historic District
McDowell Rd., 7th Ave., Roosevelt St. and 17th Ave.,

Idylwilde Park Historic District
11th St and 12th St. Weldon Ave. and Fairmount Ave.

Margarita Place Historic District
15th Ave and 16th Ave along Edgemont Ave.

Medlock Place Historic District
Missouri and Camelback Rds. Central and 7th Aves.

Melrose-Woodlea Historic Neighborhood
15th ave to 7th ave and Indian School to the canal

Oakland Historic District
Van Buren and Jefferson Sts. 7th and 15th Aves.

Pierson Place Historic District
Camelback and the Grand Canal Central and 7th Aves.

Woodland Historic District
Grand and 19th Aves. and Van Buren and Fillmore St

Yaple Park Historic District
The Canal and Indian School Rd., 7th and 15th Aves.

25% – 34.9%
Willo saw some terrible price drops, but really started coming back in 2011. I believe a lot of this prices increases in Willo became apparent earlier than those shown far below.

Los Olivos Historic District
Located along Monte Vista Road between Third and Seventh streets

Roosevelt Historic District
McDowell Rd and Fillmore St. Central Ave. and 7th Ave.

Willo Historic District
Central and 7th Aves. McDowell and Thomas Rds.

35% or more increase
These areas really saw a huge dump in prices during the recession. The Coronado neighborhood, for example, was priced incredibly high on a per foot basis before the drop and they saw a huge downturn. Garfield neighborhood is increasing for other reasons –can you say “ASU expansion?” Garfield is going to be an important downtown neighborhood in the coming years and everybody is jumping in on it. I just hope that those who are jumping in are actually renovating the homes and not just acting as absentee landlords.

Brentwood Historic District
McDowell to the I-10, 16th Street to the 51

Coronado Historic District
Virginia Avenue to Coronado Road, 8th Street to 14th Street

Country Club Park Historic District
Thomas Road to Virginia Avenue, 8th Street to Dayton Street.

Earll Place Historic District
Earll Drive and the north side of Pinchot Ave between 16th and 18th st.

Garfield Historic District
7th St. 16th St. VanBuren St. and I-10

North Encanto Historic District
Osborn and Thomas Rds. 15th and 19th Aves.

Windsor Square Historic District
Missouri and Camelback Rds. Central Ave. and 7th St.

So when you are looking to buy a home, how much do you think you need for a down payment? 5%? 10%? What about 20%?

I get people saying to me all the time, “I can’t buy because I don’t have 20% down.” But its not true!

I want to find the news reporters who keep this myth alive, dress them in Lady Gaga’s meat dress and introduce them to a pack of coyotes.

The reality is that with a high enough credit score, you could qualify for a loan where you only need to pay 3% down!

How amazing is that? A new home with only 3% down!

But what about all this talk of 20% down to qualify?

It’s all nonsense. Period. End of story. Jeannie Bolger, Senior Loan Officer with Nova Home Loans, believes the 20% down payment myth stems from misinformation and everyone wanting to give advice without actually doing the research.

(By the way. I love Jeannie. She is great. She gets people qualified and works hard throughout the process.)

So how can you qualify for the 3% loan? To begin, the loan is backed by FannieMae/Freddie Mac (aka, the guv’mt). According to Bolger, to qualify you need at least a 680 credit score. Keep in mind this is only a minimum and is not a guarantee.

Having a lower credit score doesn’t hinder you, in fact, if you have a credit score of 640 you could qualify for a loan with paying 3.5% down!

Don’t get me wrong, paying more as a down payment is great if you can afford it because it can save you money on interest rates. Plus, paying 20% down allows the home buyer to waive the mortgage insurance premiums.

This is an amazing opportunity for people to take advantage of and should not be passed up. With interest rates near (or under) 5% and homes at their rock-bottom prices, now is the best time in over 40 years to buy a home.

So snap up those short sales or foreclosures with an incredibly low down payment and give me a call today to help you find the perfect home!

Short sales. Foreclosures. The media will tell you how bad it is.

I’ll tell you, this is a market of opportunity.

But if you are going to take advantage of this opportunity, you need to understand the pros and cons of short sales.

Why? Because short sales are becoming an increasing proportion of the market.

Why? Because the market is turning around.

Sound counter intuitive? It is, I agree.

The number of short sales has increased as a portion of the entire market because the number of foreclosed properties is shrinking.

With the number of foreclosures drastically shrinking in the Phoenix real estate market and the rapid increase of short sales, those looking to buy will be forced to wait unless they decide TODAY to buy (not literally today, but in the near, and I mean very near, future).

Check out the graphs, below. In the first one you can see those two pies. Notice that the one of the left represents active listings. See the light blue area? Those are “pre-foreclosures” or “short sales.” The red area is lender owned property and the dark blue represents normal sales.

So, look at the right hand pie. These are monthly sales –those that actually close. The red area is much larger because the foreclosed properties actually close.

With the increased number of short sales on the market, a homebuyer waits an average of 3-6 months before closing the deal, and only 40% of transactions actually close.

So, what is the trade off? Not much, really. You can see the bar graph below the pies showing that prices for foreclosed homes are lower than short sales. Problem: there are fewer of them to look at.

Am I saying not to even look at short sales? Nope. Just know what the risks are. If you need to close in a hurry, don’t look at short sales. If you have a longer time horizon, then this can be a great way to find some incredible deals.

Check out the graph further below to see how the number of short sales versus foreclosed properties has changed over the course of the year.

Then give me a call and let’s talk about how I can help you.

The Phoenix Business Journal recently praised Phoenix for boasting “one of the nation’s top clean economies” in the nation. It seems they would be better off praising Warren Buffet for getting a part time job at McDonalds.

What I mean is why is Phoenix only ranked 20^th? This beautiful city is ranked behind other cities such as New York, Chicago, Washington, and Philadelphia. And the last I checked we are one of the sunniest cities in the nation.

Want to know something even more pitiful? Phoenix added only 4,000 jobs between 2003 and 2009, ranking it 34^th in the nation.

34^TH!?!

I realize I shouldn’t be so negative since Phoenix does boast almost 23,000 jobs in the clean job sector.  Any job is a good job, right?

But I still can’t get over the fact that this is a far cry from what it should be given our prime location for clean renewable energy. In fact, the Phoenix area has the potential to power the entire state with solar energy. Not only that, but clean renewable energy brings high-paying jobs and can help stabilize our local economy and the Phoenix real estate market! This is a no-brainer and we need to take advantage of our amazing location.

Granted there have been large energy companies taking root in the Phoenix area, First Solar Inc. and Suntech Power Holdings, but it seems to be the economy that is holding other companies back.

I have a friend at a large employee placement firm who is telling me that they are placing many new employees in Arizona as renewable energy jobs are created. But, he says, we could be moving so much faster if we can just get over the economic hurdle.

“When the capital markets get going, you’re going to see the market really take off,” said Steve Zylstra, president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council.

Until then, write your legislator and tell them we want solar jobs today!