real estate in flagstaff (housing, rental, income)

[grasshopper81276]

i am a new real estate agent and im thinking about moving to flagstaff az, but i dont know anyone there, can anyone tell me if I would do well in real estate in flagstaff?

[Nice Nice Baby!]

You'll need to make a deal at least every two months to survive, unless you have outside income. This would be a bare minimum to get by, but I don't know your lifestyle.

[carecare7]

The homes that are selling in Flagstaff right now are the million-dollar ones. There are over a thousand homes on the Flagstaff market right now, and that doesn't include manufactured, mobile or foreclosure homes. The market is very soft, despite what the local realtors will try to tell you. Rents are very high, home prices are extremely high and sellers are not getting the message fast enough to lower their prices. Most agents here got used to the boom of the past couple of years. Some even bought Hummers. Now they are sweating it. Homes are sitting seven or more months on the market at this time. Just thought you should know!

[grasshopper81276]

Yea im used to rent being high and houses being high. I live in las vegas nv where you cant find a house for under 250,000 the new homes are selling for well over 300,000 dollars so im used to the high prices. Thanks for the info....but how do you know that there are over 1000 homes forsale on the market are you a real estate agent?? How expensive would you say it is to rent a home there? Lets compair you could rent a 3 bedroom house out here for 1600 dollars and thats if your lucky most go for more then that, and 1 bedroom 1 bath apartments start at around 850 a month, what is it like there?

[whowants2know]

Originally Posted by carecare7

The homes that are selling in Flagstaff right now are the million-dollar ones. There are over a thousand homes on the Flagstaff market right now, and that doesn't include manufactured, mobile or foreclosure homes. The market is very soft, despite what the local realtors will try to tell you. Rents are very high, home prices are extremely high and sellers are not getting the message fast enough to lower their prices. Most agents here got used to the boom of the past couple of years. Some even bought Hummers. Now they are sweating it. Homes are sitting seven or more months on the market at this time. Just thought you should know!

What in your opinion do you think caused the housing prices to go over the top in Flagstaff? Is it just supply and demand or ?? And it concerns me that the salaries are not keeping up with the price of housing. I hope Flag doesn't end upside down like Cali is.

[carecare7]

Home prices in Flagstaff have been unnaturally inflated by both investors that read articles about how wonderful Flagstaff is to live in and by second home buyers. California buyers also helped. The strong environmentalist bloc here makes development limited so supply was less than demand for a few years and the prices soared too high. People got into bidding wars over homes in the past few years, driving prices even higher. Now with bad ARM loans coming due and all other markets faltering, Flagstaff now has a lot of homes on the market with less buyers. I found the number of homes on the market here by looking it up at the northern Arizona MLS website. It tells you how many homes of each type are available and those don't include the FSBO homes, of which there are many.

Rents are high because of the high housing costs of the past few years and investors needing to make those high mortgage payments. Yet there are a lot of homes for rent right now and if homes don't sell, there may be more homes put up for rent to help investors pay their mortgages.

Because of the university, there are two times a year that rental supplies grow. After classes get out in May and after classes get out in December. So right now there are a lot of rentals but owners have not lowered their rents. Our 3 bedroom home goes for $1200 per month and up. Rents here are so high and houses so expensive that NAU had to build housing for professors to attract them. Too many professors passed up teaching at NAU because of the prohibitive housing costs.

[carecare7]

Flagstaff is already upside down like Cali.

[grasshopper81276]

1200 for a 3 bedroom, WOW that is hella cheap, you cant find that out here in vegas for that price, that is awsome!!

[bstree]

Plenty not being discussed here. Example of Flag market NOW. I bought in 99 for 81k . sold in feb for 325k. same house.
one day on market.
This place is still nuts. Those who are gouging, yeah, they are waiting, but seriously, good luck being a realtor here. I have several I know who are waiting tables right now.

[carecare7]

Grasshopper,

That rent might seem low to YOU, but wages HERE are so low that $1200 a month for a 3/2 home is terrible! Arizona has very low wages, no unions to speak of and employers can fire you at will, they don't have to have a reason. So before you think that $1200 a month rent for a 3/2 home is low, keep in mind that your job will likely pay you maybe $8.50 an hour.....IF you can even GET a job here. It is a small town and the few jobs available are low paying service jobs. Good luck living on that with high utility prices and gasoline and food prices to go along with that "low" rent.