Some Valley home prices go up despite down real estate market

Some Valley home prices go up despite down real estate market
by Anne Yeager

4/11/2008

Everywhere you look in the Valley, homes are for sale.

And while they may be gorgeous inside, in many cases they're not worth what the sellers originally paid for them.

"As they say, whatever goes up must come down to some extent," said Joe Propati, chief appraiser at the Maricopa County Assessor's Office.

"Some areas held their values a little better than others, while most went down," Propati said.

According to the Assessor, the average residential property value dropped 13 percent from last year.

The general rule is the further to the outskirts, the more values went down.

John Halvorsen put a lot into his West Valley home, which is now worth about a $100,000 less than he paid.

He lives in zip code 85355, out near the White Tank Mountains, an area with beautiful views but values down 24 percent.

"It's my life actually," Halvorsen said. "It's hard to swallow, but there's really nothing we can do about it."

Now for the good news, we take you to one of the few parts of the Valley where values actually went up, zip code 85004.

Beverly Moodey has lived in the East Alvarado Historic District for nearly two decades.

"It's a good neighborhood," Moodey said. "It has the virtues of downtown."

His zip code is so attractive that values there are up 23 percent.

"It's all a function of location and demand within a specific area," Propati said.

And a lot of that demand now comes from high-rise downtown condos, which is driving up everything around it.

But the Assessor's Office believes other parts of the Valley will turn back up in the near future.

"No one should panic at this point. It's all cyclical," Propati said.

"Buying a home in historic Phoenix is still a wonderful idea. The locations are ripe for a profitable future," says Laura Boyajian of DPR Realty, LLC who specializes in downtown Phoenix historic properties. "There are many parts of downtown Phoenix homes which have gone up in value as opposed to taking losses. It's a incredible time to buy, especially since the bottom has been in effect for some time and, that rates are beginning to rise again."