Opportunity Knocks or Another reason not to read the newspaper

The media helped inflate the "boom" in 2005 by urging buyers to pay whatever the Seller was asking or more, require no home inspections, and request no repairs in their offers. Now they are telling us that the market is going to Hell in a handbasket. Stories like this are why I no longer own a TV and rarely read the local papers.

Citing a nearly insignificant .29% drop in homes prices in Arizona last quarter and an even smaller .07% drop for Tucson, Capital Media services reporter Howard Fischer claims in an Aug 31 2007 Arizona Daily Star story that this drop of what would be about $580 in the price of a $200,000 home is “Good News for buyers” but signifies a “cold” Arizona real estate market. People spend more than this at Starbucks in 6 months.

Let’s put the market in perspective: In 1991, the average sales price for a home in the Tucson MLS was $97,352. That number steadily rose over the years to the current average price of $268,984. This is an increase in the average sales price of almost 180%. Those who have owned a home over the past five years have done just fine, seeing a 90.78% change in home values in Arizona and a smaller, although impressive 79.09% increase in Tucson.

New homeowners in Tucson who continue to live in their homes for the long term and those who buy now with the expectation of living in their home for the next 5 to 10 years should be OK, because frankly, Tucson is a better place to live than in the Rustbelt, Snowbelt or California.

I lived in Toronto for 5 years and will take a Tucson summer over another winter in the Great White North any day. There are a lot of retiring Snowbird Boomers who feel the same way. Like it or not, our city will continue to grow.

Opportunity knocks.