There is zero chance I will not have the place under contract quickly. In fact, there’s virtually zero chance I won’t have electronic stacks of offers in my Inbox within 48 hours of entering the home into the MLS. That much is certain.

But there remains one very large area of uncertainty and that’s the lender in the equation – PHH Mortgage.

Sometimes PHH is in a good mood and approves short sales with a minimum of hassle. Other times, PHH can dig in its heels and make things more difficult.

In that respect, they remind me of my children.

Which way is it going to go this time? Who can tell? Even six years into a market where short sales have been prevalent, documentation and paperwork and processes and response times all seem to change constantly.

Having said that, there is no possibility of success without the effort. And it’s worth attempting to get the short sale approved versus simply letting the house go, at least in this owner’s case.

For you, the final decision may different. Make sure you talk to someone before you make it.

And, if you happen to not strangle anyone during the district calendar committee meetings – particularly those bungee committee members who come into the last meeting ready to press all their ideas that had been discussed ad nauseum at the three prior meetings – you’ll be “rewarded” with the opportunity to serve on other committees.

Which all it explains how little ol’ anti-social, anti-meeting me came to be on the Peoria Unified School District’s long range planning committee. And how I found myself yesterday shvitzing in a room at Heritage Elementary School, where a couple of the air conditioners decided to give way during the day.

(Sure, that probably was awful for the little kiddos during the day but, of course, seeing as I’m a princess my bigger concern was my own comfort at the meeting.)

Anywho, as we discussed different ideas for what the district’s values should be, real estate came up in an ancillary fashion. And it wasn’t even me who brought it up.

A successful district can become a destination for would-be homeowners for a couple of different reasons:

1. Parents obviously want their kids in schools that give them the opportunity to get a quality education that will prepare them for life after school
2. Those without kids want to purchase in a place where property values have the best possibility of rising and, not coincidentally, the school district has something to do with that. Perceived excellent school district = place people want to buy = stable to increasing property values.

Did I mention I wasn’t even the person who brought this up?

As with most districts, Peoria has been faced with the challenge of population migration; homeowners tend to look for newer homes (unless price or personal taste – getting away from the cookie cutters and the HOAs – dictates otherwise.) One of the ways it has done so is through magnet programs at different elementary and high schools.

My daughter, for instance, spent a year at Foothills Elementary as part of the district’s Fine Arts Institute; students particularly adept at engineering and math can attend a specialized program at Heritage (and, theoretically, gain hands-on engineering experience while repairing the air conditioning system.)

Language immersions, gifted academies, accelerated learning … all exist at different places throughout the district. You might say it’s a district of opportunity, though that may or may not be one of the values suggested during our clearly top-secret meeting.

Truth be told, while I whine it’s not much of a punishment to be on these committees. All of my children have attended schools here in Peoria, and in a couple of cases may have contributed to their elementary school’s grade for the better or for the worse before moving on.

It’s not just that this is where my real estate business is. It’s where my roots are. It’s where my home is.

Having said that … two committees may be enough.

As of the moment there are 9,670 single-family detached homes for sale across Maricopa County; this figure has remained stable for the past handful of weeks.

Last month, there were 6,356 detached homes sold in Maricopa County, compared to 6,096 last year …

• 521 were bank-owned homes, compared to 1,076 last year
• 881 were short sales, compared to 1,573 last year
• 162 were HUD homes, compared to 101 last year

Just for fun, I went back a few years to make sure my memory hasn’t slipped about when things turned. We’ve been over 6,000 sales every April since 2009. April 2008? There were only 3,524.

Until next time …

No, not that Zillow stock shares got crushed yesterday when the company posted a loss for the quarter.

No, not that Trulia acquired Market Leader (which, so it seems sells leads to gullible agents) which also gives them ownership of the real estate blogging network Active Rain (which seems to be the home base for gullible agents who think AR is their best friend and not a business.)

This is even better. It appears that Zillow’s strategy for improving the bottom line is diversification … boldly going another direction and taking on AutoTrader.com.

Check out this “property” listing (I’m putting the link in but odds are this listing will be gone before I hit publish.)

Seriously … how great is that? The only think missing is a Zlue Zook value for the truck.

You see, there’s a reason I rail about the obvious faults with Zillow. There’s a reason I left a BarCamp session to count to ten when some genius agent said “We need to be on Trulia and Zillow because that’s where our clients are.”

Reality is, anyone who is serious about looking for a home shouldn’t be looking on Trulia or Zillow because the data, in a word, sucks.

* * *

About a week and a half ago I was playing sportswriter at the Diamondbacks game for the Associated Press. Long story short, we went from a scoreless game to a Diamondbacks lead in the bottom of the eighth to a Dodgers lead in the top of the ninth. Which, for someone who has to file his story as soon as the game ends, leads to more than a little bit of scrambling.

What struck me, however, is how much I have come to rely on the Internet when writing my story. In the past couple of years, it’s become possible to look up just about anything related to baseball statistics that I may want. In fact, there are few games where I don’t look through a player’s game-by-game statistics (usually for pitchers) to check out some superlative or another.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Pablo Sandoval homered off of J.J. Putz in the top of the ninth. By checking MLB.com’s Gameday, I could see what type of pitch Putz threw because it’s listed there. (Both players verified the pitch, and Putz continued on to spawn what turned out to be a great story.) As I was writing the story, I wanted to say it was a hanging pitch – that it moved over the dead center of the plate. But I wasn’t absolutely certain. Lo and behold, less than five minutes after Sandoval’s home run landed, the video was on MLB.com and I could see for myself that it was in fact a hanging split-finger fastball.

This may seem minor to you but when you take pride in your ability to allow the reader to “see” what happened without being there through your words, the little details tend to make all the difference.

Here’s the point of all of this … as I search the internet through ESPN, MLB.Com, Baseball Reference and Retrosheet, I know the data is accurate. Or at least I have reason to have confidence in the data.

On Zillow and Trulia, less than one third of the listings “for sale” really are for sale. This is what agents should be telling the public en masse. Instead, proving that many real estate agents would sell their soul for a good lead (see, Glengarry Glen Ross), agents pay for advertising on these sites and add to the companies’ bottom line even as these sites take eyeballs away from agent listing sites that have the accurate data.

It’s long been my contention that Zillow truly could care less about the accuracy of the data; in fact, incorrect listings prove beneficial because they serve as unique content other (accurate) sites don’t have.

There are (likely intentionally) virtually zero controls in place to screen data. After all, it’s easier to blame the agents and brokers who provide the data than work to make sure the data’s accurate, even if such a setup is flawed.

If you don’t believe me on all of this, that’s okay. I’ve got a truck to sell you. Maybe a bridge, too. I’ll need to dig a little deeper into the “listings.”

This spring, the Arias trial seemed to be the dominant topic of conversation in the Maryvale press box, if only because one reporter from Milwaukee watched the coverage non-stop and then spent most of the game telling us the details even more non-stop.

To be honest, his ramblings are about as much as I know. I’m not paying attention to it. My wife tells me I tend to tune a lot of things out – it’s something I’ve done since the credit crunch of 2008, where the news would cause me to forget I had buyers still wanting to buy at the supposed end of the world – but, frankly, as this doesn’t seem to be something that impacts me or my family in any way, shape or form, I’ve just let it go.

Now, the trial has been a boon for Downtown Phoenix and the Legends District. I’m thinking there are some restaurant owners who can retire on what they’re making just off the cast and crew from HLN. And, fortunately, once the circus leaves town they’ll still have the Diamondbacks and the residents who have moved into an area so envisioned in 2005 when the market collapsed but only now coming to fruition.

Lucky Strike Lanes, the Arrogant Butcher, the Tilted Kilt, Cooperstown (yes, Alice’s place), the Blue Hound, the Hard Rock Cafe … if you haven’t visited the Legends District in a while, there’s a more than decent chance you’ll never recognize it.

Did I mention there’s convenient Light Rail access?

Maybe I ought to pay attention to the trial and put off this annoying little thing called a career. After all, if the jurors really need this much time to figure out what’s going on either it’s far more compelling than I thought or jury per diem is much more than I had imagined it to be.

While they do that, I’m off to Laveen to hand a happy new homeowner – they of the 54-week short sale – their keys, check out another property for an investor and go find some sushi for lunch.

Hopefully, HLN won’t be on when I get there.

If you read us on RSS and your feed exploded this weekend with listings in Glendale, you have my apologies. I’ve gone back to an old programming friend here that turns listings into blog posts and only now added the code that should eliminate the listings from your RSS feed. If you’re still seeing them let me know. …

Does anyone else watch Wicked Tuna? Every week I sit and shake my head as one fisherman talks about wanting to kick the other boat’s ass and be “on top of the leaderboard.” Seriously, does that even matter? Catch your fish, make sure you can pay your bills and take care of your family and stop worrying about the other damned boats. …

One more note on Wicked Tuna … how are Ralph and Bill still in business?

State Farm has a radio ad, similar to the television ad, with Jessica and her former client Jerry. On the radio version, Jerry begs Jessica to take him back as a client and she says she can’t do it. Really? Isn’t she in sales? Not that I haven’t fired clients in the past and, just maybe, that’s what is happening here. Except it can’t be, because I can’t imagine the ad agency thought that far ahead. Jerry, just cancel your current insurance and move back to Jessica. Or another agent. Won’t do much for the ad campaign, but it will make all our lives a bit easier. …

There are times I miss the days when I didn’t watch any reality television, or any television outside of sports. Then I check the DVR and forget all about it. …

One of the best things that happened as a result of my old SiriusXM radio dying is getting both a new radio and an upgraded subscription where I can listen to any major league baseball game that I want. …

Last Friday was the fifth version of the Real Estate Bar Camp Phoenix. At this point, there’s not a whole heck of a lot to talk about. Most of the topics that were BarCamp staples when the movement started five years ago no longer are relevant. One of the best sessions I saw was a lunchtime “blog burnout” discussion. I compared a real estate blog to when I adopted a stray kitten for a first time. No one told me cats live into their teens. I was picking up a kitten and signed on for 16 years.

I’m now seven years deep here and long since ran out of things to say. Yet we keep on rolling. …

It’s interesting to see the disconnect between brokerages and their agents remains as disconnected as ever. Or maybe I see it this way only because I long ago reached a point where I don’t need a brokerage to do much more than pay me on time and stay out of my way. …

Every family event, someone asks me if the market’s moving a bit better. Like we weren’t deep into our second year of a fast-moving sellers market. …

Speaking of which, Channel 3 had “real estate week” last week. Tips for consumers to help them purchase and sell. I didn’t watch a minute of it on the advice of my cardiologist. …

Here’s an example from 3 On Your Side under Appraisal Alert. Amazingly, the entire story says absolutely nothing of value. …

As of the moment, 9,570 detached homes for sale across Maricopa County. So, until next time. …

Photo credit: jamuraa via Flickr Creative Commons

The first comes from SeekingAlpha, where the downturn in existing home sales as reported by NAR has the author believing the bull market of the past year-plus is going to stall. I’m hard pressed to disagree, if only because the double-digit appreciating we have seen here in the Phoenix real estate market cannot be sustained. At some point, inventory is going to climb as increasing numbers of home owners either take advantage of the equity recently built or find themselves above water for the first time in the past half-dozen years. And let there be zero debate, the increase in values is being driven solely by a severe shortage of inventory.

As for the second … it’s less an analysis than a Rorschach test using median sales prices as the picture in question.

Calling a bubble while a) looking at an incredibly short time frame and b) not examining what might be the cause of price increases is fairly irresponsible. And comparing what we’re seeing to 2005 seems like one hell of a stretch, if for no other reason than the 2005 bubble was fueled by the prevalence of garbage loans and lending standards. Ask any buyer today how much fun it is to deal with their lender’s underwriting department and they’ll tell you we’re nowhere near the No Income, No Job, No Problem salad says.

Having said that, here’s what the median price chart looks like for Glendale over the past year …

We’ve moved from south of $125,000 to approaching $165,000 as a median price in 12 months … that’s an increase of about 32 percent in a year’s time.

Read this and repeat it to yourself … THIS CANNOT BE SUSTAINED!!

Despite what some shadow inventory conspiracy folks say, this is not an artificially-created situation.

According to iMapp, one of the two tax record suppliers for the Arizona Regional MLS, Bank of America owns 357 residential properties here in the Phoenix market. (For these purposes, I looked at properties zones single family, five acres or less.) Of those, 24 are on the market; the other 333 are in limbo.

Yes, that’s more than 90 percent. That’s also only 333 homes across the entirety of Maricopa County.

JP Morgan Chase owns 79 homes. Total.

Wells Fargo owns 112.

Fannie Mae owns 1,143 … nearly 650 of those properties, well over 50 percent, are on the market and either currently active or under contract.

There is no shadow inventory with discussing. It’s really just that simple.

Of course, urging sellers to get their homes on the market now is like telling someone on a hot streak at a blackjack table that the cards are about to run against them. Vegas has been built upon our irrational belief that trends are irrelevant, that mathematical impossibilities eventually even themselves out.

Whether the current ride ends next week, next month, next quarter or next year, I can’t say. But it’s going to come to an end.

Inventory will not remain sub-10,000 forever. History says so.

Not to search for homes, mind you. But to look for potential clients. Folks who need the help of a professional real estate agent, even if they don’t happen to realize it.

Marketing, as anyone who has watched Mad Men knows, is as much art as science. But there are some basic precepts that essentially are timeless.

Sideways Works for Wine Movies, But Not Photos

Because nothing attracts buyers more than the chance to live in a funhouse.

Even Sideways Beats Nothing

Because everyone loves a mystery.

Capital Letters Equal Value

This property has So Much Potential in a multitude of ways. With M-1 zoning you can almost any type of business from an Auto Body to a Taqueria just 1/2 block so of Glendale Ave with pretty good foot traffic. And you could even live on site with a Spacious 1250sq’ 2/1 (which could be Easily be converted into a Comfortable 3/1) house in the front. Then again you could fix the back building back up into 2 studio rentals!! This building needs work no matter what you decide to do, but is plumbed and wired as 2 studios–that used to be–so the Possiblities (sic) Are Endless. What ever you do with this property it’s Guaranteed to Make You a Ton of Money!! Whether you live here or not!!

Because nothing screams “Buy me” more than random capitalization, assuming the reader’s eyes stop twitching at some point.

Usng Abbrvtns in Unlmtd Space

Very nice home in Glendale with 4 br, 2 ba, 2 car garage, pool and bonus room off the garage. New roof and all exterior paint. Pool and covered patio. Tax records show 1428 sq ft, but that doesn’t include 100 sq ft laundry room and 210 sq ft bonus room. Close to schools, shopping, and parks. No HOA, low taxes.

Wait! This house has 4 br AND 2 ba? Sign me up!

Less is More

This 3098 square foot single family home has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.

You, Mr. Buyer, are on a need to know basis. And all you need to know is the square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Sign here, please.

***

Look, marketing a home isn’t rocket science. Get some professional photographs. Stop talking about the bare details of a property and describe what it will be like when the buyers live there. Having 3 bedrooms isn’t nearly as interesting as setting the scene of relaxing on the extended patio overlooking the cool, tropically-landscaped yard.

Oh … and having someone look at the listing helps, too. Three hundred views in two weeks may seem like a lot but when you consider a listing in the MLS can be seen not only by thousands of agents but their buyers and prospective buyers viewing homes on their websites as well …

Saving money can cost a lot. There’s a much better way.

“Are you sure this is only Tuesday?”

“I can’t believe it’s almost May.”

“I can’t believe the year went by so quickly.”

At the moment, though, I seem to be working through a period where the minutes, days, hours and weeks seem to dissolve into this rather hazy patchwork that seems more dream than reality.

It’s been this way since my father passed away three weeks ago yesterday. “Has it only been three weeks?”

In truth, I have felt less sadness or even anger than disbelief, as in the idea that he’s not really around doesn’t seem real yet seems like it’s been this way for ages. It feels more like the wispy edges of a dream, where the plot vaguely is remembered but the details are lacking.

The exception comes during a full-family event, like a mass birthday celebration this past weekend – the first since his passing – when there’s a rather significant hole in what otherwise is a fairly full house. Logically, of course he wasn’t going to be there. But if I spend more than 12 seconds on the idea, it doesn’t make sense that he wasn’t sitting on the Adirondack chairs on the back patio with the rest of the men.

It’s not just thoughts where he was concerned. In the days and weeks since, I have as my sportswriting alter ego covered a number of sporting events but I can’t really tell you much about of anything about any of them. Read the game stories and you’ll never know that I was there but wasn’t really there which, I guess, explains why I can’t recall more than a handful of details about all of them collectively.

What makes this more striking is that it’s not at all like me. I’m blessed (or cursed) with a sharp memory which, while fading somewhat now that I’m on the north side of 40, still can tell you idiotic trivia about games I’ve covered or even just attended. Want the regular lineup for the 1981 Dodgers? E-mail me and I’ll pass it on, without having to resort to retrosheet.org.

I can’t do that for what’s happened the past few weeks. There’s nothing there but a blur.

This isn’t a question of not being able to move forward from his passing; right or wrong, I was at Chase Field the next day covering a Diamondbacks spring training game. (I know they played the Reds. I know nothing else of the game.)

Every day I am putting my left foot in front of my right and vice versa and then again. By definition, those simple acts having me move forward though forward to what and from what seems little different. It’s a fog bank on either side and all I can see, barely, is the road scarcely in front of my shuffling feet.

***

Oddly enough, there seems to be an exception to the rule and that’s real estate.

My mind seems too fuzzy for the prospecting that needs to be done, which isn’t a great thing. And, frankly, I’ve not been in the mood for the interpersonal connections – the “business” lunches with past clients and such that are an integral part of this continuing business.

Other than that, the business of selling houses and the details attached to each transaction remain stand out from this fog like a beacon on a hill.

I can’t explain why. All I can do is be thankful that some portion of my brain at least is attuned to the thing that keeps a roof over our head and food on the table.

(Food … oh, don’t even ask about how hard I fell off the Weight Watchers bandwagon these past three weeks.)

Never would I have projected real estate, given the whiplash-inducing highs and lows of the Phoenix market, to be a saving grace. And yet, it has been.

And so this is what I am holding onto, anchoring myself too, until this damned fog lifts the rest of the way.

I do this for me. And for you as well.

Photo credit: Garycycles4 via Flickr Creative Commons

Yesterday, about a half-dozen agents brought their clients to view the property.

Three offers were received by 8 a.m. this morning, and the townhouse was placed under contract before 10 a.m.

This is where I can say that I’m just that good but, the truth of the matter is, current market conditions helped. Though I certainly won’t downplay the role professional photography and a competitive (not low – competitive, based on current market conditions) price play in getting a property sold quickly for maximum value.

But that’s not really what I want to talk about. Rather, I want to show you two photographs.

This is what my clients sold … a 1,000-plus square foot single-story townhouse with a galley kitchen and a small, fenced yard.

And this is what they’re moving into … a nearly 1,700 square foot house near Tempe Marketplace and down the block from the Chicago Cubs’ new Riverview digs in Mesa … with a 10,000-plus square foot lot, 3 full bedrooms and a sparkling blue pool.

When I talk about “move-up buyers”, this is what I am talking about … people selling the places where they live now, taking that equity and moving into a larger property that better fits what they need at what likely will be a more advantageous interest rate.

This isn’t an option for everyone. The hole many who purchased in 2005 and 2006 fell into it hasn’t been filled completely. (Though it was encouraging to look at one home a client purchased for $190,000 that had fallen into the $80s at the nadir rebound to the $150s over the past year.)

But for those who have a little bit of equity and a desire for some different surroundings, or who are unsure what their home might really be worth and are smart enough not to trust Zillow Zestimates that are increasingly out of touch with the appreciating market here), it’s worth picking up the phone.

Today.