Maricopa was highlighted by ABC's nightline tonight. It was a piece about Maricopa. They sensationalized the foreclosures at 1 in 95 homes in Arizona. That is slightly more than 1 percent. Not that bad, quite honestly. 1 in 10 homes is for sale in Maricopa, the way they said it, that includes builder homes as well....okay, that is higher than we would like, but not the end of the world for a smaller growing community. "Check my earlier post-Pinal resales rise at to 1685 homes." The prices have no doubt taken a hit, much as we have throughout the valley. This is really a hit piece on the builders, making them out to be at fault. Jay Butler's comments may have been gleaned over, but if I was a builder, I would think twice about subscribing to his services- I think he sells his abilities as an expert. He just sandbagged them, in my opinion. He accused the builders of selling mortgages, not homes.
Yes, lots of people have given back homes, because they were buying as investments, not as homes, and really had no ability to hold the home if they couldn't resell it. The town is still growing and builders do have a significant price advantage over the resales in some cases, as they can undercut easily a home that sold for $26o,000 that is probably worth 160,000 now. Let me tell you a story about my uncle. He bought a nice home in a fringe community and a year later his life situation changed, and he wanted to move back to a smaller home closer in. He was quite annoyed that the builder had IDENTICAL homes to his just down the road for the same price he paid a year and a half earlier. Another story for ABC about overbuilding in Maricopa? Another hapless buyer caught up in the Great Housing Bust of 2007-2008? No........
Well folks, that was Surprise 1999, at Bell and Dysart. Buy a home in a new fringe area, expect to live in it a for while, because the builder has pricing power, and that means you shouldn't expect to sell for much more than you bought for in the first five years. By 2004, that house was worth double the $150K he built it for in 1999. But in 2001-2002, it was only worth what he paid for it.
Another thing, the national pending sales figures were supposedly down across the country. That may be, but check the stats, and Arizona's were up and getting stronger. As a matter of fact, we are currently sitting at 8586 pending and AWC contracts, a number that is higher than the end of April, prior to a large last week of pendings converting to sales of over 1200. We have recovered quite nicely from that in the last three days, don't you think? We are not in 2005 territory, but we seem to be getting better on a lot of fronts, so take this national news with a grain of salt, as they try to infect us with more negative sentiment. The truth is, Maricopa offers an incredible value in housing, including new and resales, and if it was doing so bad, builders wouldn't be opening up new subdivisions in east Maricopa.
ABC made mention of the fact that 1 in 5 was sold to an investor. How is that exactly the builder's fault? If someone has the money to buy, why shouldn't they be allowed to buy? They did curb investors in 2005, but it is fairly typical of the media to blame business first, and the consumer is faultless.
Regardless, Maricopa looks like it is doing pretty good. There are a lot of over priced homes for sale, but there are also a lot of reasonably priced homes for sale, and there seems to be a lot of commercial construction going in. It isn't perfect, but that is a nice community being built down there, and this was a character assassination of Maricopa.
This report reminded me a lot of those Jonathan Hunt pieces on Fox News that absolutely go over the top in trying to create news. Do you remember the "city paralyzed by fear of snipers" story he did on us a few years ago? It was ridiculous then, and this didn't seem to be much different.
Sorry, I had to spout off on this, because it completely misses what is really happening there-a town of a few thousand having grown to 40,000 people and looking like it will be just fine.
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