Many find success in volatile housing market

Bad news about the housing market is almost a daily occurrence, but it’s not all doom and gloom out there.

Many real estate agents, builders, buyers and sellers are anxious to talk about their success in this volatile market.

For instance, Craig Meier, designated broker for Citi Core Real Estate, recently sold a occupant-owned home in east Mesa in two days and for thousands above the asking price.

“This house happened to be in the lower end of the price range, which makes it even easier to sell,” he said. “There’s a lot of people out there looking for a decent house under $150,000, and there’s not a lot to choose from at that price range. This house happened to be in that price range and was in good shape, and it wasn’t a short-sale or foreclosure. We priced it aggressively and it sold.”

Last week’s onslaught of negative financial news, with the federal government rescuing insurance giant AIG, Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy and Bank of America buying Merrill Lynch, rocked Wall Street and created even more unease among consumers. On Friday, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve announced separate actions designed to bolster $2 trillion of assets in money market funds.

The Treasury said it will tap into a $50 billion fund created during the Depression to provide guarantees for the money market assets. The Fed said it will expand its emergency lending efforts to allow commercial banks to finance purchases of asset-backed paper from money market funds.

The central bank’s move should help the funds to meet demands for redemptions.

John Stih, CEO of the SouthEast Valley Regional Association of Realtors, believes these developments will end up having a positive effect on the housing market and potential buyers.

“It will basically have a better effect on interest rates and the economy overall,” he said, adding he expects the developments to bolster the housing and building industries.

In the meantime, homes are starting to sell faster and a growing number of buyers are feeling confident enough to jump off the fence, Stih said.

“I think the outlook is bright,” he said. “We’re never going to be back to 2005. But given another year, the latter part of next year we could be coming around to seeing some homes appreciating and starting to get back to normal.”

SATISFACTION FOR A CHANGE

Warren and Reisa Miller experienced the struggling real estate market from both angles, as a seller and then a buyer, when they moved recently from Connecticut to Chandler.

It took about two years to sell their home, and they had to accept less than what they believed their home was worth.

“We were downsizing from a rather large house in Connecticut, so we had strict parameters,” Reisa Miller said. “We wanted a three-bedroom/two bath, and a fenced yard because we have a (dog), preferably no pool and as inexpensively as we can get away with.”

They had been tracking home prices in the Valley through their Realtor, Jimmee McNeely of Realty Executives in Tempe, and were ready to move quickly once their house sold.

“We narrowed down a large list, 70 listings down to nine, we looked at those and found three that any one of which would have been satisfactory,” Warren Miller said.

They were quickly able to find the house they wanted and put in a bid that was accepted the same day subject to “financing and a few other little details.”

The Millers paid about $218,000 for the house and believe it would have cost at least $270,000 two years ago.

“I just watched the prices go down and down, and down, but relatively speaking the same thing was happening in Connecticut, which is a much more expensive state,” Reisa Miller said. “The amount of house we got here would have cost an awful lot more in Connecticut. So what we ended up with was an extremely fair and very good price.”

In Tempe, Janina Szendzielorz wanted to downsize after her husband passed away, so she put her spacious four-bedroom home on the market.

“I knew this was a very tough market, but I decided to go and sell it,” she said.

“Because I would get less for my house, I would pay less for my smaller house, which makes sense to me.”

Szendzielorz knew she couldn’t expect a big profit because of market conditions, but her first agent would not lower the asking price, so her house sat on the market for several months.

She then switched agents and hired Chris Bastian, with Cirrus Realty in Tempe, who had no problem with lowering the asking price to market expectations, and the house was sold within three months. The deal closes this week, and she’s satisfied with what she’s receiving for the house.

“Do not expect too much when really there is nothing to expect,” Szendzielorz said. “Be very, very realistic.”

TIRED OF WAITING FOR AN UP MARKET

Judy Sanaiha, co-owner of Tempe-based Palacia Homes, has noticed traffic picking up at her sales offices. The builder has four subdivisions open, including a gated community in Chandler.

“In the Chandler community, as an example, it’s not uncommon for me to have 35 to 45 people in a weekend walk through,” she said. “We have 59 homes available in that community, and the traffic has just been phenomenal.”

Potential buyers are now tired of waiting, Sanaiha said.

Interest rates and prices are dropping, which has left many potential buyers wondering “if I don’t get off that fence, maybe it will be a little bit too late,” she said.

Move-up buyers may have to settle for less when selling their homes, but they’re going to get “a heck of a deal” on the home they’re buying, Sanaiha said.

Overall, it’s a great time to buy because sellers are willing to negotiate and interest rates are favorable, Citi Core’s Meier said.

“We’re back to prices we haven’t seen since 2004, and so you’re basically able to buy a house now for what they were selling for in 2004 in most parts of town,” he said. “You can get a 30-year, fixed-rate loan at 6 percent interest again ... which makes housing more affordable.”

ADAPTING TO WHAT'S THERE IN THE REAL WORLD

Contractors Luis Cruz and Michael Jenkins were raking in the money during the new-home construction boom, building 100 tract homes at a time, and then the bubble burst.

“If we weren’t flexible, we’d be home crying the blues,” Cruz said.

Rather than close up shop, Cruz and Jenkins switched gears and began taking any construction job they could get, including small commercial projects and fix-up jobs in bank-owned homes and custom homes.

Their company was L. Cruz Homes, and is now Assured Construction Services.

“Before it was ‘We do this and we do this only,’ ” Jenkins said. “Now ... you can call us whether it’s a broken window on a house ... or doing tenant improvements whether it’s a barber shop or someone putting in a coffee shop. You just adapt to what’s there and then you work with it.”

Commercial construction has kept the firm busy, Cruz said.

“When I took my contractor’s license test it’s just a fluke that I put commercial, and that’s what’s been really good for us,” he said. “I did my first commercial project early last year, and since then it’s really picked up.”

The work isn’t as lucrative as large-scale homebuilding, but they are surviving and profiting.

“Several people have gone out of business, and they’re going out of business daily because they’re like ‘This is what I do and this is where I’ve always made my money,’ and they don’t want to change,” Cruz said. “Everything is about change. You’ve got to adapt to what’s there, and that’s basically what we did.”

The Associated Press contributed

to this report.