The Arizona Commissioner of Real Estate has proposed some long needed changes.

• A new licensee will have to complete 15 hours of additional course work PLUS the increased 30 hours of continuing education within the 2 year period of their provisional license. (This is currently 24 hours)
• All licensees will be required to complete 30 hours of continuing, and increase of 6 hours from the current requirement.
• New categories will be added to the curriculum. Proposed categories include things like "Commissioner's Hot Topics, allowing the commissioner to react to changes. A good example of that would be Short Sales. Just 2 few short years ago, this was a non-issue, now a big one. I recently wrote an article about just one short sale issue. You can read it here.
• The current 4 year license renewal will be reduced to 2 years. This is strictly a revenue measure, and should result in active rain (8)increased revenue to support the activities of the department.

I applaud Commissioner Lowe for making this long-overdue change. It is a step in the right direction.

How important do I think the education is? I am currently required to have 24 hours before May 2010. I have 42 now, and will continue to take more.

11/05/2009 12:55 PM MSt

This just in, the Senate and the House have approved an extension to the First-Time Buyer tax credit. They included a $6500 credit for move up buyers. The bill hasn't been signed by the President yet. I'm betting he will sign as soon as it hits his desk. The bill was a rider on the extension of the unemployment benefits.

More to follow as details emerge.

This notice was sent to all agents who subscribe to the Arizona Regional MLS.

• SCAM ALERT: Check Your Vacant Listings
• A recent scam reported to ARMLS® involves tenants moving into a pending short sale listing. The surprised listing agent contacted the owner who had not rented the property to anyone. The tenants (two women with two children) were physically moving in and had turned on utilities in their name. The sign and the lock box were removed, and all locks were re-keyed. The tenants responded to a For Rent sign in the yard. They gave someone $1,800 as rent and signed a lease. While the short sale was able to close, the unfortunate victims of this scam were out $1800 with no place to live.
• This down economy encourages some people to take advantage of others. Listing agents should check their vacant listings regularly and provide neighbors their contact information in case they observe any suspicious activity.

One of my promises to my sellers is to check the property at least once a week when it is vacant. Do you really believe the agent who lives and works an hour across town will do that? Do they have the time? If they do have the time, why?

Many, if not most homes for sale in Sun City are vacant while on the market. Doesn't it make sense to use someone who lives and works here to help you sell your home?

The U.S. Senate has TENATIVELY agreed to extend the home buyer tax credit. If the measure passes it will include a broader credit. More people will benefit. This measure, while hoped for, is NOT yet approved. Write your congressman folks.

The House of Representatives in now looking at the Home Valuation Code of Conduct. This ill-conceived rule has been the cause of additional costs to home buyers, and inadequate appraisals. These have caused many sales to fail, costing sellers equity dollars.

Another House committee is probing predatory practices used by some in the mortgage industry. The intent is to see if these practices contributed to the current housing crisis and its resulting economic meltdown. I, for one, hope this leads to a lot of "perp"walks at executive levels.

Last, but not least, Congress has passed a resolution extending the current Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA loan limits until 2010.

I finally got around to evaluating the Sun City Market by housing type. ie Single Family vs Condominium. I used six weeks of MLS data for this. (9/1/09-10/14/09)

I have long felt that the single family home is more desirable to most of the buyers who come to Sun City, but have never done the analysis required to prove it.

As you can see from the following spreadsheet, homes sell one third faster than condos. The lesson, if you are a buyer, and want to buy a home, you must make up your mind quickly as more snowbirds will be here competing with you. If you are a seller, be patient.

The market ratio is a new metric I am using. A ratio less than 20 indicates a buyers market. A ratio of 20-30 indicates a balanced market. 30 or more is a sellers market. As you can see, the single family home segment is very close to a buyers market now, but the condominium segment is still a strong buyers market.

And, The Numbers For September Are:

1. Active Listings as of 10/1/09  689
2. Average List Price $135,500
3. 79 homes sold
4. Absorption Rate 9 months
5. Number of Single Family Homes for Sale 357
6. Number of Condos for Sale 332
7. Average Days on the Market 135

The Sales prices ranged from $46,900 to $470,000 with an average of $125,484. This represents an average price per square foot of $81.98.

The Year to Date Sales Are:

1. Total Number of Homes Sold 1/1/09-10/1/09 799
2. Number of Single Family Homes Sold 1/1/09-10/1/09 457
3. List Price/Sold Price  of Single Family Homes $148,913/$138,454
4. Number of Condo Style Homes Sold 1/1/09-10/1/09 342
5. List Price/Sold Price of Condo Style Homes $102,448/$98,718

Overall, we have survive the summer relatively well. Buyers are now showing up at open houses. This is the beginning of our winter season and the outlook is generally hopeful.

Mike Carlier, an agent in Minnesota, just wrote the following blog post. ALL sellers should read this one. It is a great how to on NOT getting your house sold.

The only thing I could add would be: Make sure your agent does not live or work anywhere near your home. That way he/she won't know anything about your neighborhood. This is a real problem for sellers in the Phoenix marketing area. I see listings sit for a year or more, most often listed by agents 2 area codes away.

JIM LITTLE, Your Sun City Neighborhood Realtor

For Phoenix area agents, be sure to take advantage of Gregory Drejza's classes.

Greg teaches several classes, including:

• How to make a virtual tour for free.
• How to use linkedin, facebook, twitter, google profiles, youtube ACTIVE RAIN, wordpress and more. All of this directed toward helping agents in their business.

I am actually in his class as I write this. It is my second with Gregory.

To Quote Lenn Harley

* * * *  HARD CORE REAL ESTATE TALK  AHEAD* * * *

No day goes by that I don't see real estate agents advertise something like, "I can short sell your home at no cost to you". This leads many distressed sellers who are upside down on their home, or who have suffered some catastrophic financial setback to believe that they can be relieved of their mortgage obligation with no cash to the deal.

Both of these are dangerous assumptions. Nobody can make the claim there will be no cost to you before a complete pre-short sale package of forms has been prepared, and the lender has made a committment. When an agent makes these claims without several hours of discussions with you and your lender, be careful, it is a careless claim at best.

In addition, since Arizona is an anti-deficiency state, sellers are lead to  believe they will have no further responibility when the lender takes a loss on the short sale. Borrowers are protected under the anti-deficiency statute ONLY under very specific conditions. The indebtedness must be for PURCHASE MONEY loans, for an OWNER OCCUPIED home of 1-4 units. Home Equity Lines of Credit do not normally qualify. Cash out refinances do not normally qualify either, unless the borrower can PROVE the funds were used to improve the property. Other restrictions also may apply.

If an agent tells you they will NEGOTIATE WITH THE LENDER, run, don't walk away. Agents claiming to do this run the risk of prosecution for practicing law if they don't belong to the state Bar Association. You, the SELLER, negotiate with the lender. Your agent helps you negotiate with the buyer, and helps manage and communicate the transaction, but cannot negotiate with the Lender.

More later, as this is a complex subject and cannot be explained in a brief post.

I checked the numbers for single family homes in Sun City today.

• Active Listings, Up 415 houses listed
• Pending Sales Up 84 under contract
  
• Sold for the month Up 61 closed for month to date
  
• Sales year to date 758
• Sold price per square foot up
  

This is happening as our winter visitors are arriving. It looks like they will have a good inventory to choose from, but they did seem to miss the "bottom".