There are some beautiful homes and some incredible Phoenix bank-owned home deals out there right now for buyers who are ready to take advantage of the opportunity. I say that because as I have continued to work with buyers in this market, we have gotten some of those beautiful Phoenix bank-owned homes at an incredible price because they were fully prepared to submit their offer immediately upon seeing the property. I am finding that the nicest bank owned homes in Phoenix are getting multiple offers after only being on the market a few days and often the listing agents will submit the first good offer they receive and all the others become back up offers.

To be fully prepared in these Phoenix bank-owned home situations, you must have already gone through a full pre-approval process with a lender and have a pre-approval letter in hand or ready to go upon placing a phone call. You must submit that along with your offer in order to have your offer even considered. To find a beautiful bank-owned home in Phoenix at a great price and then go to a lender to get pre-approved will often cause you to miss the opportunity to be the first offer considered. The lender that pre-approves you does not have to be the lender you end up using; just get a pre-approval letter to use to submit your offer.

One other important factor in buying a Phoenix bank-owned home is the availability of your lender to do a pre-approval letter for you over the weekend or in the evening. There are many occasions when the loan amount may need to be changed or a new approval sent and it is not during the hours of 9-5 Mon-Fri. So their cell phone number and availability becomes crucial in some situations when you are competing with other buyers for that perfect home you find.

There is real estate in Phoenix for sale everywhere. That is stating the obvious as we all see the number of signs everywhere we look. What I mean about Phoenix real estate is, it is “ON sale”. To give you an idea, the median price of homes in Phoenix proper dropped almost 20% in the last 12 months. And that is just the “median” price. There are even better deals than that to be found out there right now. The number of homes on the Phoenix real estate market has created such competition that you can find some real investment opportunities, whether it be for a primary residence or and investment property.

There are currently 75,676 real estate listings in the MLS system for the Phoenix/Maricopa County area. That number alone tells you that it is a buyer’s real estate market in Phoenix. The one caveat to that is the price range and city you are looking in. For instance, the $280,000 price range in Scottsdale has far fewer listings than higher price ranges and it could actually be considered close to a “seller’s market” in that city and in that price range. But overall, it is a buyer’s real estate market in Phoenix and the buyer’s that are looking are finding excellent deals out there.

It has been an interesting time assisting buyers and sellers with real estate transactions in this constantly changing lending and real estate environment we are in right now. Although “Phoenix Arizona” (and all its surrounding suburb cities) is still one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, we are considered to be in what the banks call an overall “declining market”. Along with that market description comes appraisal challenges. I will not say that I am appraisal expert because I am not a licensed Phoenix appraiser, and even with licensed appraisers, there is still so much left to each appraisers “personal opinion” in my view. They may say otherwise, but that has been my experience. Anyway, the declining market has caused many lending institutions to become very conservative with their Phoenix appraisals. They are automatically deducting a certain percentage off the top of the appraised value an appraiser in Phoenix submits to them. I have seen and heard the number 8% taken off the value more than once now and that then becomes the new appraised value the bank will lend on.

Needless to say, this Phoenix appraisal has caused many challenges and killed more than one transaction. I have found that the big, national chain banks are by far the most conservative. We had this appraised value problem on the most recent home I sold in Scottsdale. Even though we had eight or nine good comps justifying the value that we needed, the bank disagreed and would not budge on their appraisal. We were off the mark by about the 8% they deducted for “declining markets”.

We were able to resolve the problem and make the deal work by finding a different lender that was not as conservative as the “big bank” the buyer had initially planned to use. So if you run into this problem, or think there is going to be any challenge finding the comps needed to justify the appraised value in Phoenix you need, the key is going to be the lender that will be funding the deal. You need to find the more “independent” guys out there that have a little more control, flexibility and say so when it comes to the “appraised value”.