The Scottsdale Real Estate Files

What's Mean and Green and Stupid All Over?

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:47:34 -0400

There are dragons lurking in the dark recesses of your property listing. Mean dragons. Mean, scaly, green dragons that might rise up out of their fiery lairs and go all Godzilla on your potential showings if left unchecked.

And by what name, pray tell, are these marauding reptiles known?

“REALTOR Remarks”

Ah yes, that hobgoblin of good intentions in the multiple listing service that provides for private communication amongst local Realtors. It gives me a good shudder just to type the name of the foul beast. Suburban legend has it that if you say it three times in front of the bathroom mirror with the lights off, you will doom yourself to a lonely stint on the market. Why? Because the private portion of the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service which is intended to impart “eyes only” information to the Real Estate sales force is home to some of the most spectacular lapses in judgment this side of New Coke.

“Do not approach cage, monkey will bite!”

“Disregard water damage in hall bathroom shower.”

“Bring me an offer, seller needs to sell NOW!!!”

From the laughable (“House is better than pictures make it look”) to the horrific breaching of client confidentiality (“Divorce situation: husband not cooperative”), one little notation in the private remarks of the listing can torpedo the price you command for your home, if not endanger the sale altogether. Alarm codes, additional showing instructions, agent to agent disclosures – all are intended fodder for the REALTOR Remarks section. The mistake that is often made, however, is that anything goes so long as it remains hidden from the prying eyes of the public.

The moral of the story? Read the full property listing before your agent inputs it into the MLS. While you will most likely view a PUBLIC copy of the completed listing once it hits the system, you will not be able to see what is privately disclosed to other agents. You will want to see a copy of the FULL listing to ensure that your best interests have not been compromised by a few careless words.

You priced the home well, staged it to look its best, had it professionally photographed, toured and dispersed to the far reaches of the Internet. Don’t blow it now, kid.

Of course, if you want me to avoid your home like the plague, make sure your agent denotes that it “smells kind of funky, but no known presence of mold.”

In the mood to receive offers that are 50% below your list price? Instruct your agent to notify fellow Realtors to “Bring me any offer and I’ll get it accepted!”

Unless the Stargate in the study presents a clear and present danger to those who would tour your home, best not to mention the possible credit for intergalactic species remediation.

Originally posted at the Scottsdale Property Shop

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

You Want to Preview My Home? Buzz off, Ebert.

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:25:22 -0400

I have seen my share of thumbs down houses over the years. It’s a sad truth, but for every summer blockbuster, there is a Real Estate Gigli. Properties that look so promising in the MLS trailer fall flat despite the star-studded cast. Granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances, new carpet, manicured back yard … a quick read-through of the script tells you that the home should be a smash hit. Only when you see it on the big screen do you realize that the photos omitted the faux oak paneling throughout the entire downstairs, or the sunken conversation pit in the living room. You never know where Rosemary’s Baby may be lurking behind the pleasing marketing facade that a savvy listing agent has erected to entice showings.

Enter the Real Estate sneak preview.

Knowing all too well that I am performing preliminary recon, sellers will occasionally grill me as to my intentions when I arrive for a preview appointment. As I circumnavigate the home, they give me the unabashed hairy eyeball treatment reserved for ex-cons, Realtors, bankers, lawyers and ill-mannered guests who don’t sit on the plastic. Believe it or not, though, the preview does not merely serve as an arbiter of a buyer agent’s pass/fail verdict. It is a crash course in product awareness.

To those who would disallow Realtor previews because they anticipate the reports will discourage potential buyers from viewing the home, allow me first to offer a mild rebuke, and then to assuage your fears. First, disallowing preview appointments will have the opposite than desired effect. Like the producer of straight to DVD smut who would sooner pay a personal assistant a livable wage than allow an advance screening for critics, you are telling wily Real Estate agents that the house is a total clunker if you won’t let them in for a quick peek prior to an actual buyer showing. Thou doth protest too much, Ed Wood.

Moreover, you do you and your home a disservice by limiting Realtor previews. Salesmanship requires a deft touch. It is just not that easy to sell what one hasn’t seen. When I come through with my client, you want me to focus on the features with which I became acquainted during the preview rather than blundering about blindly. Knowing what specific hot buttons light my buyer up, all parties are best served if I have direct, first-hand knowledge of such. You know, the stuff that doesn't necessarily make it into the MLS.

Is the second bedroom close enough to the master to make a suitable nursery?

Is the kitchen open to the family room or a candidate for expansion?

Is the yard private, but not overwhelming?

Worst case scenario? The home is not a fit for my clients, and I save everyone time. Surely you don’t want any more strangers stomping around your home than absolutely necessary, especially if there is zero chance that the property will work for them. To boot, I just might remember your house as a possible fit for the next buyer I meet.

Want to sell your house? Heed the marquee:

Coming soon … to a home near you … Realtor Paul Slaybaugh!

Pretty please, let him in.

Originally posted at the Scottsdale Property Shop

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

Want Your Sale to Stick? You Better Sell It Twice, Bubba.

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:33:48 -0400

Oh, but that little house was turned out the day it landed on the multiple listing service! The hardwood floors all scrubbed and polished. The smell of freshly cut lawn and bougainvillea greeting new arrivals as they stepped out of Mazda Miatas and Chevy Tahoes and Ford Fusions. The windows so crystal clear that the rogue speck of dirt eventually capitulated and moseyed along to a less lonesome locale. Everything was just so as you wooed prospective new owners.

You sold your home that very first weekend. Enchanted the buyers through your concerted efforts to distinguish a well-loved home from the abandoned dreams that haunt the competing bank-owned and short sale properties, you did. Bent on purchasing the best bargain on the block when their plane touched down at Sky Harbor, the nice relocating couple from South Dakota instead rationalized the higher price tag of your owner-occupied home against the great unknowns that plagued the lower cost, distressed property options. After several celebratory glasses of wine, they mentally recast the entire episode with your home starring as the greatest value proposition on the market.

It is now day 14 of the escrow period. The home inspection, a week in the rearview, couldn’t have gone any better. You were never all that concerned about it. You change the A/C filters regularly and have the units serviced semi-annually. You resealed the foam roof with elastomeric last May. You even placed a home warranty policy on the property prior to hitting the market to fend off any unexpected eventualities, you clever fella, you. Now, having agreed to correct the double tab at the main breaker box (damn landscapers), replace the faulty GFCI outlet at the pool equipment and fix the malfunctioning shower diverter valve in the hall bathroom, you let out a well-deserved sigh of relief. Knowing that you have an honest to goodness sale firmly in place, you turn your attention to other pressing matters that had been relegated to the back burner.

And the lawn grows a little taller as the mower doesn’t make it out of the shed this week. The carpet in the hall gets a little matted down from the higher than normal traffic and a missed date with the vacuum cleaner. Aside from little Johnny’s peanut butter fingerprints on the lower third of the living room picture window and the fogged up corner of the breakfast nook window by the doggy door, the glass is still pretty passable. The contents of your cabinets and drawers are strewn about the den and family room, but you have to break a few eggs to make a moving omelet, right? Besides, you already found your buyer. No more agents calling to pop in for a showing with ten minutes notice.

Thus begins the great unraveling of your sale. You see, in 2010, you do not just stage your home for potential buyers. Matter of fact, buyers don’t even possess the most discerning eyes that will take in your abode during the sale process. Nope, those hawkish peepers belong to a black-hatted professional who holds the fate of your transaction in his number-crunching hands.

Once you strike a deal, you better keep the joint gussied up for the appraisal, Jack.

Besieged by stringent regulations and menaced by fire-breathing underwriters, appraisers are no longer encouraged to hunt for validation of the accord reached on the open market by a willing buyer and seller. That’s so 2006. These days, the poor SOBs have more incentive to impugn a home’s value than defend it. This is not a knock on their collective competence, but an indictment of the constraints by which appraisers are currently bound. You counter this institutional bias with the same measures you employed to overcome the price objections of your buyer.

You have to resell the house.

Do not discount the human element in a supposedly objective endeavor. Consider the properties that most Real Estate appraisers spelunk on a daily basis. Bank repo after bank repo, the job should come with a snorkel and a mobile decontamination unit. Given the wide disparity in property condition in the market, the silver lining to cloudy times is an ability to add value to your home though no greater expense than meticulous housekeeping. It’s your agent’s job the sell the objective proof (most viable comparable sales, list of upgrades / features, comparisons between the subject property and comps, etc), and it’s your job to sell the mom, baseball and apple pie.

Clean and “not-jacked-up” is the new granite counter tops and travertine floors.

There may not be an input column in a uniform residential appraisal report for “not infested with hobos,” but latitude is given for affixing additional value based on conditional comparisons to the properties selected for the analysis. The dialed-in condition of your home will stand out in full bas relief against the tired housing din. It is especially critical if you don’t have all of the snazzy upgrades. You are relying on the impression of value for lack of more readily quantifiable measures.

Don’t give in to inertia prior to what has become the penultimate part of the escrow process. Treat the appraisal as a showing appointment instead of the contractual procedure that it is and you give yourself considerably better odds at a soft landing at the closing table with the same purchase price with which you began.

Scented candles, they aren’t just for buyers and third dates anymore.

Originally posted at the Scottsdale Property Shop

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

It Is Not a Buyer's Market

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:45:31 -0400

The current market does not favor buyers. I repeat, the current market does not favor buyers.

Allow me to explain. For months, if not years, you have been told that the glut of housing inventory makes for a buyer’s market of epic proportions. Why, the ancient Greeks themselves would write songs about the opportunities that abound for any would-be hero with a hankering for a house. The only problem with this suggestion? It’s just not true.

What is a buyer’s market? Most would define it as a preponderance of available supply and an accompanying dearth of demand. Let’s take a look at both aspects of that equation.

In a perfect financial world, a buyer waits for the market stars to align in just such a manner before swooping in to claim a nest at a fraction of the “normal” cost. It all works great in theory, but real world application necessitates that the prospective buyer be subjected to the same set of variables that has drawn down the pool of demand at large. It’s a buyer’s market when few have the wherewithal to actually buy.

Appraisal difficulties and tightened lending regulations are contributing to a somewhat artificial suppression of demand. The “want” is present in the market. Consumers want to buy houses. They want to take advantage of the greatly reduced pricing and sublimely low interest rates. Homeowners want to refinance their houses so that they can stay in them, thus contributing to the lowering of the overall supply.

Want has nothing to do with it. Without ability, all of the consumer confidence and desire does not translate to actionable demand.

So to clarify the lead-in to this post, the current Scottsdale Real Estate market does not favor ALL prospective buyers, as the “buyer’s market” connotation suggests.

Further, the favorable conditions for those who are in positions to purchase do not necessarily translate to negotiable strength. Well-heeled cash buyers, W2 employees with verifiable income, solid credit history/scores, etc will find that they do not call the shots to the extent that they were led to believe. The bargain bin of bank-owned foreclosures is incredibly crowded. You are elbow to elbow with competing consumers when a new shipment arrives. The mom & pop resellers, by and large, do not have the equitable flexibility to negotiate the 30-50% off of list price that many buyers envision. The short sale properties with the absurdly low price tags are, more often than not, pie-in-the-sky figments of the listing agent’s imagination. You submit an offer 10% off list price to the bank, which in turn proves to be 40% off the BPO (Broker’s Price Opinion) that is performed three months later. The bank tells you they will gladly approve the sale – for 75k more than you offered.

While the inflated inventory levels in the housing sector are cited often enough, it is not widely reported that the number of unencumbered properties available for purchase is far less. In a market that is most assuredly not of the “see house, buy house” variety, the redaction of readily purchasable properties (due to competition in the low end, and lien encumbrances across the full pricing spectrum) tilts the negotiation playing field back towards center. Neither party has a clear cut advantage when facing each other at the negotiating table.

The truth of the matter is that most of the savings that you can expect to uncover have already been factored into the asking price by the time a listing is brought to market. Sure, there will be those that require substantial negotiation, and plenty others still that simply fail to sell. Never underestimate one’s ability to overprice a house. These aren’t the homes you are most likely looking at, though. The ones that buyers are flocking to in droves are those that present the best value opportunities. And why not? Just be prepared for the competition that you did not think existed for said properties in this ballyhooed “buyer’s market.”

Trying to cobble “x” percent off the list price in circumstances in which others are offering “x” above the list price will only lead to frustration. Don’t get greedy. Do what it takes to lock up the lowest pricing the Valley has seen for seven to eight years (longer in some areas) while interest rates continue to hover around 5%, and you are well ahead of the game.

And lastly … smile. You are the guy that so many lament not being right now. You know, the hypothetical guy who spurs such proclamations at office parties and cocktail hours across the Valley:

“If I had two nickels to rub together right now, I’d buy every house on the block for less than I paid for my albatross back in ‘05.”

Originally posted at the Scottsdale Property Shop

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

McCormick Ranch Real Estate Series: The Subdivisions

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:50:50 -0400

Just about anyone who has spent any time at all in Scottsdale is familiar with the planned community of McCormick Ranch. A community which includes some 23,000+ residents, many are less familiar with the approximately 50 individual subdivisions that fall under its umbrella. With radical differences in architecture, amenities, pricing, etc from one subdivision to the next, a prospective home buyer will need to drill down further than general awareness of the McCormick Ranch community at large to find the specific pocket that best suits his/her needs. With this in mind, we launched our McCormick Ranch Subdivision Series.

Featuring individual spotlights for the various subdivisions that compose McCormick Ranch, you now have a one-stop resource shop for everything you want to know about Scottsdale's first master planned community. Builder overviews, subdivision statistics, editorial opinion, neighborhood values, homes for sale, amenities, school info, new listing feeds, photos, maps, street views, floor plans ... this is as comprehensive as McCormick Ranch Real Estate gets.

This page serves as an overview to the subdivision spotlights. Peruse the subdivision map of McCormick Ranch, or choose a subdivision link by name from the tables below.

For a detailed review of the community on a macro level, visit our McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale AZ page.

You can also skip directly to our McCormick Ranch Home Floor Plans page if you know the subdivision/builder you seek.

North McCormick Ranch (Chaparral High School District)

Arabian Gardens Belcara at McCormick Ranch Casa Dia Festivo Country Horizons El Paseo Estados De La Mancha Heritage Terrace Heritage Village 3 Island at McCormick Ranch Lakeside Villas Las Palomas Los Tesoros Mountain View East Orange Tree Estates Palm Cove Paradise Park Manor Paradise Park Trails Playa Del Sur Sands McCormick Suggs Rancho McCormick Sun Canyon Tierra De Los Reyes Tierra Del Norte Tierra Feliz 3 Tierra Nueva Villa De Vallarte Villa Hermosa Vista De La Tierra Vista Del Cielo Vista Del Lago

South McCormick Ranch (Saguaro High School District)

Camello Vista Camino De Arboles Casa Serena Cuernavaca Segundo Del Norte Gardens Estate Los Arboles Heritage Village (I & II) La Mariposa Villas Meridian on McCormick Ranch Palo Viento Palo Viento 2 Paseo Village Paseo Villas Paseo Vista Paseo Verde Pleasant Run Sandpiper Santa Fe Scottsdale Park Villas Spanish Oaks Villa La Playa

Want to search by location on the Ranch rather than by subdivision name? Click on a highlighted area in the map below for links to subdivision spotlights, homes for sale and more.

View McCormick Ranch Subdivisions in a larger map

Ready to buy, sell or rent in McCormick Ranch? Give Ray & Paul a call. We're the agents that other agents Google for McCormick Ranch Real Estate information.

(480) 220-2337 | paul@scottsdalepropertyshop.com

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

Paradise Lost

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:36:24 -0400

“You mean, it’s ours? It’s really ours?”

They were so excited. Even after I handed them the keys, they were slow to believe that the modest Spanish bungalow was now in their adoptive custody. Over the course of four exasperating months, we must have seen and dismissed close to a hundred homes. This one needed too much work. That one had a poor kitchen layout. Yet another sat on the “t” of a subdivision’s entrance: bad feng shui, or so I was told. Before the market skies parted and yielded the seventeen hundred square foot, clay tile miracle that appeared to have met extinction in their price range, our flagging spirits were all but ready to pack it in. The fated mid-April discovery saved them from another year of apartment living. A challenge, at best, with a ten year old daughter in tow, let alone with a half-baked bun in the oven.

“Can we go in,” the wife asked in a small, cautious voice.

“Of course,” I responded. “It’s your house, Liz, you can do whatever you please.”

She ignored my extended hand and engulfed me in a fierce hug. Her husband clasped my shoulder in a vice grip which betrayed an adolescence spent laboring on the family farm in Iowa. His curt nod spoke volumes.

“You’re welcome, Mel,” I replied.

“Thank you both for hanging in there. I know it hasn’t been easy, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the patience and trust you’ve shown me. It’s been a tough slog, but I think we got it right.”

“Yes, we did,” Mel said, breaking his silence for the first and only time that morning.

“We would like to have you and your wife over as soon as we get settled,” Liz added.

“I’d like that,” I told her.

I meant it, too. I like just about every client I take on, but felt a special kinship with this couple for reasons that surpassed the extended time spent in each other’s company. After bidding the happy couple farewell, I glanced in the rear-view as I navigated my way down the tree-lined street. Instead of going inside, they remained rooted in place, holding hands and staring up at their new home.

I received a phone call from Liz this morning. Circumstances have it that Mel has been out of work for some time now. Another casualty of economic war. Unsure of what to do or where to go, their only readily apparent truth is that keeping the house is an impossibility at this point. Perhaps they'll move back to the Midwest, where Mel can look for a position on the farm. See just how much life is left in those old, gnarled hands.

This evening, I'll grab some Tums and make the long, short drive to the pleasant abode with the placard beside the front door that reads "Heltzer Residence: Est. 2005." I'll leave the reams of data indicating a value of 40% what they paid in the car. No sense in beating a dead house. We'll plant a sign in the front yard and add yet another chapter to the painful narration of the Greek tragedy that is post-bubble Phoenix Real Estate.

With an epilogue that is yet to be written, we soldier on.

*Names and specific circumstances altered for privacy purposes

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

The Interest Rate Boogeyman: Today’s Buyer Must Think Like Tomorrow’s Seller

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:53:03 -0400

[WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS NO GRAPHICS]

So you have 20% to put down for a single family home in Scottsdale AZ. You have been gainfully employed in the same W2 position with the same company for years. The American Express card with a $124 balance and the 2002 Honda Accord with the $112 monthy payment make up the sum total of your earthly debt. Your FICO scores are higher than Willie Nelson on Bob Marley Day in Montego Bay. Congratulations, you are one of the few buyers in today’s market in a position to call your own shots.

Surely the right play is to go the conventional financing route, right?

No private mortgage insurance, the lowest possible rate, less red tape than government sponsored financing vehicles.

From a strictly cost-based approach, all signs point to a nice, vanilla 30 year fixed conventional loan at a microscopic rate as the biggest no-brainer in the history of money.

Of course, as we have learned all too well, there is more to your choice in financing than today’s consideration. In fact, there is more to your choice in financing than even the total cost to you over the life of the loan. While we may not know where the market and its attendant values are heading, one fact is indisputable:

Interest rates will rise.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Inflationary pressure makes it inevitable that rates will take off at some point. All of the warning signs are there. It will happen. Rather than banging the tired gavel of “buy today, rates on the way up,” let’s steer the discussion in a less self-serving direction.

Q: What is today’s buyer?

A: Tomorrow’s seller.

If you are buying a home in 2010, you need to consider the market forces that may shape 2015 or 2020. When we agents prognosticate, we tend to focus exclusively on home values. This is a fool’s errand. What we really should be thinking about is the buyer pool’s (in)ability to buy.

If interest rates manage to climb into the double digits in several years’ time, the difficulty of selling the property you are buying today may be compounded by a further contraction of able buyers. How does one counteract the specter of such a looming boogeyman? By going back to the future for familiar, but forgotten solutions to a similar problem.

What saved home sellers in the era of 18-20% interest in the ‘70s and ‘80s? Owner financing and assumable loans. For the purpose of this post, I wish to focus on the latter.

With the low to zero down conventional financing options in the market for my first decade in the business, it was a rarity to consummate a transaction with anything other than non-assumable financing. Now that FHA loans have elbowed their way back into the marketplace, however, assumable financing has returned. Most borrowers are not considering this aspect of the financing in the least, mind you. They simply jump on whatever they can qualify for that provides the least cost and lowest rates. I maintain that the assumable nature of a loan will be incredibly important moving forward.

While a new buyer would have to qualify for the loan to assume it, imagine how much wider your future buyer pool will be with such an option in place. Your 30 year fixed at 4.75% may not look quite as good to you if you find yourself in a position in which you have to sell your home in the midst of 12% interest rates. Not to sound the bell of an alarmist, but it’s not difficult to foresee a future in which many buyers who have migrated to the security of 30 year fixed conventional mortgages in the wake of the mess spawned by more creative financing find themselves imprisoned within those non-assumable safety nets.

Moving forward, your mortgage might not just be your mortgage. It could potentially be your future buyer’s. As such, when shopping for financing, there is more to consider than just the nuts and bolts of your own cost. Your mortgage could eventually prove either an enticement or a hurdle to a sale.

Heady stuff.

I will close with that which should have served as a preface: I am not a mortgage professional. DO NOT rely on my speculation in any manner when making a choice in financing. The nuances and new rules/regulations in the financial world are changing so fast that even those who wade in those murky waters on a daily basis are having a hard time keeping their sanity afloat. For some, the internal debate is academic anyway, as there are qualification constraints on all financing types. Only your lender, with a full view of your financial picture can provide competent advice as to which programs you may ultimately qualify for, and which is the best fit for you. I do, however, want you to add this question to the typical inquiries about rates, fees, penalties, etc when speaking with your chosen loan officer:

“Is this loan assumable?”

I expect it will matter more than the attention it is currently being afforded in most Real Estate circles.

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

A Scottsdale Real Estate Buyer's Guide to Newer Homes in Older Communities

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:09:25 -0400

You are mired that age old Scottsdale Real Estate quandary: You want a central location in an established community, but you don't want the older construction that typically attends such preferred locales.

You love the walking paths, lakes, nearby shops, schools, mature landscaping with honest to goodness trees (In the desert? Who knew?). You could do without the brass fixtures and 4x4 inch porcelain tile that look like holdovers from the set of the Partridge Family, however.

At some point in every Scottsdale home buyer's journey, a choice must be made. Will location and community amenities win out, or will the tug of newer construction pull the intrepid Real Estate explorer further off the beaten path (and into the desert reaches of the McDowell Mountain foothills north of the Loop 101 freeway corridor). There is no right choice. Both options boast strong resale potential (yes, I am aware of the irony that attends the notion of resale value in the modern foreclosure jungle) for the very criteria that make such a choice an excruciating one to make.

What if I were to tell you that you didn't have to compromise, however? Amongst the renowned planned communities that lie within the bounds of central Scottsdale, there are a few pocket niches of infill and newer semi-custom homes that defy neighborhood norms.

For example, the McCormick Ranch subdivision of Estate Los Arboles (in the Paseo Village area of Southern McCormick Ranch) includes a handful of semi-custom Hancock homes that were built in the 1990s to round out a neighborhood that was originally developed between 1979-1980. Such homes do not come on the market often, but are one mere example of newer construction that you can find in the planned community stalwart.

Read more about Estate Los Arboles in McCormick Ranch>>>

Or explore the McCormick Ranch overview for information on neighboring subdivisions, floor plans, homes currently for sale (or rent) and more.

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

Mighty Mud Mania 2010 in Scottsdale AZ

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:38:59 -0400

Live in Scottsdale?

Got kids?

Got kids that like mud?

If so, odds are you and the minions were cavorting about the same city sponsored bog that swallowed the Slaybaugh family this past weekend. Saturday, 6/19/10, marked the 35th annual incarnation of the infamous Mighty Mud Mania event at Chaparral Park in Scottsdale, AZ. If you missed it, you missed out. The good news, though, is that the filthy fun will return next year. Follow the link below to see the pictorial carnage and get a gritty taste of one of the local customs that make Scottsdale Scottsdale.

Mighty Mud Mania 2010 in Scottsdale AZ

See you next year!

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

Paradise Valley Farms in Scottsdale AZ

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:00:12 -0400

Working the Scottsdale Real Estate market, my loyal readers are well aware of the special affinity I hold for the planned community of McCormick Ranch.

Far from the only area I work, it receives the extra attention that is reserved for the community that I will always consider home. In the immediate vicinity are the various phases that compose the gated golf community of Gainey Ranch, the Town of Paradise Valley and Scottsdale Ranch, among others. Nestled amidst these name brand communities is one of Scottsdale's hidden gems. In fact, I must make a confession of sorts. Much as I love McCormick Ranch, I have long harbored a secret yearning for the neighborhood known as Paradise Valley Farms. Tucked away just South of Gainey Village and East of Scottsdale Road, few out of towners are aware that some of the most spectacular custom homes in all of Scottsdale lie hidden behind the massive eucalyptus trees that guard the acre parcels from rubber-necking passersby. With new construction that reaches in excess of 7000 square feet intertwined with the modest, original ranch style homes (held over from the late 60s and 70s), Paradise Valley Farms maintains equestrian privileges and bridle trails. Well known amongst horse enthusiasts, this friendly, non-gated neighborhood of only 2 square blocks is not readily associated with the luxury home market by many buyers (who shop the likes of DC Ranch, Desert Mountain, Silverleaf, the Town of Paradise Valley, Arcadia, the Central Corridor, the Biltmore, Ancala, etc).

Of all the high end developments in the greater Scottsdale area, Paradise Valley Farms is where yours truly will live when the Powerball inevitably smiles for me.

For detailed subdivision information and statistics, photos and current homes for sale, follow me to the Scottsdale Property Shop to view the complete overview for Paradise Valley Farms in Scottsdale AZ >>>

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

Rental Housing and You: A Scottsdale Real Estate Survival Guide

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:24:26 -0400

If a rental property falls in the foreclosure forest, does it make it sound?

Lost amongst the haphazard flailing of an epileptic market at large, the rental housing subset of the Scottsdale Real Estate market is picking up unexpected steam. Driven, perhaps, by the surge of former home owners turned tenants, the latest statistics bear out what I have noticed firsthand: the available rental inventory within the city of Scottsdale has thinned considerably. With fewer available properties to lease and absorption rates (number of properties leased per month juxtaposed against the current number of available units) at the highest level seen in several years, there is a fair amount of competition for rental housing at present. Whereas the demand was formerly relegated to the lower price points (rents under $1000), the dwindling number of options is starting to put upward pressure on lease prices. Though the numbers from May do not reflect a noticeable increase in the average rental price throughout the Scottsdale market, my personal experiences of late have really opened my eyes to the demand that exists (particularly in the $1400-$1800 per month range) for centralized single-family housing. Expect next month's numbers to demonstrate a significant bump in rents.

What does this mean for Joe Consumer?

Follow me to the Scottsdale Property Shop to find out!

Follow this link for the latest news and opinion in Scottsdale Real Estate >>>

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

What Is, What Was and What Should Never Be

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:44:30 -0400

Predicting the future has become so passe that we now like to predict the past. Visiting the funhouse of colossal gaffes gone wild might even be worthwhile were it not for the egocentric nature of such excursions. The one doing the recollecting and post-mortem whistle-blowing typically prescribes himself a completely passive role in the train wreck that was, or issues himself the “greater forces at work” stamped pass that magically absolves a revisionary time traveler of all culpability. Those passes are not dispensed with impunity, mind you. All the other idiots should have seen the disaster coming.

In an ever-changing present, I break from the modern day Gong Show of Monday morning quarterbacking to let my mind’s eye drift into the mystic. I tire of the talk of the past, find myself all blabbed out about the present and abhor the prostrate card counting by a one-eyed chimpanzee with a broken abacus that epitomizes the prediction of the future. The derivative credit swaps. The zero down, no doc loans. The found equity. The lost equity. The sublime and the subprime. The mortgage backed securities. The short sales. The banks. The credit crunch. The jobs report. The DOW. The tax credit. The fund rate. Cats and dogs, living together … I just can’t take it anymore. I am bored to tears with the round the clock exhumation schedule for the late housing market. Let the poor bastard rest in peace already. We ideological grave-robbers have already deprived the putrid corpse of its dignity, we can at least leave the watch and gold fillings.

There is no full accounting for or understanding of this place in which we find ourselves. There is no single factor other than our own human nature that can be isolated and excised from our collective evolution to preclude future bouts of similarly convergent idiocy.

The takeaway in it all?

“Shit happens. Let’s get a taco”

I am out of ways to say “bankers suck.” I refuse to foretell where home values will be in the year 2075. Constrained by the whole time-space continuum thing, it leaves a guy with a dearth of topical options.

Shall we open up a Real Estate worm hole and do a little time & space bending?

We interrupt the regularly scheduled “underwriters are evil” broadcast for a test of the Retroactive Emergency Optimism System.

The year is 2010. It looks a lot like our 2010, only the people are cleaner. No eight day stubble on every other unemployed neighbor who barricades himself inside the home he hasn’t made on a payment on in twelve months. No ghost towns where entire developments went under, leaving the lone resident to weigh the safety of his fallout shelter against the siege perpetuated by advancing weeds and greening swimming pools. No “declining value” markers in appraisal reports.

It’s the world you know, only in Technicolor.

Turns out the bubble never burst. All of those admonitions to get into a home before being priced out forever were prescient after all. Flippers kept flipping, buyers kept buying and lenders kept lending until entry-level housing in the greater Phoenix area hit the $750,000 mark. A million dollars sure doesn’t buy a million dollar home anymore. The luxury market doesn’t start in earnest until you hit the 2.5 mil range. As equity abounds, the financial markets never took the nose dive. Happy homeowners continue to borrow against lines of credit to purchase yachts, cars, more houses … more happiness. Happy homebuyers can obtain financing to purchase waterfront property on a McDonald’s shift manager’s salary and refi out of them when the teaser rates adjust. The water tastes like wine, and the wine tastes God.

We all sing Kumbaya by Alan Greenspan’s campfire.

Of course, the bad news is that our kids aren't going to care much for the fact that most have been offered up as collateral. Or rather, their future earnings equity has been tapped by their legal guardians to pay for the stable of ponies they were "given" for their fifth birthdays or the eight dollar per gallon cost of filling up the new Toyota Ginorma on the way to and from soccer practice. The really bad news is that the Treasury Department is bundling this government backed debt and selling it to China to finance the new lunar public housing project. Default on that pony and your kid might as well start practicing his Mandarin.

Hmm. This doesn't look like the land of milk and honey, after all.

There is no Utopia, even where we perceive it to lie. There's just this petri dish we call life. Move the cultures around all you like; slice them up and rearrange to your heart's content, but you are left with the same roiling purgatory of flawed inhabitants. Scrape off the undesirable elements and they ball together with other cast off malignancies to form the latest unholy global terror.

No matter how much we revel in the vicarious thrill of plotting a course to where we should be instead of where we ended up, there is no rationalizing ourselves out of the daily human struggle for relevance. Likewise, there is no girding against all future woe by merely finding obsolete solutions to past catastrophe. Solving one of life's great mysteries only re-scrambles the rubix cube. Just when you line up the blues and reds, green comes along and drags them both back into the grey.

Though we may be temporary stewards of this earth, we are still but passengers on a cosmic ride to a final destination unknown. No sense fretting about the in-flight entertainment when we have no say in the matter. We get to adjust the air flow through the overhead nozzle, position the seatbacks and select a beverage from amongst the Pepsi products (sorry, no Coke).

The rest is out of our hands.

Changing metaphorical horses midstream, what say we leave the study of our recent fossil record to future historians and get on with finding a way out of this tar pit? It doesn't care how we got here or where we were heading, but it will welcome our carbon to its bottomless depths if we don't take a narrow view of the immediate task at hand. There is a time for academia, and there is a time for action.

Work on your housing thesis if you prefer, but I'm grabbing a frigging rope.

And with that, I climb over the emaciated body of Real Estate past and direct this blog to matters only of immediate benefit to today's consumer. Self-indulgence, thy name is Mud from hence forth.

As to the very nature of the problems we now face, we've got it relatively easy when examined against the broad spectrum of possibility. I, for one, thank my lucky stars that the hobgoblin which reads us to sleep in the here and now is but a simple economic beasty. Beats the flesh-eating amoebas that are terrorizing a parallel 2010. Or the Rosie O’Donnell / Janet Reno mud wrestling match that incapacitates yet another. While A + B does not always equal C these days, at least it doesn’t equal rectal typhoid.

Except on days that end in "y," that is.

Times are hard, but when are they not? You'll read no more "woe is me" type bellyaching from this here scribe. I'll gladly take the seven/deuce offset suits we've received from this crooked dealer and try to bluff us through to the next hand.

How will we fare?

Beats me, I'm not into predictions. But I ain't rolling over for this market anymore.

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

Introducing the New McCormick Ranch Wing of the Scottsdale Property Shop!

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 22:09:04 -0400

I sell McCormick Ranch Real Estate.

Shocking, I know, to many long-term readers of this forum. However, it has been quite some time since I last directed the focus of this blog to my first housing love. Not one to take my significant other for granted, it is far past time I renewed my vows.

I have actually been preparing them for the past few weeks over at the Scottsdale Property Shop Blog in the form of subdivision spotlights, maps, live listing feeds of homes for sale, floor plans ... my labor of love is an early summer sonnet for Scottsdale's first master planned community.

For the only library of McCormick Ranch Real Estate and home information you will ever need, follow me to the Scottsdale Property Shop. And let your own courtship begin.

While still a work in progress, show me the relationship that isn't.

Everything you ever wanted to know about McCormick Ranch >>>

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

If Dr Seuss Worked for the NAR ...

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 18:25:44 -0400

On the Island of Oncewas, there lived but one scamp.

One strangely stoic, scoundrelous scamp.

There used to be more, there used to be four.

There used to be four and eight thousand four more on this shore.

So many scamps scamping are hard to ignore.

But there was no need for eight thousand and eight.

Scamps all sold houses, and Oncewas lacked real estate.

So ten left, then twenty. Then a hundred and two.

Then three thousand and sixty, and their brothers, too.

Until all had gone except Scampy Magoo,

Who continued his scamping, though there was no scamping to do.

Letters rolled in each day with the tide,

Tales from ex-scamps in their travels far and wide.

One read, “Not enough kitchens, and too many cooks!”

Another, “Too many librarians to put away two books!”

“I used to scamp houses, now I can’t scamp my blood!”

“Why, they wouldn’t hire dirt and water to make mud!”

And what did he do, old Scampy Magoo?

He sent back his very own note or two.

“Act now, you scamps, the time has never been better!”

“The sun is brighter and the sea is wetter!”

“The ship is afloat, so come on back all you mice!”

And, “Buy your old plot for 2/5ths the price!”

He planted his sign and bided his time.

The scamps first returned in drabs and in drips.

One, two, then an armada of ships.

“Sign on the line,” said Scampy Magoo,

“No need to read it all the way through.”

“Just legal jargon that’s neither here nor there.”

“It’s the deal of a lifetime, I certainly swear.”

They took turns handing over their very last dimes,

Until at last Scampy reached the end of the line.

He tipped his hat, bowed deeply and thanked one and all,

And took his leave as there were more ports to call.

With a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye,

His shrill voice once carried over the blood red sky.

“Oncewas is all over, I’m sorry to say,

But follow me to Willbe where a scamp can scamp and play.

The prices are low and the mangoes are sweet,

There’s a loan for every pulse ...

And an ass for every seat.”

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!

Scottsdale Real Estate Statistics, May 2010

Paul Slaybaugh, Scottsdale AZ Real Estate (Realty Executives) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:13:25 -0400

Scottsdale Real Estate statistics for May 2010 are now available at the Scottsdale Property Shop!

View the broad overviews for the greater Phoenix area, or drill all the way down to the Scottsdale zip code of your choice for month to month comparisons of total inventory, active listings, sold listings and new listings. Looking for a specific subdivision or community? Shoot us an email and we'll forward you the latest stats from the neighborhood of your choice. No need to ask whether the market conditions are ripe for a purchase or a sale when the numbers are right at your fingertips!

View May 2010 Scottsdale Real Estate Statistics >>>

Your source for Scottsdale Real Estate since the dawn of time ... or thereabouts.

Launch your Scottsdale Home Search now!