Ugly House Photos

Three great examples of “what were they thinking?”  The first photo’s caption reads, “additional structure on back lot.”  It’s not a structure, it’s an eyesore and a safety hazard.  And a zoning violation probably.  Is that an electric power supply line and a panel box?

Some brainiac thought he could add air conditioning to his house by running the A/C ducts on top of the roof.  Sure makes a lot of sense in the hot Arizona summers.  The air probably comes out warm.

Another guy had the same stupid idea for his room addition.  Five bucks says he didn’t get a building permit for it.

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Controversial objects should be removed before selling your home.  They might offend a potential buyer.  Why take a chance?

Reported in March 2009 in the Phoenix New Times paper (article here), Arizona State University’s Future Arts Research students recently built a 12-foot-tall statue of a sleeping man in a sombrero.  Using private and public dollars.  It offended many people as recently reported by the Arizona Republic newspaper here.

One of the earliest posts of this blog was of another offensive lawn ornament seen here.

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Two different homes with similar themes.  Phoenix home first.

An Avondale, Arizona home.

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This Phoenix home had a fire in the laundry room.

The house also has a secret room, located in the back of a linen closet.

Here’s the secret room.

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None of these three homes will win a prize for best curb appeal.

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Oh, so now they finally provide toilet paper!  I didn’t know what to do, so had to wipe my hands on the walls.  Sorry.  My bad.

This is the kitchen, if you can call it that.

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Real Estate Statistics - March 30, 2009 update:

Pending sales (properties currently under contract):
This is a good indicator to where the real estate market is heading.  Currently, there are 11,460 pending sales in the Phoenix metro area plus an additional 2,200 contingency pending sales (shaky contracts).  This is up over 502 from last week.  Pending sales reached a high for the year on Friday March 27th at 11,791, which is the highest number of currently pending sales since 2005.  Plus with the contingency pending sales, we peaked at a total of 14,002 properties under contract on March 27th.  Inventory continues to decline.  There are currently 47,408 active listings in MLS as of March 30, 2009, down 1,221 from last week.  For comparison, the highest number of active listings in 2009 was 52,685 on January 14th.  That’s a ten percent drop in inventory in 10 weeks!

Sales:
The Phoenix metropolitan area real estate sales are still doing much better than what is reported in national sales reports.  March 2009 already has 6,355 sales.  March 2008 had only 4,303 total sales.  It is likely March 2009 will have over 7,400 sales.

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Let’s look at Phoenix, Arizona specifically.

For the city of Phoenix only, as of March 30, 2009.  Numbers are based on the orange 90-day lines.  However, check out the black lines (7-day trends): we’re seeing an increase in sales price, price per square foot is showing an increase, & inventory took a sharp decline.  Has Phoenix real estate turned the corner?

Median sales price for Phoenix properties: $162,186 (down only $38 in the past week, our lowest decline in at least 6 months).

Average days on market for Phoenix properties: 153 days (up two days in the past week), on an upward trend for some reason.

Median price per square foot for Phoenix properties: $94/sqft (no change in the last two weeks)

Inventory of properties for sale in Phoenix: 9,522 (down another 114 in the last week)

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Although sellers can usually post more than one real estate promotional photo, some choose to provide only one photo.  Others make odd choices for the first photo buyers see.  Let’s take a look at three examples.

This photo is not only the primary photo, it’s the only photo of the house.

Wow!

This seller decided the house number was more important than a photo of the house.

Here’s the front of the house, offered as photo #4 or 5 or something, but not first.

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Remember the 1980s when everyone had a framed Ansel Adams black-and-white landscape poster and several Patrick Nagel posters?  Here’s a Phoenix home with a Nagel print in 2009.  It even has the 1980s glass table for snorting white lines.

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Buyers want to see what houses look like, not what kind of cars the sellers drive.  This house really pushes the envelope with six cars parked out front and on the lawn.

Here are three more real estate parking violations.

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