Bullhead City Blog

Single Family home sales and foreclosure data for Bullhead City as reported to Western Arizona REALTOR® Data Exchange

No Summers of Love in 2006, 2007

May is usually one of the strongest months of the year for home sales in Bullhead City. As the residential market began to fall in 2006, June sales slipped after a typically high May, and July followed suit by kicking off the second half of the year with fewer sales than any month in the first half.

2007 followed a similar pattern. May was the highest selling month, June sales declined, and again July sales were lower than any month in the first half.

And now for something completely different: Bullhead City residential market heats up this summer

As I reported last month, Bullhead City Single Family home sales were up 50% in June this year, while residential sales overall were up 30%. This in stark contrast to 2006 and 2007 when June sales declined 14% and 21%, respectively. Also unlike the last two years when July numbers were even lower than June, this year home sales in July were up another 20% from June.

Foreclosures back in play in July

Foreclosure sales jumped back up in July, with 42.5% of all Single Family homes sold in Bullhead City being bank owned properties. Here is a breakdown of how foreclosure sales stacked up against the rest of the Single Family market:

34 of the 108 new Single Family listings to hit the market in July were foreclosures, compared to only 19 of 101 in June. This means more competition for all sellers. Here’s the scoop on how foreclosures compare with the rest of the Single Family homes on the market:

With 13% of all houses for sale in Bullhead City, and over 40% of all houses sold in July, clearly foreclosures have and will continue to make their mark (and put pressure on prices). 29% of the pending Single Family sales at the end of July were foreclosures, down slightly from 35% at the end of June. With the influx of new foreclosure listings in July, it will be interesting to see how sellers in the rest of the market respond to the competition.

Related links:

Detailed 2nd quarter statistics for Bullhead City, including a break down by property type and comparisons to 1st quarter of 2008 and 2nd quarter 2007.

July Sales Report for Bullhead City, Fort Mohave, and Mohave Valley

Request a list of foreclosures currently for sale

Bullhead City, Fort Mojave, and Mohave Valley home sales for the month of July, 2008.

Please note this report includes all residential property types (Single Family, Manufactured Homes, Condominiums) and does not include commercial property or vacant land. Enjoy!

Bullhead City Home Sales

Homes sold are up again this month in Bullhead City, this time by 20%. However, volume is about 12% lower compared to last month, while the median sale price is up 11%. If that math doesn’t seem to right, it’s because we didn’t have any of those $1 Million + sales this month.

Units Sold - 67
Dollar Volume - $11,162,165
Average Price - $166,607
Median Price - $154,900

Year-to-Date
Units Sold - 352
Dollar Volume - $64,822,433

Fort Mohave Home Sales

Sales are a little softer in Fort Mohave this month, but not by much. 22 sales compared to 26 in June.

Units Sold - 22
Dollar Volume - $3,724,950
Average Price - $169,316
Median Price - $159.700

Year-to-Date
Units Sold - 160
Dollar Volume - $28,289,552

Mohave Valley Home Sales

Mohave Valley real estate is pretty steady, with the same number of sales as last month and very similar volume.

Units Sold - 11
Dollar Volume - $1,981.500
Average Price - $169.316
Median Price - $159,700

Year-to-Date
Units Sold - 66
Dollar Volume - $14,767,750

Source: Western Arizona REALTOR® Data Exchange

An in-depth breakdown of July sales and the monthly foreclosure report will be available later this week. Want it delivered to you? Subscribe to the BullheadCityBlog.com RSS feed

For detailed market stats and commentary on the Bullhead City real estate market, download the latest edition of The Informant.

How satisfied are businesses operating in Mohave County? More specifically, how well do the Big 3 (Bullhead City, Kingman, Lake Havasu City) stack up?

That’s the question Mohave County set out to answer in a study conducted by the Mohave County Economic Development Division (MCEDD). Their findings have been released in a report entitled the “Tri-Cities Comparison Report.”

The information in the report comes from the MCEDD program, Building Bridges to Business:

Building Bridges to Business (B3) is a business retention and expansion tool that addresses the needs of existing businesses throughout Mohave County. Using a combination of sophisticated survey instruments and customized computer software, the program evaluates each company’s value to the community, growth potential and risk of relocation or downsizing.

With the help of our many B3 Partners, each year Mohave County, Lake Havasu City, Kingman and Bullhead City publish Annual Reports to evaluate their progress and provide area decision makers with valuable insight about the local business environment.

The Tri-Cities Comparison Report uses data collected from 130 businesses to rate the Big 3 in the following categories:

• Education
• Transportation Infrastructure
• Government Services
• Workforce
• Community Services
• Emergency Services
• Utilities
• Technology

All three cities ranked fairly high in Emergency Services, Utilities, and Community Services, while two of the most notable specific areas of dissatisfaction were Airlines and Cellular Service. Surprised? Me neither.

As far as the comparison among the Big 3, Kingman rated slightly higher than Bullhead City and Lake Havasu City in several areas, but it wasn’t a landslide.

The Mohave County Tri-Cities Comparison Report can be downloaded from the Mohave County Economic Development Division website.

Too many foreclosures in your city? San Diego thinks so, and they’re suing Bank of America/Countrywide for engaging in predatory lending practices which they allege has contributed to their growing number of foreclosures. This according to the Union-Tribune:

San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre is taking on the lending industry, filing suit Wednesday against Countrywide Financial, which he accuses of engaging in unlawful and fraudulent predatory lending that victimized numerous San Diego home buyers.

I won’t comment on Countrywide in particular, but certainly lenders are at least partly to blame for people walking away from their loans (and houses). There were a lots of loans dished out to people who couldn’t afford them. As long as the collateral kept appreciating it wasn’t a problem, but if not…

Making loans to people who couldn’t afford them proved to be a risky business

OK, so if lenders are partly to blame, someone else must also be partly to blame, right? How about the borrowers? Just as loaning money to people who can’t afford it is dangerous, so is borrowing money when you can’t afford it. The truth is that some lenders probably used predatory practices; some not nice people did not nice things to nice people. However, many loans were made by lender and borrower mutually agreeing on the terms and the borrower’s creditworthiness (wink wink).

For their part in these deals-gone-bad many borrowers stop paying. In turn, the lender takes their house. Seem reasonable? Not to San Diego:

In a press conference held in front of a vacant, partially burnt Skyline home that has recently been taken over by Countrywide, Aguirre said he hopes his suit will be a way to bring other lenders together to work out settlements with borrowers who are about to lose their homes or who already have been foreclosed on.

“We are asking that any additional foreclosures be stopped and that the parties come together and work out a reasonable alternative based on the values of these properties today so we can stop the spread of this foreclosure disease,” said Aguirre, flanked by Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, San Diego police officers and other members of his office. “We want San Diego to be a foreclosure sanctuary.”

While Aguirre said he also plans litigation against other lenders, including Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo and Wachovia Corp., he said his main goal is to resolve the issue of growing foreclosures “in an orderly way.”

San Diego wants to be a foreclosure sanctuary and who can blame them? Foreclosures are bad for the neighborhood (and the overall community, and city, and county…). They drive prices down and let’s just say they’re usually not the nicest house on the block. They’re also bad for the both the borrower and the lender. So Aguirre is actually on to something with this:

…the parties come together and work out a reasonable alternative based on the values of these properties today…

Talk about a “win-win” situation. If the lender and borrower can get together and modify their loan, maybe the borrower can keep their property. The last thing the lender wants is to take the property back anyway. It’s going to cost them a whole bunch to foreclose and then turn around and sell it.

Unfortunately, while loan modification seems like the way to go, I’m not hearing many success stories. What I am hearing from clients here in Bullhead City and across Arizona are lots of frustrated homeowners who can’t even get an interested human on the phone to talk about it.

I’m no fan of litigation. I don’t know of any win-win stories that end with “…thank goodness they sued us”. What I do know is that if lenders and borrowers could come together to work out their mutual problem, foreclosure numbers would go down and that would be definitely be a win-win situation.

The amount of taxes you pay on real estate in Mohave County is based on the “assessed value” of your specific property as determined by the County Assessor. Basically the Assessor’s office uses adjusted sales data and something they call “mass appraisal mathematical model” to arrive at your assessed value. And that’s that, except…

Property owners have the right to appeal assessed value

The Mohave County Assessor mails each property owner an annual Notice of Value (click to download a sample) stating the amount of your assessed value for the upcoming tax year. As the owner of the property, you have the right to appeal the assessed value if you disagree with the amount. The appeal must be filed prior to the Appeal Deadline stated on the notice, which was April 29th this year for the 2009 tax year.

While the deadline is passed for 2009, I encourage you to be on the look out for your 2010 Notice of Value early next year. I will post detailed instructions here along with links to the relevant forms for those of you interested in appealing your assessed value next year and possibly reducing your property taxes. We made this information available on our company website for 2009 and the page was very popular. But does appealing your assessed value work?

According to the Mohave Daily News this week, “Of the property owners who appealed their valuations, more than 82 percent saw their assessed values decreased.” Remember that property taxes are directly related to the amount of your assessed value. If the valuation decreases, so do the property taxes.

If you’d like to be notified when property tax appeal information for next year becomes available:

Drop me an email or Subscribe to the RSS feed for BullheadCityBlog