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Tucson, Arizona Home Buying & Home Selling Videos & Articles

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What is there to know about Tucson real estate? Buying or selling homes can be a complex process, especially if you do it very seldomly. On my YouTube channel, I try to cover commonly asked questions and topics I think will help you along in your process.

If you don’t even know about all the neighborhoods available to you in Tucson, how can you search them in a real estate search platform? Use my video tours (usually one minute or less) to get a sense for all the possible neighborhoods at your disposal. My exploration is always expanding because I aim to give you a flavor of each neighborhood so you can judge for yourself which one feels like “your” community.  It’s one of my favorite things to do.  Please contact me if there is a community or area of Tucson you’d like me to pay special attention to, or any topics in real estate you’d like to see covered in these videos!

Have you ever wondered if title insurance is really necessary? What is it, even? Here, I explore scenarios where the title to a property might not actually be "marketable", and what title insurance companies do when they insure a property. I am a Realtor® in Tucson, Arizona. If you ever have any questions about the Tucson market, about real estate in general, about Tucson neighborhoods, or about buying and selling in Tucson, please reach out. I love what I do. Robin Singer, Realtor® Tierra Antigua Realty 520-333-9159 robin@robinsinger.com FIND YOUR NEST | GROW YOUR NESTEGG
Robin Singer, MBA Realtor®️ Tierra Antigua Realty Tucson, Arizona 520-333-9159 robin@robinsinger.com Contact me for your real estate needs! Is the market softening? Have prices started to decline? What's this I keep hearing about low inventory. Is it still a seller's market? This is a look at the Tucson market. It's actually including the entire southern Arizona MLS system, all categories from single family homes, condominiums, townhouses, manufactured homes, etc. The average sales price compared to a year ago is up 4.8% from $381,000 to $399,000. Prices are still rising even though interest rates are deterring some buyers. Just when everyone thought prices were starting to decline, our data shows "no". Why? Because inventory is still crazy low, and low supply means higher prices. Months of inventory as compared to one year ago, is also up 83% from 1.2 to 2.2 (months). While an uptick in inventory, as measured in months of supply, of 83%, sounds like a serious increase, it's only gone from 1.2 months to 2.2 months of inventory. This means it would now take 2.2 months for buyers to buy up all of the current inventory if they continue their current buying trends from the last year, and no new houses hit the market. That's still super low. The average days a property is on the market before going under contract is up 183% from six days to 17 days. Still fast. Interest rates for an average 30 year loan have climbed from the high fives to the low sevens. I really want to hone in on the inventory numbers because they're driving a lot of the other market factors. Supply is our number one culprit for the current market conditions. Rising interest rates are designed to bring demand down closer to the level of supply for a balanced market, but sadly, it's only slightly affected our supply demand imbalance. The number of homes just isn't going to magically increase with any speed. And despite the rates, people need to buy homes. To understand the magnitude of our supply issue, let's examine the MLS data more closely. Look at this data going back as far as this database goes back to 2010. This chart doesn't show it, but we peaked in 2008 when months of inventory hit about 12 months. That's a far cry from our current 2.2 months of inventory. But even this number is a little fuzzy because it isn't simply representing the number of houses on the market, but rather the absorption rate of those houses. If people started buying at a higher rate, this number would shrink down quickly from 2.2. I believe the only reason it has climbed up from from 1.2 to 2.2 is because interest rates have slowed buyers down. Let's jump over to the new listings data because it shows. Only the number of new listings in the MLS and does not factor in buyer behavior. The number of new listings a year ago was about 25,000. In our entire MLS, compared to 21,000 today. So in straight supply, it's not getting better. It's actually gone down 17%. If interest rates go down or buyers adjust their mindset to the current rates and more listings don't appear, our months of supply will disappear in a flash. As long as buyers exceed the number of homes there are to buy, we will be in a seller's market. What is a balanced market? Broadly, it's based on the most simple economic principle when supply equals demand or in other words, when the market is at an equilibrium. In less numerical terms, it looks something like this: sellers list their homes at fair prices. Buyers make reasonable offers and get them accepted. Sellers are motivated to go the extra mile and get their home ready for sale. The well prepared home sells quickly while the neglected home still sits on the market for a while. Buyers take their time to shop and think about their purchase, because if they don't act now and their target home gets bought up by someone else, there will be another good alternative home on the market momentarily. In this sense, we've ticked just a little bit more toward a balanced market marginally since one year ago. So is it is it a good time to buy? That always depends on you. Of course, prices are high, interest rates are high. But if you think you wait for interest rates to soften, know this. If interest rates go down, demand will go up and prices will get even higher and bidding wars will be back in full force. So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't expect circumstances to improve soon. If you can stretch yourself with our current rates, at least you'll be able to buy something at or near asking price. But only you can know if your life circumstances encourage a purchase right now or not.
Photo Credit: Bisbee, Photo Courtesy of John Allen. 🙂 Flights from the Tucson International Airport: https://www.flytucson.com/flights/destinations/ Lakes in Arizona: https://www.arizona-leisure.com/arizona-lakes.html TRANSCRIPT: 00:00:22:14 - 00:00:40:29 Robin Singer Where can you go from? Tucson, Arizona. What surrounds us? How far away is the water? And what kind of day trips and weekend getaways can you enjoy while living in Tucson? That's what we're here to discuss. I'll be giving you a general overview, as diving deep will come more like one trip at a time. Let's get into it. 00:00:41:15 - 00:01:00:29 Tucson has an international airport and has direct flights to several major U.S. cities. But for the rest of your destinations, you'll have to connect in one of these other cities first. It's a small airport. It's easy to get to cheap to park at, and easy to navigate. You can always drive to Phoenix to get more available flight times and destinations, but flying in and out of Tucson is a pleasure when you can do it.. 00:01:01:17 - 00:01:24:06 If you get in your car from Tucson, it's about an hour and 40 minutes to the center of Phoenix, which is north and a little west of Tucson. You can get to San Diego in about 6 hours or Los Angeles in about eight (traffic permitting). And to the Grand Canyon, also in about 6 hours. 00:01:24:29 - 00:01:49:25 Head off to Las Vegas and be there in about 7 hours. Santa Fe, New Mexico is also a seven and a half to eight hour drive. You can get to the four corners where Arizona meets New Mexico, Colorado and Utah in 7 to 8 hours. Day trips or weekend trips might include Mount Lemmon, Madera Canyon, Bisbee, Prescott, Sedona, and even the Grand Canyon. 00:01:50:09 - 00:02:12:25 There are lots of really awesome little day trips to cooler temperatures and completely different vegetation. If you take about a 45 minute ride, for example, up into the Santa Catalina mountains just north of Tucson proper, you'll feel temperature relief in a few short minutes. It quickly climbs to an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet and cools off between 20 and 30 degrees from the base of the mountain. 00:02:13:18 - 00:02:42:17 This trip up Mount Lemmon takes you through at least five unique ecological zones and journeys from Sonoran Desert, where Saguaro cacti grow through semi-desert grasslands, oak woodland, to a plethora of Aspens and Pines at the top, with tons of opportunities to picnic or camp along the route. There is even a small ski resort at the top. For more a popular ski getaway, Tucsonans often travel just about 4 hours north to the White Mountains, to towns like Pinetop and Show Low. 00:02:44:00 - 00:03:02:29 Now, if you're from one of the coastlines, you might be asking, where is the freaking water? So obviously, as I said earlier, you can head to the California coast and be on the beach in about 6 hours by car or in about 4 hours, you can be in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. If you're used to having the beach within an hour or so, Tucson might not be the place for you. 00:03:03:16 - 00:03:27:07 For many, it's closer than they realize. And although we don't have any huge lakes, like the Great Lakes, in the vicinity of Tucson, Arizona does have a lot of nice smaller lakes to visit for all kinds of recreational activities, including water skiing, paddleboarding, kayaking and general relaxing. Until I can dive deeper, I'll put a link in the info below the video where you can view a list of corresponding data for the lakes in Arizona. 00:03:28:13 - 00:03:46:15 One more thing I'd like to touch on about Tucson is the traffic. Tucsonans often complain about the traffic here. There are no major highways going through the city, which means unless you're on the outskirts of the city, you need to travel across tons of traffic lights to get anywhere. So it can feel like it takes forever. 00:03:47:04 - 00:04:11:13 With that said, it's all about perspective. The traffic generally moves at a moderate pace, barring any accidents, and there are almost always multiple routes to the same destination. If you've ever spent time in any major metropolitan area like L.A., New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and even Phoenix, Tucson traffic is a dream. You're in most places within a half an hour, even on the other side of town. From most places around the edges of Tucson. You can be downtown in 20 to 30 minutes. 00:04:11:28 - 00:04:31:17 Robin Singer I hope that gives you a good baseline of information about Tucson. I look forward to continuing to explore it with you. If there's a particular area or question you'd like me to explore here, please throw in a comment below. 00:04:32:01 - 00:04:51:01 Robin Singer For more on the subject of Tucson, hit Subscribe. Hit the bell to be notified every time I release a new video and hit like to let me know you appreciate the content of this video. Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you next time on Living in Tucson.
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