Scottsdale

New Coffee Shop Set To Open In Scottsdale

“Making great, natural smoothies.”  That’s the latest, and only tweet from @buzzberry way back in March of 2009.

The intersection of Granite Reef and McDonald hasn’t seen much change lately.  A vacant lot, an over-priced gas station, convenience store, and abandoned service station have been the norm for years.  With the recent remodel of Basha’s, and the construction of the standalone Walgreens, it only makes sense that we see yet another coffee shop emerge.

I noticed a few months ago that the old service station on the southeast corner was beginning to change.  Over the summer, an entire armada of police and service personnel dedicated an entire day to installing utilities to the newly remodeled building, the windows became decorated, and new signage has been installed.  What are we getting in our little neighborhood of Hallcraft homes?  A coffee shop slash smoothie bar.  Huh?

I peered in the window last night and found that they are still well under way constructing the interior design of the store, which I am anxious to see.  What kind of coffee bar are we to expect here?  I wish I knew more.  Their website offers very limited information.  I guess I’ll just have to see when it opens.

Oh, and by the way, that’s not the only coffee shop in Scottsdale that’s preparing to open.  There are others .

Scottsdale

34th Annual Mighty Mud Mania

Every year, for the past 33 years, an event has taken place at Chaparral Park designed to get you and your kids out of the house and into the MUD!  This year is no exception.  The 34th Annual Mighty Mud Mania is scheduled for this coming Friday, July 17th from 8:30 AM until 2:00 PM.  Chaparral Park is located at 5401 N. Hayden Road in Scottsdale, Arizona, just north of Chaparral road, and south of the new water treatment plant and bark park at McDonald and Hayden roads.

Scottsdale.gov Website information:

“Mighty Mud Mania” began in 1976 as the “Shout It Out Decathlon,” a promotional gimmick for Johnson’s Wax “Shout” Spray pre-wash. The activity was held in Chaparral Park in Scottsdale and the Johnson’s Wax Company provided 300 white t-shirts for the participants. Johnson’s dropped the program because our Arizona mud was too tough for the pre-wash. However, the City of Scottsdale felt the activity was so successful, that our Parks and Recreation Division incorporated the event into the summer recreation program. Re-named “Mighty Mud Mania,” the activity has been held since then as the culminating activity of all the Scottsdale Parks and Recreation summer programs.

Activities are limited to ages 1 through 17, with parents, of course, and include some of the following:

• Mudville town for tiny tots & mini mud course
• Original Mud obstacle course
• MUDPITS to play in!
• Water slides.

There will be food sold during the event, and the Chaparral Aquatic Center will be open from 11AM – 3PM for those who have CLEAN swimsuits.  The event is free, but you are asked to bring non-perishable food items for donation to Vista del Camino food bank.

Children must wear closed toed, lace-up, or velcro shoes.  Absolutely no sandals will be permitted.  Wear old clothing & lace up those shoes nice and tight to play in the mud.  A permission slip signed by parent/guardian is required to participate.

Please refer to the Official Scottsdale website for more information, permission slips, volunteer information, and driving directions.

Scottsdale

Scottsdale Real Estate Market Statistics

Some people would ask, “if the number of homes being sold is increasing, and the number of homes on the market is decreasing, isn’t the reduced supply causing the price point to increase?”

It is, in some areas. The law of supply and demand is hard at work here in the Scottsdale market, just as it is in the rest of the Greater Phoenix Metro area. The reason the prices continue to fall is because of the quality of the homes that are on the market, not the quantity. Bank owned properties are being liquidated, and the investors are snatching them up because they know that real estate is on sale. Bank owned, or REO properties tend to sit and for a better lack of terms, rot, and when a cash investor comes to the table, the banks are very eager to take a decent offer, even if it means taking an additional discount to have cash in hand.

REAL ESTATE IS ON SALE! The doom and gloom has instilled fear into the hearts of many, and as a result, the market values have fallen below a normal value, which means they WILL bounce back, but not to the levels that you may think. The market will equalize, as long as our government stops screwing around with it.

Below are some snapshots of the current market conditions as of Thursday, July 2nd, 2009:

To view statistics on Queen Creek, visit Jamie Geiger’s most recent statistics update.

Scottsdale

Good News for Phoenix Real Estate

It’s not a big surprise considering the number of homes that have been selling recently that the inventory has depleted considerably and the availability of affordable housing is drying up after this massive real estate hemorrhage.

I cannot tell the future, but I can see when there’s a break in a pattern, as you will also see indicated in the graph below. Whenever a market corrects, it usually over corrects to a comparable intensity of the original inflation. Prices were so overinflated, and people have SO overreacted, that the low prices in the valley are deflated and can be considered as artificially low as they were high.

If I base my opinion simply on the pattern in this graph which outlines average monthly sales in the Greater Metropolitan Phoenix Market, then we are on track to recover, and we will bounce back. Since Arizona is a national leader in real estate trends, we should see a healthy recovery. Again, I cannot predict the future.

It was towards the end of 2003, beginning of 2004 that things started to exponentially bloat, soaring to ridiculous heights, and absolutely crashing as quickly as a 747 filled with solid lead.

In August of 2005, my neighbor bought the same unit I purchased in 2003 for $200,000.00 more than I paid for mine. They are still there. Oops.

The market’s plateau began in approximately June of 2006, rose a bit more, and then decidedly burned in flames at about January of 2008, through March of 2009. The number of homes sold began to increase in May of 2008, but the price continued to drop.

What would have happened if we had continued to grow at a normal, typical rate of 4% per year?  Perhaps the following, showing a line drawn at about a 4% increase over the same period of time.  This shows that a starting value of $175,000.00 would over the time represented in this graph, grow to approximately $244,000.00.

One could argue at this point one of two possibilities.  Either a) the market will quickly correct, over correct, and bounce back and forth over the next 8 years or so to find equilibrium along that blue line, or b) the blue line must be adjusted down, erasing all of the growth in this millennium.

If that’s the case, then the home you’re living in, which is now worth what it was pre-Y2K, will not be worth what it should be worth for as long, if not longer than it takes to re-write the entire first decade of this century.  To reach home prices that we should be at, we’re looking at roughly 10 years of steady growth at a “normal” rate.

The problem is that nobody knows what normal is anymore BECAUSE OF THAT GIANT HUMP in the middle of the chart.  Who’s to blame?  Many people think it was the government forcing the banks to lend to people who couldn’t afford it which drove them to “get creative.”  Dave Ramsey calls “creative financing” “Too Broke to Buy a House.”  I tend to agree.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what happens, and ultimately, it appears as though we’ve experienced the beginning of the bottom of this roller coaster ride.  Which means one thing…

If you haven’t bought a house yet, it’s time to buy.  There’s blood in the streets and the street sweepers (the investors) have been very busy recently.  Don’t miss out.

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