Mohave.net

The Mohave county MLS has taken addresses off of their listings on realtor.com.  That means there is no way for buyers to do any research or look for homes in the area. Very arrogant, they don’t need buyers obviously. 

I have never found a realtor in Kingman that is willing to send new listings. In fact most of the realtors I have met in Kingman are less than helpful in that respect.  Once they find out you don’t live in California, they assume you cannot afford to buy here and don’t even return calls or emails.

I have a realtor in Bullhead that sends listings but only based on a tight criteria. That doesn’t work if you are not looking for a specific price/size. The last house we bought was in a different area, a different price and was smaller than what we were looking for, it just happened to strike our fancy. 

We were fairly discouraged at the prices per square foot going above what we could purchase in California for.  But we like Kingman and were willing to wait awhile and see if prices dropped.  We have the money to buy, but do not want to lose a lot if we have to sell in the next few years.  I feel prices will come down, possibly a lot,  in the next year if not sooner.  Prices cannot double and triple, for no reason, in less than a year without consequences.  You cannot price locals out and sell just to speculators without consequences.

I lived through 2 roller coaster rides in California in the last 30 years, in the late 70’s and the early 90’s.  Both times prices went up way above reasonable and both times they fell back.  They fell as much as 40% in the good areas and 50% and more in the outlying areas.  And neither time were the prices as far out of line as they are now.

I have updated the chart I made previously on Cost of Living, adding a couple more stats and some additional cities.  The cost of housing percent is kind of deceptive as rental costs are included.  In most areas, rentals are much cheaper than the cost to buy the same homes.  Also the median prices do not reflect the price per square foot.  Houses in Mohave County tend to be small compared to other areas.

Median Home Prices

It appears that the city officials were not exactly honest in all the talk about the railways plans for Kingman.  It seems that there were never any plans to begin with.

http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=18&ArticleID=10653

“According to one local official, the largest railroad company in North American is looking to build a freight facility in Kingman that would serve several states’ distribution needs, provide 2,000 jobs in the Kingman area, induce a surge in the housing market and generate an overall increase in the local economy.

The City Council has been informed of it, Miner readers have received word. The only people not up on the railroad’s plan, it seems, is the railroad, which has said numerous times that such a plan does not exist.”

Well I guess someones ears were burning.  It seems that the new MLS started posting to realtor.com yesterday afternoon.  It is still messed up and the old listings are still there, but at least it appears that they will be uploading their data to realtor.com.  Good choice and I take back all my pompous remarks from yesterday.

I have been following realtor.com for over a year,  watching the market of Kingman.  I keep track of new listings and had saved listings that we may have been interested in at a lower price.  About October 24th, realtor.com stopped having changes on the site for any of Mohave County.  Apparently, Kingman, Lake Havasu City and Bullhead City decided to combine their separate MLS’s into one combined MLS and were in the process of converting.  After a week or more of no changes, I started looking around the internet to see if I could find any news on when the new MLS might be operational.  About the same time, I found that the public MLS site for Kingman was also taken down. 

What I found was very annoying.  Apparently, the new MLS does not want to upload their data to any site including realtor.com.  They feel that it is copy protected and they don’t need to share with anyone.  They don’t think that the internet sites are helpful for them and therefore they don’t need to use them. Since over two weeks have passed, I guess they have decided to not allow public access.   

I think this is a very pompous attitude and wonder if the sellers feel the same way.  I’m sure that with home sales not going so well lately, they would like their house to be visible as many places as possible.  Especially since I believe the majority of sales this past year have been to out of state speculators.

This is a major problem for me and might mean that we will no longer even look in this area.  I have not found any realtors in Kingman that have offered to let us know of new listings.  Most of the ones we have spoken to have appeared to be less than internet aware.  In fact, most have been very unfriendly especially when they find that we live in town and are not out of state buyers.  Could be their realization that locals are priced out of this ridiculous market and they don’t want to waste their time.

I do have a realtor in Bullhead that emails new listings daily, but we really prefer Kingman.  Actually I have had several Bullhead realtors offer to help us if we decide to purchase in Bullhead.  I guess with the new system, Bullhead realtors will be able to sell in Kingman.  I’m not sure about that, but if that is the case, we will work with our Bullhead realtor.  At least I know she will return calls and emails, unlike Kingman realtors we have tried to work with. 

OK, rant off. 

I had saved an article in the Arizona Republic last spring regarding the water issue and big developers.  It has since been taken off their site, but I came across an article called “Peak Water” written on the dailyreckoning.com regarding that article and others on the same water problems.

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/rpt/PeakWater.html

Here is an article written by Bill Bonner and posted on Lewrockwell.com.  It is a very good description of what caused the housing mania.

 http://www.lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner307.html