Entries from July 2007 ↓

Colossal Cave Mountain Park is just the place to go if you want to enjoy some of Southern Arizona’s natural beauty or if you want to spend quality time with your family! Abundant in wildlife, Colossal Cave Mountain Park is a natural sanctuary to hundreds of species of birds, reptiles, mammals and infinite butterflies, beetles, moths and numerous other invertebrates! Some of the mammals that can be spotted in the park include Pack Rats, Spotted Skunks, Ringtails, Foxes, Bobcats, Raccoons, and Mountain Lions and of course, bats…hundreds of bats!

One of the reasons Colossal Cave Mountain Park is so popular with everyone is because of its remarkable diversity in such a small area. The reason for such variety in flora-fauna and wildlife can be attributed to the Park’s location. Situated in the “Sonoran-Chihuahuan transition zone,” the park has a large number of desert species that can’t be found anywhere else in the entire Tucson valley.

Fortunately for us, the Park is riding high along a path that has been witness to transitions of time from ancient to contemporary with respect to plants and wildlife. Over the centuries, flora and fauna population have migrated in response to the multi-layered changes in the climate, further enriching the flora of the Park.

According to the official website of the Colossal Cave Mountain Park, today the park’s plant list accounts for almost one thousand species of wildflowers, trees, shrubs, cacti and the famous desert spring ‘blooms’!

Continue reading →

Technorati Tags: Colossal Cave Mountain Park, Colossal Cave, Sonoran-Chihuahuan transition zone, Tucson

Good Morning everyone, the Tucson Association of Realtors, (TAR), has released the Tucson Housing Market sales statistics for June 2007. Here is a summary of the important points:

Sales Analysis

Average and Median Sales Price Increases
Average and median sales price both increased in June 2007. Average sales price jumped to $298,477 - up 9.05% from June 2006 and up more than $17,000 from last month! Median sales price also rose $5,500 from May 2007.

Active Listings Continue Declining
Active listings have been falling slowly since April 2007, reversing the increases we saw between January and April of this year. The number of active listings is now lower than it was at the start of 2007.

Days on Market Rises Again
Average time on market continues to fluctuate month-to-month, with 64 days being the average time for June 2007, up three days from May 2007.

Compared to the Tucson housing statistics from May 2007, June figures are very similar. The Days on Market (DOM) continues to hover around the same level, this month clocking in at 64 days. Median sales price rose to $229,000 from $223,500 in May. The number of active listings declined for the second straight month from 9,721 in May to 8,665 in June.

I think the most telling statistic, however, is Tucson’s Total Unit Sales in June 2007. Located on page 3 of the Tucson Housing Market June 2007 Statistics report, we see that the total number of sales for June 2007 was 1,226 units. The reason this is such an important factor is that historically the summer months have been the busiest few months of the year. Tucson, however, has hovered at nearly the same total unit sales level for the past four months, just around 1,300 units, which could indicate a slight stagnation in sales. The total unit sales for 2006 show much the same trend on the same graph and I believe Tucson’s July Housing report will be very telling in the status of the Tucson housing market.

As I wrote in my previous post (Tucson May 2007 Housing Report), median prices continued to rise. I believe this may occur another month or two before the summer season cools off. A large part of the decreased number of active and new listings in the market can be attributed to two things:

• unrealistic sellers who had their property overpriced
• the number of “feeler” sellers trying to see if they could still fetch high prices that were around a few years ago

So there you have it, Tucson real estate news for June 2007. If you have any questions or are in the market for a home in Tucson please feel free to contact me on my Tucson Real Estate website!

Technorati Tags: Tucson Association of Realtors, Days on Market, Tucson’s Total Unit Sales in June 2007, Tucson’s July Housing, Tucson real estate news for June 2007, Tucson Real Estate

This topic has been on my mind the past several months. When the housing market exploded a few years ago and homebuyers squeezed into homes with Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) with seductive initial interest rates, I said to myself, “In 2 or 3 years when those ARMs come due, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people.”

The recent follies in the sub-prime mortgage market were an omen of trouble on the horizon and in a few more months that trouble will burst onto the mortgage scene with reckless abandon. According to this latest article from CNN.com more than 600,000 homeowners will be affected by the resetting mortgage rates.

“Delinquency rates will probably peak by the end of the year,” said Doug Duncan, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), “and foreclosures in 2008.”

Lenders approved many borrowers who had little chance of being able to afford the payments two and three years out. They approved applications without any proof of income or assets (”liar loans”) and others that barely could make the low teaser-rate payments. Some borrowers chose interest-only ARMs, which left the principal of the loan untouched.

Continue reading →

Technorati Tags: Adjustable Rate Mortgages, ARMs, sub-prime mortgage