For years the Mat-Su Borough has been making noise about developing Hatcher Pass.  At least two large resort developers have pulled out of the deal after exploring the project.  People living at the end of Palmer and Wasilla Fishhook Roads often speculate on how much their land will be worth when the big resort goes in.

But a lot of valley residents aren’t waiting.  People young and old have been using Hatcher Pass for many years.  Downhill skiers, snowboarders, and sledders have been using the 16 mile hill for a long time. This is a pull-off that is a little more than 1/2 way between the Motherlode and Hatcher Pass Lodge.  There is a sign there regarding sledding  but no one seems to pay attention to it. 

On a good weekend dozens of pickups and SUVs shuttle people from the bottom to the top of the hill.  Some are with their party and many are just hitching rides.  This has been a valley secret for years and years.  Why spend the big bucks on the ski lifts when you can ski all day for free at Hatcher Pass?  Palmer and Wasilla high school kids are still keeping the ancient tradition of playing hookey on great snow days to sneak off to Hatcher Pass for a day on the slopes.

This is just one more benefit of living in the Mat-Su Valley. Email me for more great ideas on how to recreate without spending lots of money or going far from home.

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In a previous article we looked at Five Common Methods To Determine Price. In this post I will discuss how to come up with a price that will actually result in a sale. After all it?s your price, your condition, and your location that determines whether your house will sell at all. You have no control over your location since you are already living there. Condition is important and we will talk about it in the future. Any property will sell if it is priced right. The answer to your marketing time is PRICE.

I mentioned to a group of realtors last week that pricing a home is more of an art than a science. Now, after 15 years of marketing real estate in Wasilla and Palmer I make a myriad of adjustments in determining the correct value of a home. If a home could be priced with strict mathematical adjustments it would be easy to digitize. But computerized valuations will never be able to make accurate value assessments in rural areas where we observe such a variety of properties.

Lets look at a few of the adjustments needed to accurately determine value.

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In a market with ten months or more of inventory it is extremely important to correctly price your home.  If it is even slightly overpriced it will most likely prevent it from selling.  Remember, ten months worth of inventory doesn’t mean that your home will sell in ten months.  It’s not like we will run out of inventory in ten months so that your home will sell because it is the last one on the market. 

What happens is that homes are always entering and leaving the market.  The homes that are priced to sell move fairly quickly and are replaced by others.  The overpriced houses can sit on the shelf forever without a sale.  In Wasilla and Palmer, (not the whole core area), the median sales price for the 1,005 homes sold in 2006 was $225,000.  The median asking price currently is $259,950.  Any home that is priced $35,000 too high is going to be on the market for a long time.  In fact, if a house with a market value of $225,000 is actually put on the market at that price, it will likely sell in 60 days or less.  However if the same house is marketed at $260,000, it will likely take a year or more to sell it if the owner doesn’t lower the price. 

Five common methods to determine the price.

1. Some people choose the price of their home based on the amount of money they want to walk away with.  To them, it doesn’t matter how much the house is worth, they need a certain amount in their pocket and that is how they determine the price.

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It sounds like some state agencies may have a problem with the prison being located close to the Goose Bay State Game Refuge.  The prison will have to ensure that it’s presence does not harm the refuge. It is a major stop-over for migrating waterfowl.

Of course, there will be opposition no matter where the prison is built.  So I guess some people are going to be upset whichever site is chosen.  It still looks like Point Mac is the place.  Borough manager, John Duffy, said every days delay cost $50,000 because of increased costs down the line.  It will be interesting to watch to see if this project can be kept on track. 

It is an important boost for the real estate market in Big Lake, Wasilla, and even Palmer.  If ground is broken this summer for the prison, my prediction is that the prices for homes in the Mat-Su Valley will start inching back up by fall. If the prison is delayed, all bets are off.

If you need to buy or sell a home in valley, give me a call.  Helping people with their real estate needs is what I have done since 1991.

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It looks like the prison is going to be put out at Point Mackenzie.  Sounds like a good place for it.  I attended the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Dec 19 to hear Borough Manager John Duffy and Borough Economic and Development Director Dave Hansen give a presentation on the economic impact of the prison.

This prison is a $330,000,000 project.  That is the largest construction project in Alaska since the pipeline. They hope to break ground by this coming summer and have the prison on line in 2010.  The prison will house more than 2100 inmates and require about 600 direct jobs and more than 500 indirect jobs. 

Most interesting to me is the prediction of needing about 420 homes to house the workers.  Although these homes will not be purchased until the prison is on line in 2010 it is my belief that the anticipated impact of the prison will cause people to buy up most of our excess inventory under $300,000 by the end of the year.  

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I can’t seem to go anywhere these days without someone asking me about the market.   Are values still rising?  Are we going to have a crash? What is my home worth.  Should I buy/sell now or wait?  This article will attempt to answer some of those questions.

No Crystal Ball

It’s important to remember that we can only see the present with any clarity.  We can also compare the present with the past but future predictions are hazy at best.  So let’s start with last year, compare it to this year and guess about the future.

The Core Area

We will confine our comparison to the greater core area. The greater core area is a term I use for Wasilla, Palmer, Big Lake, and the Knik-Goose Bay Road area.

Yesterday

In 2005 the Multiple Listing Service shows 1380 residential home sales in the greater core area of the Mat-Su Valley.   The average sales price was $213,834.  That is surprisingly close to the amount of sales in 2004 which saw 1316 sales.  But the average price was up 13% from 2004’s average price of $188,058.

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