Retiring to Tucson/housing prices? (short sales, real estate market, foreclosures)

[Dino1]

My wife and I are thinking of selling our property in FL and retiring to Tucson. Tired of insane flood insurance and taxes. I have not been there in about ten years but liked it very much last time I visited. Can someone give me a very ballpark idea of what a small home (2 or 3 bedrooms) would cost in a safe area? Also what areas do you suggest we avoid? Any info on housing prices would really be appreciated. Is it a buyers or sellers market right now? Thanks for your time and expertise.

[swbell6]

It's definitely a sellers market now - home inventory is around 3-4 months, depending on where in Tucson you want to live. (Six months is considered a normal or balanced housing market.) The well-priced homes go fast, no matter where they're located. We're even seeing multiple bids on some homes. There are still some bargains to be found if you're looking for bank-owned homes or short sales.

The average sales price increased slightly to $174,793 last month, but you can find nice homes for less, particularly in the outskirts of town.

Here's a link for crime info:
Tucson Crime Mapping | The Official Website for the City of Tucson, Arizona

Good luck in your search and let us know how it goes.

[gomexico]

It's a buyers market, from my point of view.

Click on the links below to have a look at a representative sampling of properties which may still be on the market. You should see enough detail to get a ball-park idea of pricing, what you get for your money, where the properties are located, etc.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...eds-2#sortby-1

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...h/85715/beds-2

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by swbell6

It's definitely a sellers market now - home inventory is around 3-4 months, depending on where in Tucson you want to live. (Six months is considered a normal or balanced housing market.) The well-priced homes go fast, no matter where they're located. We're even seeing multiple bids on some homes. There are still some bargains to be found if you're looking for bank-owned homes or short sales.

The average sales price increased slightly to $174,793 last month, but you can find nice homes for less, particularly in the outskirts of town.

Here's a link for crime info:
Tucson Crime Mapping | The Official Website for the City of Tucson, Arizona

Good luck in your search and let us know how it goes.

Sellers market at $80 per sq ft, that's not even replacement cost. Better to burn it down

[tom4416]

I suppose the real estate market comes down to location (duh!) and demand within that given area. We've been shopping Tucson RE since April - North and West of the City, Foothills, Continental Ranch areas. At least in Rancho Vistosos and Sunflower, houses have been selling for around 97% of asking and most recently (last three contracts that we are aware of) have sold at 100%. We just signed a deal on a house in Sunflower at 100% of asking even though there was another bid at 101% but involved financing. It was at $106.33 a square foot in a planned community.

And financing is one of the issues that still hampers the market. Nationwide, appraisers are still gun shy and so sellers have to worry not what the market value necessarily is, but whether it will appraise sufficiently for a mortgage. Why the sellers of the house we bought backed away from a higher dollar contract to take away that unknown.

My personal, and non-professional, opinion is that, in the areas I've mentioned, prices have been creeping up since April on good quality, owner occupied houses. There are still some excellent buys on short sales and foreclosures if you want to deal with the headaches of getting an offer accepted, finding a mortgage and then dealing with any repair or upgrade issues. Neglected houses tend to need more work than people first think going through the front door but for those so inclined towards sweat equity, can be a real money saver. Properly priced homes in high demand areas are going in less than thirty days, sometimes in less than a week and sometimes with multiple offers.

While it's probably still not a true sellers market reminiscent of 2007, certainly the inventory is down, foreclosures are declining and short sales are getting settled. I think the reality is that the days of 20% appreciation in a year are long behind us and not likely to come back. Now I think you'll see normal appreciation of 3-4% a year which is actually healthier for the real estate industry than 20%.

In another lifetime, I ran lending for one of the largest regional banks on the east coast (when we still had regional banks, those days are gone). Been through three recessions and worked through all three of them without the bank taking a haircut. This time around, they all got hurt and thus learned a collective lesson about greed, liability and stupidity (BTW, a LOT of the stupidity was driven by the government and the idiotic Community Reinvestment Act but I know this isn't a political forum so won't go there) and so hopefully have implemented policies that will prevent these inane things from happening again.