Queen Creek Real Estate and Community Information

The newest of the Banner hospitals broke ground on June 5th. The much needed, much anticipated 24 bed facility is finally going to be real! Many times out here in Queen Creek we are told one thing, promised this building, told that retail giant is coming to the area…with nothing! The closest hospitals are MILES away….in Gilbert and Chandler. With the influx of people in this area, we are in desperate need of a hospital with an emergency facility.

The hospital is designed to have an emergency department and 19 private treatment areas. Specialties at the hospital will include primary care, general surgery and orthopedics.
The hospital is planned to be 220,000-square-feet and will be located at Combs and Gantzel roads.
Banner Health is one of the largest nonprofit hospital network in the country, with 22 medical facilities in seven states.

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Thinking About Buying a home in Queen Creek?

Keep these critical considerations in mind:

1. How long you plan to live in the home. If you purchase a home and get a job transfer or decide to move after only a short time, you may end up paying money in order to sell it. The value of your home may not have appreciated enough to cover the costs that you paid to buy the home and the costs that it would take you to sell your home. The length of time that it will take to cover those costs depends on various economic factors in the area of the home.

Most parts of the country have an average of 5% appreciation per year in a normal market. The Queen Creek Real Estate market is now

decreasing in value, not unlike most Real Estate Markets. In this case, you should plan to stay in your home at least 3-4 years to cover buying and selling costs. If the area you buy your home in experiences an economic up turn, the length of the time to cover these costs could be shortened, and the opposite is also true.

2. What features do you require in a home to satisfy your lifestyle now? How long the home will meet your needs. Five years from now? Depending on how long you plan to stay in your home, you’ll need to ensure that the home has the amenities that you’ll need. For example, a two-bedroom dwelling may be perfect for a young couple with no children. However, if they start a family, they could quickly outgrow the space. Therefore, they should consider a home with room to grow. Could the basement be turned into a den and extra bedrooms? Could the attic be turned into a master suite? Having an idea of what you’ll need will help you find a home that will satisfy you for years to come.

3.Your financial health-Home much home can you afford - your credit and home affordability. Is now the right time financially for you to buy a home in Queen Creek? Would you rate your financial picture as healthy? Is your credit good? While you can always find a lender to lend you money, solid lenders are more skeptical if your credit history is not good. Generally, a couple of blemishes on a credit report will make you a good credit risk and could qualify you for the lowest interest rates. If you have more than a couple of blemishes on your report. Some say that you should refrain from borrowing as much as you qualify for because it is wiser not to stretch your financial boundaries. The other school of thought says you should stretch to buy as much home as you can afford, because with regular pay raises and increased earning potential, the big payment today will seem like less of a payment tomorrow. This is a decision only you can make. Are you in a position where you expect to make more money soon? Would you rather be conservative and fairly certain that you can make your payment without stretching financially? Make sure that whatever you do, it’s within your comfort zone. To determine how much home you can afford, talk to a lender or go online and use a “home affordability” calculator. Good calculators will give you a range of what you may qualify for. Then call a lender. While some may say that the “28/36″ rule applies, in today’s home mortgage market, lenders are making loans customized to a particular person’s situation. The “28/36″ rule means that your monthly housing costs can’t exceed 28 percent of your income and your total debt load can’t exceed 36 percent of your total monthly income. Depending on your assets, credit history, job potential and other factors, lenders can push the ratios up to 40-60% or higher. While we’re not advocating you purchase a home utilizing the higher ratios, its important for you to know your options. Where the money for the transaction will come from. Typically Queen Creek homebuyers will need some money for a down payment and closing costs. However, with today’s broad range of loan options, having a lot of money saved for a down payment is not always necessary - if you can prove that you are a good financial risk to a lender. If your credit isn’t stellar but you have managed to save 10-20% for a down payment, you will still appear to be a very good financial risk to a lender. Queen Creek also qualifies for

4. The ongoing costs of home ownership. Maintenance, improvements, taxes and insurance are all costs that are added to a monthly house payment. If you buy a condominium, townhouse or in certain communities, a monthly homeowner’s association fee might be required. If these additional costs are a concern, you can make choices to lower or avoid these fees. Be sure to make your Realtor and your lender aware of your desire to limit these costs. If you are still unsure if you should buy a home after making these considerations, you may want to consult with an accountant or financial planner to help you assess how a home purchase fits into your overall financial goals. Additionally, home buyers in Queen Creek, may qualify for 100% Maricopa/Pinal County Rural Program.

If you are ready to buy a home in Queen Creek feel free to search all available homes in Queen Creek AZ

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If you do there may be good news- if you are facing foreclosure.  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IndyMac, the 8th largest lender, is freezing all foreclosure proceedings.  Here is the full story.

“Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, who has been one of the most outspoken officials calling for banks to ease up on struggling homeowners, said that the agency is “really focused” on keeping borrowers in their homes for both their sakes and to maximize IndyMac’s value for taxpayers. “We will very aggressively pursue loan-modification strategies for unaffordable loans to make them affordable on a long-term, sustainable basis,” Ms. Bair said in an interview Monday”

She goes on to say “We can’t make any promises,” Ms. Bair said. “We’re going to look at each one before we are going to let them continue on to foreclosure, and when we find people who want to stay in their homes, we are going to try to work with them to see if we can modify their loan.”

Sounds like there is a lot of work to be done, but let’s up they can keep some families, that want to stay, in their homes at payments they can afford.

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If you have traveled down Riggs off of Ellsworth lately you will have noticed the HUGE structure looming in the distance. No, this is not a new Home Depot or another strip mall. This building is the covered arena!
This brand new addition to the parks of Queen Creek started this spring and is set to open in December of 2008.
The first phase of construction will include the covered arena, barn, maintenance and business office, restroom and meeting room. It will also include a community arena for use by Queen Creek residents only. A second phase will include trails.
It took a while for the construction to begin as the developers were waiting for the Queen Creek Landfill to close. Yes, that is correct, this new park is being built where the landfill used to be. This park near Riggs and Hawes roads is expected to cost $17.5 million.
The residents are quite excited to have this center in the future. Many residents and people in the area are horse owners and it will be wonderful to have a place to ride so close. Many people are hoping that this beautiful arena will attract horse shoes, rodeos and maybe even polo matches. You can bet they are planning a huge celebration for the grand opening.

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Queen Creek Real Estate- Market Statistics for June 2008

Currently there are 1826 active listings showing an 7% increase in inventory from last May.  The current absorbtion rate or supply of homes in Queen Creek is 5.24 months.

For the month of June

New Lisings: 576

Pending Sales: 397

Sold Homes: 348

Queen Creek Real Estate- Listing Status June 2008

The average sales price for homes in Queen Creek actually increased in the month of June from $168k to 174k.

The next 2 charts show New Listings vs Sold Homes and List Price vs Sales Price.  There is a small difference between list price vs sale price, which means homes are being priced to sell in Queen Creek. A larger percentage of homes in Queen Creek are short sales or REO (bank owned) homes that are being aggessivley priced to sell quickly and many are getting multiple offers.

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I get ask from potential Queen Creek home sellers that have to sell their homes- which is worse- a short sale or a foreclosure. Both will impact your ability to purchase a home in the future.  There are some very important changes coming as Fannie Mae has announced changes that will be in affect starting August 1st 2008.

You cannot purchase a home under the following guidelines and time frames using Fannie Mae Conventional financing:

• Chapter 7 bankruptcy; 4 years
• Chapter 13 dismissed; 4 years
• Chapter 13 discharged; 2 years
• More than one bankruptcy filing in the past 7 years; 5 years
• Pre-Forclosure (short sale of home); 2 years
• Deed in lieu of foreclosure; 4 years

People with foreclosures will have the following restrictions placed on them:

• 5 year time period from completion date to finance or refinance without taking cash out a primary residence with a minimum of 10% down and a credit score of 680.
• 7 year time period from completion to finance a second home or investment property.
• 7 year time period from completion to take cash out of a refinance on any property regardless of occupancy type.

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The FUSD governing board has chose the name for the new high school. After reviewing dozens of essays from FUSD 8th graders, the first class to graduate from the new high school, they chose Poston Butte High School as the new name.
According to Meghan Kuebler, an 8th grader at Copper Basin: “I chose the name Poston Butte High because Poston Butte is a well known landmark; it is the burial place of its founder, Charles Poston; and, I think we should recognize that Mr. Poston convinced President Lincoln to add Arizona as a United States territory. I think we should honor the “father” of our state through the spirit of a high school.”
Well said and well done! Megan looks forward to being one of the group that will be the first to graduate from this high school.

The building of this new school comes just in time. The students living in Pinal County have been bused miles out to Florence to attend Florence High School. While Florence has been around for a very long time, it just can’t hold all of the high schoolers coming from the San Tan Corridor as well as residents of Florence.
Now, the high school students will attend high school right in their own backyard!

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Anyone that knows me, I am a dog lover, and a new foster Mom for Basset and Blood hounds.  Here are some pictures of my babies-

Waylon is my Bloodhound, Jesse is the blood hound mix that I rescued and Savannah is my foster Basset, looking for a loving home.  Savannah loves her people and is just as sweet as she can be.  She is not real fond of the big dogs, but loves my doxies. 

She is a people person, and is not fond of being left alone.  Hope you enjoy the pictures, and if you are interested in adopting a Basset Hound, please visit AZBR. Please spay or neuter your hound.

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It’s not a secret that the slump in the economy has turned some of our neighborhoods in Queen Creek to virtual ghost towns.  Many homes are being foreclosed upon and many others have had their owners just walk away.  With this desertion has come weeds, trash, green pools and countless other issues.

But in Queen Creek, neighborhood leaders are banding together to find the best solutions to their common problems.

Queen Creek resident Chris Clark has been working with town leaders to create a Neighborhood Summit for HOA board members and others in the community to discuss vandalism, landscaping problems and other issues that arise with the increasing number of empty homes.

The Neighborhood Summit is from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Queen Creek Town Hall, 22350 S. Ellsworth Road. All residents in Queen Creek and the nearby Santan area are invited.

The day will include a talk from the Maricopa County Sherrif’s office on how to keep the neighborhoods safe and attractive via Neighborhood Watch programs.  Other speakers that are expected will be experts from the Leadership Centre, a public-private partnership based in the East Valley that helps develop strong communities and community leaders, are expected to give advice.

For more information, contact Clark at cclark@azfamilyfinance.com

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