Well I am officially back in the land of the living. And geez, Louise, it only took an entire month from the day we moved until I feel like I’m not being crushed by the weight of organizing the new house, work and holidays.
Two things in particular impeded all progress in getting settled in: 1. A nasty bout of strep throat that felled first our eldest, then me, and finally Baby Jo and 2. Buyers coming out of the wood-work to look at property over the holidays.
The strep we have survived. Jo is almost done with his round of antibiotics and the nasty strep rash he got is fading. I’m personally just happy (and knocking constantly on anything that could possibly be related to a tree) that Gray and Jason escaped unscathed. It’s just horrible stuff.
The buyers coming out to play is another story. In the last month I’ve shown:
30+ $1-1.5million houses in Cave Creek, Scottsdale, Mesa and Fountain Hills
25 or so $150-$190K in Gilbert
10 high rise condos in downtown Phoenix
5 3000 square foot houses under $130K in Maricopa
and a house here and there in East Mesa and Chandler
Typically the time between Thanksgiving and New Years is known as a little bit of a dead zone in the field of real estate. People tend to be focused on family and the holidays and not that interested in uprooting and moving.
This year, however, this was just not the case. I think that a combination of prices actually dropping down low enough to be affordable and interest rates hovering between 4.75 and 5.5% has spurred some interest in the fence-sitting buyers.
I’m not projecting an increase in home prices anytime soon. In fact, I’m not even totally convinced that prices have completely stopped dropping. However, eventually we were bound to reach a point where purchasing a house became an economically attractive option again, and I think for a certain part of the population (the part who didn’t make a move from 2003 to 2008, who isn’t in foreclosure or underneath their loan, who didn’t refinance and remove all of their equity) we may be at the very least approaching this point.
So even though my late December/early January has been totally insane, I’m happy to see the activity (and I’m always happy to have the work). Our economy will come back, it all just takes time, and I can be patient.
Anyway, here are a few photos I’ve been meaning to post for the last month that just haven’t made it on the schedule:
This is from one of the first nights we spent at the new house, right after it rained.
Gray calls this ‘The View’ in a sort of proper noun manner (“Where is our old house? Is it near The View?”). It’s out the little window above the boys’ bunkbed.
This is a sneak preview of a brand new listing out in Maricopa that I will have more details on later this week. Stay tuned!
OK, and how cute is this one? I have a friend (Paula) who does daycare in her home and she captured this one on Tuesday. I just love it. I think it represents the hope that this generation of children is being instilled with a sense that they need to be paying attention to our country’s leaders and taking an active role in our government and economy. History is being made and their attention is focused right where it should be. I love it.
