April 19, 2014

Do You Love Black Sphinx Dates?

I have two Black Sphinx date tree offshoots ready for immediate planting. I was planning to plant them in my own backyard but now I’m thinking about selling them this weekend instead because my backyard is really too small and I don’t have flood irrigation which would probably be better for the trees. I paid $100 10-years ago for the offshoot that became the mother of these offshoots. I recently donated the 10-year old mother tree to the Phoenix Zoo where it’s now growing in the Harmony Farm in the Children’s Zoo area. The two offshoots need to be planted immediately. Call me at 480-600-0947. Learn about the very rare…

March 31, 2014

Recent Home Sales

Don’t Sell Too Cheap! You can now get daily, weekly or monthly reports of homes sold in your neighborhood or zip code, and the reports include detailed PHOTOS of most of the homes sold! You won’t find homes sold reports with photos anywhere online. These reports aren’t publicly available. Better than Home Sale News If you liked my old Home Sale News weekly email reports, you will absolutely LOVE these reports because they have a ton more data on each home sold and they include photographs which is super valuable. With all the extra data and photos, now it’s much easier for you to compare your home to the homes…

March 28, 2014

Why is it so expensive to sell a home?

I want to try new ways to sell homes. Cheaper for sellers Sell homes faster Less downside risk for sellers You might enjoy working with me to test these ideas if: You’re innovative and you enjoy trying cutting edge products. For example, do you create new products yourself at work or for fun? When you sell a car, do you include a shoebox full of service records? When you sell a car, are you happy with the Kelly Blue Book price? If that sounds like you – and you have a house to sell in metro Phoenix – call me and let’s chat. John Wake Realtor, Associate Broker, M.S. (Economics)…

March 27, 2014

Phoenix AZ Home Price Watch

No falling prices through February 2014 The top topic of conversation among real estate agents right now is falling home prices in Phoenix. I just got data of metro Phoenix home sales for February 2014 and updated my charts in the right-hand sidebar and we have NOT seen lower median home prices… at least through February. March will be the key to how the rest of 2014 plays out. If the median home price fell in a lot of zip codes in March, that would be a sign of a weaker than average Phoenix real estate market because median home prices typically increase in March. Even if home prices don’t…

March 23, 2014

Phoenix negative equity = 22%. U.S = 19%.

Via Phoenix Business Journal. Roughly 22% of metro Phoenix homeowners were upside down on their mortgages during the fourth quarter of 2013. 22% is approaching the U.S. national average of 19% of homeowners being underwater. 22% is also a steep plunge from a year ago when 40% of Phoenix mortgage holders had negative equity, according to Zillow. The biggest reason for the dramatic improvement was that Phoenix home prices increased 25% in 2013. Decline Leads to Increase The decline in the number of homes with negative equity partially explains the large increase in the number of Phoenix area homes hitting the market since last summer.

March 21, 2014

Home staging tips while staging a Scottsdale home

I made this video of home staging tips two years ago after we finished staging a home in McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale. I watched it again this morning and thought, “Wow, that was pretty dang good!” and thought it might be useful to some people to post it here. Amy Rozines of Showcase Design and Staging is my preferred home stager although now she’s super busy with interior design work.

March 20, 2014

Zillow Zestimate Accuracy

The accuracy of the Zillow Zestimate is shown plainly on the Zillow website. It’s cool that Zillow shows the accuracy of their Zestimates. The Zestimate usually puts you in the right ballpark for the value of an individual home but not always. Zestimate Accuracy Zillow compares their Zestimates to the actual sale prices of homes to determine the accuracy of their Zestimates. In Phoenix, the median Zestimate error is 6.3%. That means half of Zillow’s Zestimates in Phoenix had an error factor of less than 6.3% and half had an error factor of more than 6.3%. So if the actual sold price of a Phoenix home was $400,000, the Zillow…