27 Oct 07 What do you want in your new Arizona home?
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The following information was gathered from several housing industry experts and illustrates the features that home buyers want in their new homes.
Master-planned communities are all the rage for home buyers. Many Arizona builders are joining together to provide home shoppers with carefully designed developments. These mini-towns provide residents with an array of amenities, from town-centers full of locally owned shops to 27-hole golf courses; and often as many as six or more home builders to choose from.
A popular trend, that many home builders are pursuing, is a Mediterranean style facade. These homes often portray Spanish and Italian detailing and include rustic terra cotta pottery, wrought iron accents, and tile roofing.
Interior designs have evolved in the past several decades to emphasize an open living area. Rather than short ceilings and enclosed kitchens and living areas, you will often find open archways and rounded wall-corners.
There is often an exceptionally strong emphasis on quality and detailing. This includes low-maintenance surfaces on floors and counter tops—granite, limestone, marble, and slate.
The kitchen area is a particularly important feature for the majority of home buyers. New homes in Arizona often attribute open space to the main living area and kitchen. Large kitchens are designed with ample counter space and a large island for food preparation and entertaining guests.
Most home builders in Arizona pre-wire living areas for surround sound and wall mounted flat-panel televisions. A growing trend is for home automation. Often a central control unit can automate lights, thermostats, door-locks, and security systems.
Master bedrooms that are large open areas, with vaulted ceilings, and offer large walk-in closet space are a must have. Home buyers often request larger master baths that provide separate vanities, showers with lavish shower heads and benches, and Jacuzzi bathtubs.
Home buyers want a big backyard with a majestic swimming pool. Generous patio space and balconies, a private space large enough for a bistro table and chairs are an essential feature for most.
The garage should house at least two mid-sized vehicles; however space for a third car is often desirable for workspace and tool storage, and many home buyers want a basin facility.
Perhaps the most important trend in today’s day in age is the Go Green movement. Homes that offer energy saving appliances and Low-E fixtures are often a standard feature from Arizona home builders and are greatly appreciated by home owners.
Arizona custom home builders can refine home buyers’ desires, to detail every little want and need. From flooring options to wall textures and colors—custom cabinetry to extravagant counter tops—today’s home owner can rest assured knowing they reside in the home of their dreams.
References:
Nation’s Building News. Buyers want more home tech than builders offer. Retrieved October 25, 2007 from http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/2006-07-31/Research/index.html
Oliver, F. “50 Must-Have Features for Today’s Home Buyers.” Professional Builder (1993) 71.6 (June 1, 2006): 54. General OneFile. Gale.
Weintraub, E. (2007) Trends for home buyers. About.com. Retrieved October 25, 2007, from http://homebuying.about.com/od/buyingahome/qt/Hotbuttons.htm?p=1
Tags: arizona homebuilders, custom home builders, Go Green, golf community, home shoppers, home trends, master planned community, mediterranean, new homes, new homes for sale in arizona, new homes section
09 Oct 07 The footprints of Arizona Home Builders
Arizona is a growing state with a lot to offer current residents, new residents and visitors. Arizona home builders and industry professionals have consistently met the wants and needs of Arizona residents. Arizona’s population increased by more than 200,000 from July 1st, 2005 – July 1st, 2006 (Les Christie, Growth states: Arizona overtakes Nevada); the infrastructure of Arizona is relatively new and is constantly changing to accommodate the steady expansion, one change includes the addition of a much anticipate light rail system. The economy is booming and is enjoying low unemployment and constant growth. Metro Phoenix is the 5th largest metropolitan area in the nation and offers an array of sporting, entertainment and educational attractions.
Arizona has hundreds of beautiful single-family, condominium, custom and active-adult new home communities. Local and national home builders design these communities to include incredible amenities and homes that help afford desirable lifestyles. Many single-family and custom home communities have pools, walking trails, bike paths and large parks. Master-planned communities often include new schools and commercial centers giving residents’ convenient access to everyday wants and needs. Condominium developers also focus on meeting the needs and wants of their residents. Many condo builders rely on an overabundance of attractive amenities to draw home shoppers looking for an urban lifestyle. In addition to the same amenities found in new home communities, condominium projects often have a movie theater, extravagant clubhouse, concierge service, fitness center and some include a sky lounge. In both cases, home builders and condo developers strive to give their residents, and Arizona, a beautiful home and community.
Traditionally, as new home sales increase, the health of Arizona’s economy increases. New home production and the real estate industry have fueled much of Arizona’s development for many years and provide thousands of jobs statewide. Home builders and their many vendors have helped support thousands of Arizona families. For many other residents, new home production in Arizona has allowed a quality home and thriving community. Home builders have helped build Arizona, and in doing so; they have left an incredible footprint, countless communities and excellent homes.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/22/real_estate/fastest_growing_states/index.htm
Tags: active adult home builders, active adult homes, arizona home builders, condominium builders, homebuilders, new home communities, single family homes
03 Oct 07 The Real Solution is In the Supply
One-way to rebuild a healthy real estate market is to decrease the amount of homes available for sale. Our recent efforts have been geared towards increasing the demand to buy homes. It’s pretty obvious that several experts, and the media, aren’t going to stop highlighting every negative aspect in the real estate market, so it might be a little difficult to increase demand. It’s their job to report the news, but why can’t they report positive news as well? When you want to know about something don’t you turn to the news or a well known expert?
What if a program, or several programs, were developed that encouraged owning a rental property or keeping your home off the market? If there were a few programs, homeowners could choose which works best for their situation.
The government could give tax incentives to sellers that agreed to keep their property off the market for X-amount of years? This might entice investors or homeowners because their payoff, if they agreed to hold onto their investment, would be greater.
The government, or lenders, could offer an annuity type of loan to homeowners. The loan would slowly tack onto the principle of the home loan each month. Homeowners wouldn’t receive a large lump sum of money, but their mortgage payment would decrease by X-amount each month and would slowly increase over the years. The lender and borrower would determine how much of a loan was suitable based on the homeowner’s needs and the lenders ability. The lender could stop paying the annuity at anytime if a borrower failed to meet their payment obligations.
Lenders could offer locked or lower interest rates to homeowners that agree not to refinance or sell their homes for X-amount of years (same concept as a pre-payment penalty). They could set the homeowners up on steadily increasing payment plan giving them lower payments initially, similar to an ARM, but instead of giving these incentives to new customers, lenders will be trying to avoid costly foreclosures.
Hopefully, these programs would keep homes off the market and help regulate when homes are placed back on the market. Programs like these would interest some sellers because many of them can’t sell their homes right now; in many cases, if they do, they’ll take a loss. I think most sellers would love to hold if they could cover or minimize their negative monthly cash-flow and others will be happy with keeping more of their money from the eventual sale of their home(s). Not everyone would qualify or benefit from programs like these but it could be a nice way to decrease the supply of homes for sale and improve the health of the real estate market.
I am pretty sure that we’ll need to develop several solutions to fix some of the mistakes or oversights that helped fuel this “over” correction. I know real estate is cyclical, but feel that some decisions have lead to a rougher market. There are some possible downsides to this solution such as the probable increase in new home cancellations, possibility of homeowners defaulting on new agreements and difficulty in implementing these plans, but there definitely could be a viable solution found in focusing on our supply of homes for sale as opposed to trying to increase the demand. Many of our markets have great potential and with a little help, we could be back on track!
Just a thought…
Tags: homeowners, housing information, housing programs, interest rates, lenders, property, Real Estate, refinance, rental property, sell a home
