I was on my way home from putting up signs this evening and saw this view. If you look close, there are two rainbows.

Alaskan summers…so nice.

All listings, click here.

18211 All Elks Road
$85,000
Here is a great 12.5 acre parcel with fantastic views of the Talkeetna and the Chugach Mountain ranges. Great building sites, good gravel, upgraded roads, power next door, and owner finance with great terms.

2451 W Success Drive
$50,000
.92 Acres
This lot (no photo) is great for a duplex or your own home. It’s located right on the corner of Church Rd and Success Dr.

13861 E Scenic View Drive
$35,000
This 1 acre lot has a small cabin in the center. It’s unfinished.



Lot 1 Block 1 Irish Setter Circle
$35,000
This is a .92 acre vacant lot out in Wasilla, Meadow Lakes area. Click on photo to see map.



4775 E Birch Drive
$35,000
This is a .95 acre vacant lot in Wasilla, Cottonwood Shores Subdivision. Click on photo to see map.



Hart Lake Estates
Starting at $40,000
Over 30 lots, ranging from .9 acres to 1.15 acres. Some have waterfront access. Almost all have beautiful mountain views. Click on the photo for more information.



L4 B1 E Sage Road
$75,000
This is a 4.67 acre lot in Wasilla, off of Schrock Road. Great horse property!



962 S Hyer Road
$79,500
This is a 4.16 acre lot in the Heart of the Valley. With creek frontage, Hyer Rd frontage, and no zoning, what could be better than this? Click on the photo for a map.

Here are the statistics for all single family residential real estate in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough for this week. This includes Wasilla, Palmer, and all the other areas in the borough.

The stats show pretty much what we would expect for mid-summer. Activity is a little bit slower, but houses are still selling. The lower priced homes are obviously in more demand.

		Average Price	Median Price	DOM
New	36	$249,542	$222,450	.
Total Active	926	$291,503	$239,950	137
Pending	24	$213,513	$204,450	100
Closed	19	$227,687	$202,000	60

Below is a chart from Tim Vereide of Prudential. Tim has been collecting data on pending sales compared to active listings for a couple years now. His colleage, Karen Allam took the data and put it on a chart. The ratio is the number of pending listings compared to the total number of active listings on the market. Currently the ratio is almost 25% which is near the high of the last few years.

Click on the chart to expand:

The deals of the week are going out today. Let me know if you want to get the email. Go here to sign up

Statistical information was in part taken from the Alaska MLS and the Mat-Su MLS and is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.

Wasilla and Palmer Real Estate Statistics for the week of June 16-22, 2009

The inventory continues to grow while the real estate sales remain about the same. We have had a similar number of closings and pendings for several weeks now. But our inventory is higher.

That means that there are about the same amount of buyers out there now as there have been in the recent past, but there are more sellers. The buyers have more to choose from and the sellers have more to compete with.

Compared to last year at this same time, the market is almost unchanged. The inventory last June was just over 900 and the closed and pending sales were running pretty close to the average of this summer. The total days on market is higher this year and the sales prices are a lower but the activity is almost the same.

		Average Price	Median Price	DOM
New	45	$267,341	$247,000	.
Total Active	927	$291,252	$239,900	134
Pending	30	$224,874	$199,450	95
Closed	20	$231,678	$224,500	98

Feel free to call if you have specific questions about the real estate market, or about specific homes on the market. You can call 907 373-0999 and that will ring both my cell phone or Jay’s or you can call Marty at 232-7900 or Jay at 232-4852

$275,000
6830 E Riverwood
Palmer, AK
This home is amazing. The former owner was a brilliant woodworker/carpenter and displayed his creativity throughout the 1,461 sqft house. The craftsman style chalet sits on 3 acres of 90% landscaped property. It has some of the biggest lilac trees I’ve ever seen.

Pieces of history abound throughout the home. A post from the mast of an open-ended fishing rig in Bristol Bay stands as a column between the dining room windows. The butcher-block counter on the kitchen’s island is made from a mining cart from Jonesville Mine. The wood flooring and ceiling paneling is taken out of the Peter Pan cannery in SE Alaska. The home even has a root cellar!

The home has a really neat bathroom! Complete with handmade cabinetry, carefully tiled shower and floor between the shower and the wooden ‘Japanese Soaking Tub’, this bath is very unique.

Up for some relaxation? There’s a sauna! It’s located about 1-2 minutes walk from the side of the home, down through the woods. It’s an old-fashioned sauna, with the furnace door on the outside of the building. Directions for Relaxation: Fill furnace full of wood and light it. Step inside, through the changing room into the sauna. Close door, pour water on the heated rocks to create steam. Sit back on one of the cedar beds and relax. It’s hooked up to electricity, but none is needed; light enters the sauna through a beautiful stained-glass window. The building also has handmade 15 panel doors and latches.

One bedroom is situated at the back of the home, and the second floor bonus room can be used as another. The home is equipped with both picture windows to enjoy the beauty of the outdoor flower beds and casement windows to bring in the scents from the lilac trees surrounding the home.

Outside landscaping includes raised garden beds, a large greenhouse, huge rhubarb plants, fenced off areas for berry patches, beautiful trees and much more. There’s even a shop/1 car garage a short walk from the porch.

All Photos are expandable if clicked on.

View Larger Map

I have written before on well water in the Mat-Su Valley. Generally the water here is good, Although there is a chance that it will have high iron or calcium which you would want to filter out.

However, there is enough of a chance that you will have arsenic in your water that you should have it tested. EPA standards were raised in 2006 so that some of the community water systems in the valley do not comply. These systems have begun treatment programs and will soon be in compliance.

If you do have arsenic in your water it can almost always be treated to bring it down to a safer level. A reverse osmosis system is the most common method of treatment. You can get them for your kitchen faucet or for the whole house. After you put the system in, you should test again to make sure you are taking care of the problem.

Some places to go for testing are Alaska Water Conditioning, Mat-Su Test Labs and Analytica. Analytica just opened an office in Wasilla across from Spenard Building Supply next to Mat-Su Water.

Test your own water, the government isn’t going to do it for you.

This property is great for a private get away, renting out, or building a home. It’s priced to sell at $35,000.
The lot and cabin are located off of Buffalo Mine Rd, six miles north of Palmer’s downtown. The cabin sits on 1.1 acres in a quiet, secluded area. It’s unfinished but the windows and door are in. The driveway is also in and the electric meter set.

I was on my way home from Anchorage yesterday and was a little early for an appointment in the Butte so I stopped off to see what was happening at the Eklutna Tailrace.

It was a beautiful day to be fishing. I didn’t see any fish but talked with a some people who said there were a few rolling. The action wasn’t hot but the weather certainly was. I think it was close to 75 degrees without a hint of wind.

The cool think about this fishing hole is that there is great handicap access. A wheelchair bound person can wheel right to the waters edge and fish…they chose one of the best fishing spots for the wheel chair as well.

Palmer and Wasilla real estate statistics for June 8-15, 2009

These statistics are for single family residential homes in the entire Mat-Su Borough. This includes all the towns from Talkeetna and Trapper Creek to Sutton and Chickaloon.

We went over 900 listings by a good amount this week. With 63 new listings and only 14 closings it was bound to happen. There were 35 pendings this week, so that bodes good for the future. The interesing thing about the pending sales is that 25 of them are new construction.

		Average Price	Median Price	DOM
New	63	$273,167	$234,900	.
Total Active	916	$290,315	$239,900	133
Pending	27	$227,133	$215,000	69
Closed	14	$217,986	$222,500	83

The fact that new construction can continue to compete well against existing home sales shows that housing prices have not dropped significantly. It is also a warning to home sellers that you have to price your home well below the new construction prices. Buyers will opt for new construction every time unless there is a large price difference.

New houses generally are built to 5 star plus standards so they not only qualify for the $7,500 energy rebate, they also have lower utility bills and maintanence costs. First time home buyers also get the $8,000 tax rebate and often combine it with the energy rebate on new homes.

I met with Nick Fonov of Pacific North Contruction today with a couple that was represented by Trevor Olson of IEC Realty. These people are first time home buyers, so they qualify for the $8,000 tax rebate and they will also get the $7,500 energy rebate. For less than $220,000 Pacific North can build them an 1850 square foot 4 bedroom, two and a half bath home with a two car garage on one acre. That is pretty tough competition for existing home sellers.

I am working with several home sellers that recognise that their house not only needs to be in top shape, it needs to be priced well to compete in this market. Here is a prime example.

Below is the notice that just went out to all the subscribers to Deals Of The Week. If you missed the email or want to sign up just send me an email and ask to receive Deals Of The Week.

Here are the deals of the week. The first group are five that I cherry-picked out of the 900 plus homes on the market. They appear to be good deals based on the location, condition and price.

Then I went through the new listings from the past 8 days and chose five more that seemed to be priced right. If you have been watching my Monday Memo you may have noticed that the houses that sell are only on the market for a short time. The houses that are priced right sell quickly.

I checked out some houses that recently reduced their prices. Some of them look pretty attractive. There are nine in this list.
Then I included all the foreclosures. There are only 19 at the present time. That is down from the mid to high twentys a month or so ago.

The last category are brand new five star plus energy rated house under $250,000. I think these houses deserve a look for two reasons. First, you get a $7,500 check from the state after you close. That’s pretty hard to beat. We are wondering how long that money will hold out, it may disappear after the first appropriation is used up. Second, you have much lower utility bills over the life of your ownership because of it’s energy efficiency. Not only that, if you are first time home buyer you can qualify for an $8,000 tax rebate as well as the $7,500 energy rebate. Some of these homes are in the $160K price ranges.

Three of these 27 5 star plus homes are my listings and I feel they are particularly good deals. There is this one on Pintail for $195,000, the house on Navigators Circle is 1850 sq ft with 4 bedrooms and a 2 car garage for $219,000, and the house on Kane Drive has 1.6 acres, a view and exceptionally nice interior with arches, fireplace, triple pane windows and more for $245,000. These houses are hard to beat when you throw in the benefits of 5 Star Plus Energy Ratings.

Last but not least is this house, that Charlene Moss told me was recently reduced to $159,900. Folks…this is a deal, no matter how you cut it. Give me a call if you want to see it.

Marty Van Diest
Valley Market Real Estate
907 232-7900
www.valleymarket.com