Right now in Rancho Sahuarita there is a HUD home on the market awaiting bids, the bids close at 12/2/08. Basically the home is a 1624sf 2 story Pulte home priced at a pretty ridiculous (low) price of $139,500! This home was built in 2002 and offers 3 beds and 2 baths. Like I have been talking about on this blog right now there are lots of “deals” being throw around and in my opinion this is a pretty good one. A Rancho Sahuarita 6 year old, 1624sf home currently at the bid stage of a HUD sale with an asking price of $139,500. HUD homes work much differently then a regular foreclosure home sale. If you need more info about the HUD process go over to our regular website www.SellingTucsonRealEstate.com and then click on the “HUD Homes” section you can learn all about how they are bought and what you as a buyer would need to do to obtain one.

If you’re a first (1st) time home buyer (homebuyer) in Tucson you most likely would like to know about what programs or incentives are out there to help you buy a home. Buying your first (1st) home in Tucson Arizona is not as hard as a lot of people make it out to be, and there are a lot of programs designed to help first (1st) time homebuyers (home buyer) be able to purchase a home here in Tucson. What are some of the first time home buyer programs for home ownership here in the Tucson Arizona area?

A lot of people think to own a second home/ winter home in Tucson you must spend a lot of money. Here in Tucson you can get nice second homes/ winter homes all day long for under $150k. Many people don’t realize the selection is available because for the past 5 years any home under 150k was purchased very quickly during the boom years that Tucson went through. What kind of second home can you get in Tucson for 150k or less? Well the options vary. Many snowbirds purchase a condo on the east side, central, northwest, or north/ northeast side of town complete with community swimming pools, fitness areas, and other amenities that condo/ townhome living offers for well under $150k.

DR Horton self labeled as “America’s Builder” and by volume of homes built is the largest homebuilder in The US reported their 4th quarter results ending the year for them on September 30th, 2008. Forth Worth, TX based DR Horton posted a loss $799.9 million on the quarter. (Seems like someone figured out how to round down to avoid the 800 million dollar loss.) Last year DR Horton lost $50.1 million in the same quarter so obviously things are getting much worse from 2007 to 2008.

Obviously when you’re relocating to Tucson Arizona if you have never been here it can be extremely hard to figure out what side of town you want to live on, or what type of home you can get. Hopefully blogs like mine help you to shed light on what is available and to get a feel for the region months before you actually show up to town. Relocating to Tucson Arizona can (like all relocations) be stressful and complex. The toughest part of relocating to anywhere regardless if it’s Tucson (which hopefully it is) is finding a home you like in an area of town that works well for both you and your family. I figured I would give a basic rundown of the large mega communities that are very popular with relocating (and native residents) buyers. These neighborhoods are large in size and not necessarily for everyone, however the reason why they are large is because people find them well situated and well priced so they have a lot of demand. When relocating to Tucson as anywhere, everyone has opinions about “the best area” or “The best neighborhood” all of this is very, very subjective talk to 10 people and your bound to hear 10 different responses. Like I said this relocation guide post is simply to make potential relocation buyers aware of the Tucson area’s most popular large master-planned communities.

I wanted to give people a different understanding of how local real estate really truly is so what better way I thought to do this other then break real estate numbers down (listings vs. sales) for each zip code across Tucson AZ. What I found confirms a lot of things I have been saying on this blog, #1 of which the top end is (already is will continue too) going to have problems in the high end 1M plus price range. If you look at the absorption rates (number of listings in a given sub-market vs. the actual number of sales that ratio “absorption rate” tells you essentially how long it would take at current levels to sell through the available inventory of homes.) of individual zip codes in Tucson you can get a good feeling for where the real estate markets are the strongest or weakest. So I’ll give a run through of the numbers along with some commentary to help those looking to buy/ or sell a better understanding of where they stand in Tucson’s real estate marketplace. Here are the absorption rates per zip code for October 08:

Recently watching the real estate market in the Rancho Sahuarita master-planned community I have seen several relatively new homes in Rancho Sahuarita that are foreclosed homes, (Bank Owned, REO) that have sold for very low prices. Some of these homes are selling for as little as $81/ sf. Now these homes just closed within the past couple days so there obviously are deals still to be had, but when I see foreclosure (foreclosed. bank owned, reo) homes in Rancho Sahuarita at these prices it is incredible to see how affordable Rancho Sahuarita can be for those willing to do some work and put a little money into their new home. Here’s an example of a home that just closed escrow this week it was a 1900sf single story home in KB Home’s subdivision of Rancho Sahuarita named Presidio Del Cielo. Presidio Del Cielo is one of Rancho Sahuarita’s best neighborhoods and this 1900sf home with some upgrades sold for total sale price of $154,900! This same home when new sold for $243,175 in 2006 today that home could be bought for $88,000 OFF of what it once sold for only less then 3 years ago. I have personally seen this home and it was a great deal for that price.

As reported in other posts here New Home Construction levels are currently at the lowest levels on record going back at least 50 years. On Wednesday The Commerce Department reported construction levels of new homes and apartments fell 4.5% percent in October. This marked the fourth straight monthly decline of this statistic, the annual construction rate fell to 791,000 units this is from a September rate of 828,000 number for forecasted new homes/ apartments to be constructed this year. These results are the lowest on record for the industry going back to January 1959. Prior to this the lowest rate of New Home/ Apartment construction had been January of 1991 when the US was also in a serious recession and housing correction.

I have been trying to watch the high end markets closely to see what or how weak they are going to get and although an 8 day span in the middle of the month is not a great forecaster it should be noted that only 2 homes closed in the past week and a day. This is slow, furthermore the two properties that did sell both sold for several percentage points below list. The two properties that closed in this time table are:

3820 N Whiptail Wash Pl, Tucson, AZ 85749 SOLD FOR $1,575,000

Builder confidence numbers just came out and they are well suicidal would be the word I would use to accurately describe the stats. The National Association of Homebuilders reported today that The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market index fell five points to 9 in November, the lowest since the measure was started in January 1985. (14 was the rating the industry gave the confidence numbers in October.) Readings below 50 mean more builders view market conditions as poor than favorable. This drop was the largest one month drop in the housing confidence number since it fell 6 points in August 2006 to 33 from a 39 the month prior. Here’s a quote from Sandy Dunn the NAHB Chairman: