Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog » Scottsdale

Steve Belt opens Echo Coffee in South Scottsdale

Steve Belt — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:27:29 +0000

The last time I posted to the blog was September 1, 2009. If you are still subscribed to this blog (and for that, I have to say, “wow!”), you may be wondering, “What the heck has Steve Belt been doing for the last 9 months?” Well, the answer is working on the creation of Echo Coffee in South Scottsdale.

I’ve written a bit about why I created Echo Coffee on my personal blog at My Side Door, so there’s no need to repeat it here. What I did want to mention is what plans I have for this blog and real estate, as it relates to me personally.

First, I should say that I am no longer a practicing REALTOR. I still maintain my real estate license, and I still have plenty of my own real estate to manage, but I’m not helping others buy, sell, or lease property. If you need help with that, I will be happy to refer you to an agent that can best help you.

Given that I’m at Echo Coffee 15 hours a day, it puts me in no position to help you with such an important investment. That is, unless you think I can work it in between making someone’s cappuccino and the next person’s latte. Better yet, I’ll make you a cappuccino and your agent a latte, before you head out on that next tour to view homes.

For this site, I’ve partnered with Nick Bastian of RailLife to continue to provide Phoenix MLS Search capabilities. If you need an agent, you can’t do much better than to work with Nick Bastian.

Nick, Justin McHood, and myself are still exploring what we should do with this blog. I’m sure something will come to us, but for now, expect updates to continue to be few and far between.

Steve Belt Closes Property Management Business

Steve Belt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:47:08 +0000

That’s right. After managing other people’s property for nearly 4 years on a full time basis, I have decided to close the doors, metaphorically speaking.

I actually made this decision a few months ago, but I’ve waited to put it on the blog until all of my landlords and tenants have had a chance to hear the news for themselves, make the decisions that are best for each of them individually, and wrap up all of the formalities associated with those decisions (primarily the transfer of repair funds and security deposits).

Why did I close my business? For a reason I never expected: my personal health. You see, with the current economic climate (and I absolutely hate that phrase, by the way), I was having approximately one unexpected vacancy every month. Whether it was an eviction; a tenant calling and saying they cannot pay; a tenant moving out in the middle of the night, never to be heard from since; or even the strangest of cases: a tenant that was kidnapped from his home and is presumed dead; at least one property a month was experiencing an unexpected vacancy.

Although I don’t actually think these vacancies were my fault, at the moment of crisis I would consider it such, and worse, would consider myself a failure. If you look at my tenant placement stats, they are kind of sick. 90% of the time, I personally find the tenant through my marketing efforts. So if I wasn’t to blame (since I found this bad apple tenant), who was? Certainly not the landlord. But we all need someone to blame, so the easy answer was me.

Unfortunately, I typically found I was nearly unable to face or discuss the situation with the landlord, often going a week or more without ever answering my phone directly. This is a horrible behavior in the face of crisis, which would further make it look like I was to blame. In reality, though, I would plummet into a state of depression that I never, ever expected of myself…and it was happening every month. Worse, the problem was affecting the way I managed every single property, not just the one in crisis.

Nine or Ten months of this scenario, and a very, very agonizing day on the sofa with my dear wife Jan, and I came to the realization that I had to stop the problem, before it stopped me. And thus, I’ve closed it down.

I am now back to managing just my own properties. And while I’m certainly not immune from the occasional bad apple tenant, I don’t fret talking to myself about the need to clean up, repair, re-market, or in other words, pay for the acquisition of the next tenant. I mention my own properties, because I’ve already had a few people say, “Hey! I thought you were closing this down, but I see one of your ads on craigslist!” Rest assured I’m not playing favorites, but rather, just trying to fill my vacancies like any other landlord.

Target Center in Scottsdale gets a new paint job

Steve Belt — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:43:53 +0000

Over the years, I’ve negotiated a few commercial leases. Almost as important as the price/sq ft discussion is the haggling over signage. Signage is naturally a big requirement for most businesses leasing space. Where can a sign be placed? How big can it be? Can the sign be colored and in the companies font? Can it be lit at night? Is it lit with halo lighting or are they colored letters? A great deal of time and effort is placed on signage. So much so, that I was stunned when I saw the recent painting of the buildings at the Target Center at Frank Lloyd Wright and Loop 101 in Scottsdale.

This Target Center is your normal strip mall with Target being the main anchor, followed closely by an Albertson’s grocery store. It used to be painted with some beige colors and was honestly a tad boring. Recently, they have attempted to give the center a face lift with some new desert colors. Sadly, I think they’ve failed miserably. I’ll explain:

Here’s the Blockbuster sign against it’s new yellow background:

That’s right, they painted it yellow, which works miserably with the yellow Blockbuster letters. My Photoshopping skills are probably a little too good, because the contrast here actually makes the sign look readable, but trust me…there are times of the day where all you see is a wall of yellow.

Perhaps you are thinking Blockbuster just got unlucky. Nope: Starbucks was equally affected:

That’s right…green paint for Starbucks. The green paint here matches the Starbucks green very, very well. I’m sure they are equally thrilled. Not to be left out, all of these business have red letter signs, to match perfectly with the new red paint:

It baffles me how the paint colors seem to have been chosen to make all of these business’s signs fade away into nothing. Even more curious, the same colors could have been used, but at different locations, so that none of the (current) businesses were adversely affected. Although, to be honest, red paint is probably always a bad idea in any location where a sign is likely to be used.

They aren’t done painting yet (you can just see a painter touching up the yellow trim on that last photo), but I’m already wondering when a new paint scheme will be arriving.

Phoenix Real Estate Market Update – #32

Steve Belt — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:39:07 +0000

Across all of Maricopa County, there are currently 22,790 single family homes for sale, down by 1531 from 2 weeks ago. There are 10,094 sales currently pending, down by 712 from a week ago. And 8073 homes closed escrow in the last 30 days, up by 700 from a week ago. As a result, broader Maricopa County now has 2.8 months of inventory, based on this week’s numbers.

Let’s both take a second and look at those numbers again, because if you are like me, the numbers must look unreal. I know they look unreal to me. Ok, digested them? Or do you need another second or two?

A quick export to Excel, shows me that the median price paid for a single family home in Maricopa County was $130,000. That’s higher than the median price of $120,000 quoted by Jeff Butera via Case-Schiller as part of the news report I was interviewed for. The price discrepancy makes sense, if you believe we have entered a buyer’s market in which prices should be going up, coupled with the fact that even the most recent Case-Schiller number is from 2 months ago.

Now, let’s look at the 12 city by city breakdown. As you look at these, notice the months of inventory for most of the cities. Months of inventory hovering in the 2-3 months range indicating a STRONG buyer’s market. I’m going to start monitoring the median price and see if it edges up over the next few months, as this supply imbalance indicates that it should.

City	Homes For Sale	Sales Pending	Sold	Months of Inventory
Phoenix	5783 355	2961 244	2527 154	2.3
Scottsdale	3252 219	553 2	403 47	8.1
Mesa	1968 146	918 53	717 45	2.7
Chandler	1114 4	547 15	399 68	2.8
Glendale	1021 95	661 59	576 42	1.8
Goodyear	525 50	307 30	234 29	2.2
Tempe	385 41	143 10	107 27	3.6
Laveen	333 19	216 3	131 17	2.5
Cave Creek	415 17	66 0	57 3	7.3
Fountain Hills	353 28	69 3	56 8	6.3
Paradise Valley	543 6	25 6	21 9	25.9
Carefree	140 1	7 1	3 1	46.7

*All data comes via ARMLS, and is presumed to be reliable, but is not guaranteed. All numbers represent single family detached homes only. Condos, townhouses, timeshares, vacant land lots, and manufactured homes are not represented in these numbers. All sold properties were sold in the last 30 days.

The following trend indicators are relative to the previous week’s update:

Positive move upward Positive move downward

Negative move downward Negative move upward

Phoenix and Scottsdale Property Management

Steve Belt — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:47:47 +0000

If you look up at the top of the blog, there’s a menu bar with a choice for Property Management. That link is there, because even though I don’t mention this very often, I am a property manager for homes in the Northeast part of the valley. I wouldn’t say being a property manager is a glamorous, glorious, or even fun job that a REALTOR can take on, but I do personally own 9 rental homes in the Phoenix area, and thus managing property for other landlords began to make sense as sales dwindled to a near stand still 3 years ago.

My office is located right at the apex of the Loop 101 in North Scottsdale where it transitions from being a north/south freeway to east/west. From my office, I can easily get to almost any portion of the northeast valley within 30 minutes, which is what I consider to be a requirement as a property manager. I’ll explain why: Often, I need to drop by a rental property with very little or no notice. For example, when someone calls me after seeing the for rent sign in the yard. A tenant prospect that is interested in seeing the inside of the home may wait 20-30 minutes, if I’m able to I rush over to let them in. But they won’t wait an hour, or even 45 minutes. At best, in cases where the home is further than 30 minutes away, a tenant prospect will agree to make an appointment for some time later. Here though, we take the big risk that the tenant prospect will simply rent the next house they see…as the price and features of many rentals in a given area are really quite similar, the difference can quite literally be the house they see first.

Another reason I keep homes that I manage within 30 minutes, is because if there is a problem at the home that requires my presence (like the busted circuit breaker that wouldn’t reset yesterday or the air filters that needed changing the day before), I don’t want my schedule and needing to carve out 2 or 3 hrs of drive time, just to get to a rental property, to be the reason something important couldn’t be dealt with today, but had to wait until tomorrow. When you manage 50+ homes, having an outlier that can potentially take 2+ hours in drive time to visit, simply isn’t practical.

For homes within my feasibility range (Tempe, most of Phoenix, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, and Fountain Hills), if you are looking for a property manager, I’d love to talk to you about what I do, and how I might be able to help. In the mean time, feel free to click on that property management menu link, and check out what I do, and how I might be able to help you if you own are considering owning a rental property in the Phoenix area.

Phoenix Real Estate Market Update – #31

Steve Belt — Mon, 18 May 2009 02:30:42 +0000

I want to start off with the numbers today, then dig in a tiny bit deeper afterward. Across all of Maricopa County, there are currently 24,321 single family homes for sale, down by 981 from a week ago. There are 10,806 sales currently pending, down by 13 from a week ago. And 7373 homes closed escrow in the last 30 days, up by 361 from a week ago. As a result, broader Maricopa County now has 3.3 months of inventory, based on this week’s numbers.

So let’s look a little closer at these numbers, since they seem absolutely stunning, and find out just what is selling today. 748 homes were sold as a short sale, meaning the lender had to agree to less than a full pay off on the loan, rather than accept the reality the home was going into foreclosure. 4893 of the sales were bank owned homes (foreclosures). The remaining 1732 homes were “normal” sales, presumably not under duress.

From a price standpoint, 3840 homes sold below $100,000. Another 1588 sold between $100k and $200k. Then another 1323 homes sold between $200k and $350k. Only 622 homes sold for a price above $350k, which is roughly where the FHA loan limit currently stands.

Again, there simply cannot be any doubt that price and available financing are what is driving the Phoenix real estate market today. Now, let’s look at the 12 city by city breakdown.

City	Homes For Sale	Sales Pending	Sold	Months of Inventory
Phoenix	6138 265	3205 7	2373 48	2.6
Scottsdale	3471 91	551 26	356 30	9.8
Mesa	2114 86	971 4	672 45	3.1
Chandler	1118 113	562 2	331 32	3.4
Glendale	1116 82	720 7	534 34	2.1
Goodyear	575 18	337 7	205 10	2.8
Tempe	426 7	153 7	80 7	5.3
Laveen	352 6	219 0	114 4	3.1
Cave Creek	432 1	66 8	54 14	8
Fountain Hills	381 14	66 3	48 5	7.9
Paradise Valley	549 5	31 5	12 2	45.8
Carefree	141 4	8 0	4 2	35.3

The following trend indicators are relative to the previous week’s update:

Positive move upward Positive move downward

Negative move downward Negative move upward

More fun with Phoenix housing prices

Steve Belt — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:34:25 +0000

Ok, yesterday I had some extreme examples of irrational housing prices, so today, I wanted to come a little closer to center. A little closer to what the average home owner may be feeling is happening to the value of their own home. Again, with a couple of specific examples.

North Phoenix Example

This is a Brady floor plan, built by DR Horton in the Dynamite Mountain Ranch subdivision, which is found in North Phoenix, near I-17 & Happy Valley Road.

Sold: 1/29/2003 $199,885

Sold: 9/15/2006 $420,000

Sold: 4/17/2009 $210,000

Size: 2313 Square Feet, 3 bedroom, plus den, 2 bath, granite counters, maple cabinets, pool

DR Horton built this floor plan in a number of locations throughout the valley, but Dynamite Mountain Ranch is a personal favorite of mine (I manage a number of rental properties there, along with owning 2 rental properties there myself). The home’s layout results in a very practical and efficient use of space, with each room being large enough to breath in, yet no room being excessively large or tiny.

When this home sold last month, it was as a foreclosure. All of the appliances were still in the home along with the cabinets (not always the case with a foreclosure). The flooring was in good shape (mix of tile and carpet) and the walls were custom painted throughout, which was also in good shape. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget the pebble tec swimming pool with water feature in the back yard. Overall, this home was actually in better condition, than when it was purchased new (when considering the addition of the pool and painting).

North Scottsdale Example

This is another Brady model by DR Horton, but this time in the Scottsdale subdivision of Horseman’s Park near McDowell Mountain Ranch.

Sold: 5/23/2003 $338,729

Refinanced in 2005 & 2006

Sold: 3/26/2009 $385,000

Size: 2313 Square Feet, 3 bedroom, plus den, 2 bath, granite counters, maple cabinets

Once again, this home was in pretty good condition, without any glaring deficiencies like missing appliances and/or cabinets. As you can see, Scottsdale’s prices are higher than Phoenix for an equivalent home, but the price changes over the last 6 years are not much different.

Again, for this look at prices, I chose what I consider to be average homes for the area. These are not homes way on the outskirts of town, miles and miles from a freeway. These are both homes within a few minutes of major shopping and dining, freeways, employment centers, and entertainment venues.

(PS- McDowell Mountain Ranch currently has a woefully limited supply of quality homes for sale. If you are a home owner in McDowell Mountain Ranch, with a well cared for, move-in ready home, that is considering selling, you will find there is actually pretty strong demand for your home.)

Is there a point here?

Hopefully the point here is obvious. Once again, I’m only showing a couple of homes, but these sales are very typical of subdivisions sales results throughout the central part of the valley, rather than the outlying areas. The majority of homes selling today are selling for prices approximately equal to their price back in 2003. Nearly all of the massive run up in valuation that was experienced in the 2004-2006 time period has at this point been wiped away.

Looking for a deal, when it comes to buying a home today? Take out your box of darts. Stand opposite a map of Phoenix and its surrounding suburbs. Put a blind fold on. Throw a dart at the map. Wherever it lands, that’s a good deal.

Phoenix Real Estate Market Update – Mothers Day Edition

Steve Belt — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:37:33 +0000

Happy Mothers Day!

I’m cutting straight to the chase today, it is Mothers Day after all. Across all of Maricopa County, there are currently 25,302 single family homes for sale, down by 4785 from a month ago. There are 10,819 sales currently pending, up by 748 from 2 weeks ago. And 7012 homes closed escrow in the last 30 days, up by 784 from 2 weeks ago. As a result, broader Maricopa County now has 3.6 months of inventory, based on this week’s numbers.

Lets look at the 11 city by city breakdown. I’ve added a Months of Inventory column. I’ll talk more about the meaning of months of inventory during this upcoming week.

City	Homes For Sale	Sales Pending	Sold	Months of Inventory
Phoenix	6403 1334	3198 135	2325 245	2.8
Scottsdale	3562 263	525 59	326 67	10.9
Mesa	2200 432	975 58	627 57	3.5
Chandler	1251 295	560 91	299 16	4.2
Glendale	1198 305	727 7	500 106	2.4
Goodyear	593 142	330 41	195 18	3.0
Tempe	419 75	160 60	73 10	5.7
Laveen	346 90	219 39	118 5	2.9
Cave Creek	433 38	74 13	40 7	10.8
Fountain Hills	395 51	69 3	43 3	9.2
Paradise Valley	554 15	26 9	14 3	36.6
Carefree	145 5	8 1	6 0	24.2

The following trend indicators are relative to the previous week’s update:

Positive move upward Positive move downward

Negative move downward Negative move upward

Phoenix Real Estate Market Update – Easter Edition

Steve Belt — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:36:23 +0000

Happy Easter!

I’m cutting straight to the chase today, it is Easter after all. Across all of Maricopa County, there are currently 30,087 single family homes for sale, down by 1297 from 2 weeks ago. There are 10,071 sales currently pending, up by 913 from 2 weeks ago. And 6228 homes closed escrow in the last 30 days, up by 28 from 2 weeks ago. As a result, broader Maricopa County now has 4.8 months of inventory, based on this week’s numbers.

Lets look at the 11 city by city breakdown. I’ve added a Months of Inventory column. I’ll talk more about the meaning of months of inventory during this upcoming week.

City	Homes For Sale	Sales Pending	Sold	Months of Inventory
Phoenix	7737 434	3063 304	2080 5	3.7
Scottsdale	3825 76	466 34	259 5	14.8
Mesa	2632 60	917 60	570 0	4.6
Chandler	1546 40	469 39	283 0	5.5
Glendale	1503 94	720 80	394 12	3.8
Goodyear	735 54	289 21	177 7	4.2
Tempe	494 1	100 9	63 3	7.8
Laveen	436 9	180 3	123 2	3.5
Cave Creek	471 7	61 13	33 4	14.3
Fountain Hills	446 10	66 16	40 1	11.2
Paradise Valley	569 10	17 5	11 5	51.7
Carefree	150 0	9 1	6 1	25.0

The following trend indicators are relative to the previous week’s update:

Positive move upward Positive move downward

Negative move downward Negative move upward

Phoenix Real Estate Market Update – #28

Steve Belt — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:44:13 +0000

As I write this, the Phoenix Suns are being handily beaten by the Dallas Mavericks. The game isn’t over, but with the Mavs ahead by 20, well into the third quarter, it’s not looking good for the Suns. A loss to the Mavs will almost certainly mean the Suns are out of the playoffs, as they will be 4 games behind Dallas with just 5 games remaining to be played. This was an awkward year for the Suns, as they rarely seemed in synch player to coach to front office. The injury to Amare Stoudemire, sealing the team’s fate. It’s too bad, too, as Shaquille O’Neill is really playing well of late.

In the real estate world, across all of Maricopa County, there are currently 31,384 single family homes for sale, down by 2397 from 2 weeks ago. There are 9158 sales currently pending, up by 616 from 2 weeks ago. And 6200 homes closed escrow in the last 30 days, up by 1047 from 2 weeks ago. As a result, broader Maricopa County now has 5.1 months of inventory, based on this week’s numbers.

Buying activity in the Phoenix area is now approaching the volume in which price stabilization is likely to be occurring. It’s too early to tell for certain, but in all likelihood, the near free fall of housing prices is probably finding a landing point right now. How long will this pace of activity last? Will prices bounce or rebound a bit? Those are anyone’s guesses. But a significant correction appears to be in hand.

City	Homes For Sale	Sales Pending	Sold
Phoenix	8171 716	2759 99	2075 384
Scottsdale	3901 87	432 52	254 35
Mesa	2692 244	857 60	570 98
Chandler	1586 78	430 34	283 45
Glendale	1597 160	640 50	382 64
Goodyear	789 84	268 4	184 38
Tempe	495 21	91 13	60 12
Laveen	445 45	183 8	121 26
Cave Creek	484 26	48 11	37 3
Fountain Hills	456 33	50 9	41 5
Paradise Valley	579 4	22 10	6 4
Carefree	150 2	10 1	5 1

The following trend indicators are relative to the previous week’s update:

Positive move upward Positive move downward

Negative move downward Negative move upward .