Jonathan Dalton

Tai - first off, best of luck with your home no matter what you decide. Laveen's a tricky situation with the sheer volume of foreclosures and short sales on the market.

Second, while I'm sure Lori means well, 10 years in the business is an arbitrary number that isn't going to end up having much to do with whether your home sells. There are agents who have done more in less time than a lot of the agents who have been in the business for 10-plus years. - Sat Sep 27 2008, 20:12

On the surface it doesn't make much sense that the current listings are higher than the sales from 18 months ago. It also doesn't make sense that there wouldn't be listings below $200K when the foreclosures sold at $130K, at least on the surface.

At the end of the day, the issue you're facing is the sellers aren't willing to sell their homes for that lower price. That can't be helped. I am very curious as to what the comps should be, though, because the data seems to be more than a little conflicted right now. - Wed Sep 17 2008, 09:26

Each week I run updated absorption rate numbers for a number of communities in the Phoenix area, Anthem included. I've been doing this for just over two years now like clockwork. Absorption rate is the number of months of inventory on the market ... if nothing else came on the market, how long would it take for all of the homes to sell.

An absorption rate of 5 to 6 months is considered a neutral market, anything more is a buyers' market. As of this past Tuesday, Anthem has an absorption rate of 5.20 months (390 for sale as of Tuesday versus 75 closed sales over the preceding 30 days.)

The number of homes in a given area is virtually useless as a metric by itself; would you agree a market with 390 homes for sale and only 4 sales the past 30 days is much slower than a market with 390 homes for sale and 75 sales?) That's why I use absorption rate. And by that measure, there are several areas in the Valley that are far more saturated than Anthem.

Best of luck to you in your search! - Sun Sep 14 2008, 00:39

Did your agent give any rationale? In a market where REO properties move quickly, there's nothing wrong with writing offers on multiple properties at the same time. Should one offer get accepted, withdraw the others.

One at a time could still work ... if your agent is familiar with bank owned homes and the quirks of different lenders (what they tend to accept, for example) it could help a great deal. - Sun Sep 7 2008, 20:42

It doesn't sound like anything out of the ordinary, Wendie ... I've seen delays of two days to a full week in getting paperwork back from the lender. The key is for your agent to remain in contact with the listing agent - make sure the listing's no longer showing as active and have your agent talk to the listing agent to make sure there aren't going to be any surprises. - Sun Sep 7 2008, 20:40