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The phrase real estate is local is not street legend or a fanciful excuse for living in one city versus another. National experts say all real estate is local. Yet their home might be 1000 miles from your home, so listen and read carefully. Make sure what you hear or see is relevant to your area code.
Real estate is grounded – geographically fixed to the earth’s surface. Heck, it is the earth’s surface. It is peculiar to where it is located. Unique and original. Surveys describe an EXACT piece of land. And proximity is all important. You have heard Realtors say location, location, location? Witness the newish importance of “walkability”. And you certainly know by now you can use GPS coordinates to exactly locate a point on the ground.
Well, all of that is part of what it means to say real estate is local. My point in this blog post is to mention that the specific market conditions in Taos are quite different from Marfa, TX or Tempe, AZ. As an example, the average sales price per square foot in another city means almost nothing to someone buying or selling in Santa Fe.
In Santa Fe, you will hear the phrase “but that’s not how we do it in fill in your city name. You may have said that phrase yourself, in the past. And it might be good that things are different here. Some use it as our pseudonym: The City Different.
The belief that a home without a basement is missing a key feature applies to some of the USA, but not all of it. Basements in Santa Fe are rare and undervalued. We talk about solar and build south-facing glass walls, but why do we not take advantage of the natural insulation of the earth? They are cool spaces in summer and yet a great place for your heat source (wood stove?) as heat will easily rise into the main and upper floors with vents and ducts.
A Nov. 5th article in the Albuquerque Journal showed how different New Mexico is from the rest of the country. Here is the link: http://www.abqjournal.com/294814/biz/nm-home-prices-continue-slow-incremental-rise.html and yes, sorry, you must answer a question to read the entire article.
Speaking of articles and news, Kiplinger’s sources predict higher residential mortgage rates in 2014. Here is that link: http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/business/T019-S000-kiplinger-s-economic-outlooks/#ir and no, sorry, mortgage interest rates are not very local. It is real estate that is local.
Santa Fe is full of locals that used to be visitors. Many residents of other towns are insanely jealous of our attractiveness. We want visitors to stay one more day, spend more moolah and eventually return. Now and then someone dreams about owning real property here. Santa Fe has at least 700 Realtors that might be able to help. Call one today ( 505-470-7153 is a good # for me)…
That interest rate increase? That only matters if you are thinking of buying or selling or refinancing in the next year or so. Ignore the prediction and check back later to see if those smarty types were right. Or go ahead and get pre qualified now. I can help you with that also.
