http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com Phoenix real estate - sell, buy, invest, relocate Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:46:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I represented tenants for my first two years as a real estate licensee. I walked into -- and walked right out of -- hundreds of homes that were amazingly inappropriate candidates for tenancy. Horrible locations, with no access to jobs, schools, shopping, entertainment, transportation. Still worse, horrible homes, dingy, run-down testaments to ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=344 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): We represented the buyers for a million-dollar house, our first, that closed this week. A week from now, we will be listing a million-dollar home, also a first for us. We are carrying two listings at $450,000 right now, with another ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=342 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): With all this activity in the Phoenix real estate market, prices must be going up, right? Wrong. Sales prices for bread-and-butter single-family homes in Metropolitan Phoenix were down in June, July and August. They were up in May, and it looks like we'll ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=340 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): When I was a kid, my Uncle Jack, my mother's oldest brother, told me a story I've never forgotten. He was at a little county fair way out in corn country. Nothing special, just beauty contests for hogs, cheesy little rides ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=338 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): If you live in New York or Boston or Chicago, there will come a day in the Spring when the cold will seem to be in full retreat. The sun will be shining. The icicles on the trees will be melting, ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=335 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): Break out the champagne! Prices for bread-and-butter resale homes in Metropolitan Phoenix were up for the month of August! Hurray! "Up by how much?" you ask. Well... Not very much, alas. The average price for a three-bedroom, two-bath, stucco-and-tile American Dream home was ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=333 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): Get a load of all that great housing news! Median prices are up! Sales volumes are up! The prognosis for the future? Up, up, up! Here's a different take: If it looks, walks and talks like hype, it's probably hype. Are houses selling ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=331 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): Do you have a smart-phone like the iPhone, Blackberry or Palm Pre? How much time do you spend on it? Is it possible that your smart-phone is your primary interface for accessing the internet? If you're not there already, can you ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=327 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): We're wired Realtors, and we always have been. The very first thing I did as a Realtor was to set up a web site to attract clients. We made money on the internet from the very beginning. Since then, we've adopted every ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=323 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): "You won't believe the deal my buddy got on his house. He paid thirty cents on the dollar!" "You're right. I don't believe that." "I'm not fooling with you. The house was worth $300,000, and he picked it up for a hundred grand." "It ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=321 The issue of whether or not to require registration to gain access to MLS search came up at BloodhoundBlog.com, our national real estate industry weblog. This is a topic about which reasonable people can differ, but we have very strong moral reasons for making MLS search freely available. But, as ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=325 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): For a Realtor working with home-buyers, there are three times where a transaction has a high likelihood of falling apart. The first is during the initial contract negotiations, of course. Buyers and sellers can go through a lot of haggling by counter-offers ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=319 Whether you buy this home as a residence or a rental property, you could not ask for a better location. You're just two short blocks from the light rail station on 19th Avenue. And just beyond that is The Phoenix Spectrum Mall. This house, 2040 West Missouri Avenue in Phoenix, is ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=317 A full-scale remodeling job on an older home consists of two steps: First rip out everything that needs to be replaced. Then install all the new stuff -- fixtures, flooring, paint. This house, 4830 West Cinnabar Avenue in Glendale, is halfway through that process -- and, in consequence, it's selling for ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=315 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): When we list a home for sale, two-thirds of everything we will do for the seller will have been done before we hit the MLS. There is a similar disparity of effort on the buying side: Of all the work your buyer's ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=313 Picture a charming home in a shady corner of Phoenix. Good bones, reliable block construction, mature landscaping. Now give it the best feature of all, for a real estate investor: A performing tenant already living in the property. That's what you'll find at 2425 West Cheery Lynn Road in Phoenix. The house ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=311 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): Are home-buyers best served by the vigilant efforts of an experienced buyer's agent? Consider a transaction we have in play right now. The buyers are a young couple, about to be married. They have about $10,000 in cash. With a conventional loan, they ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=309 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): Here's an intriguing question: Given that it's so easy to search for homes on the internet, why do you need a buyer's agent? Face it, if you use the MLS search tool on my web site, you're seeing exactly the same listings ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=307 Form The Wall Street Journal:My wife and I have sold all of our four previous homes for more than we paid for them—sometimes a lot more. We’ve been pretty lucky. We’ve never overpaid much for a house, we’ve always bought in good school districts and decent neighborhoods, we’ve lived in neighborhoods ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=305 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): Is now the time to buy a home in Metropolitan Phoenix? It depends. If you plan to take advantage of the $8,000 first-time home-buyer tax credit, you need to get moving. If your loan hasn't closed by November 30th, you won't get the ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=303 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): The "cap and trade" bill that passed in the House of Representatives last week contains within it the seeds of a national building code. It rarely rains in Phoenix and it rarely fails to rain in Portland, but both cities will ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=301 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): Here's a situation that's all too common in the Phoenix real estate market right now: You make what you think is a good offer on a home, only to find out that you are one of several bidders. The home can be ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=299 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): The mini-boom we've been seeing in the Phoenix real estate market over the last few months may be abating slightly, but, for now at least, snagging a cheap house can take some effort. Bargain-priced lender-owned homes are generating multiple offers and are ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=297 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): So we started with a $7,500 tax deduction for first-time home-buyers. But that didn't juice the real estate market enough, so we bumped the number up to $8,000 and made it a full-blown tax credit. If you owe $8,000 in taxes next ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=294 This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): Are you looking for a bargain in the Phoenix real estate market? Everybody wants to save a buck, but here's a different way of looking at things: Instead of shopping for a bargain, shop for value. What's the difference? A bargain comes ... http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/?p=292