With or without freeway, sales of homes continue

Betty Beard
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 28, 2006 12:00 AM

The uncertainty of the proposed South Mountain Freeway isn't keeping Realtors from showcasing exclusive homes in Ahwatukee Foothills Reserve that may be in the pathway of construction.

They insist most sales and sales tactics, however, have nothing to do with the pending freeway, which may or may not be built and may or may not go through Ahwatukee.

"I live there and the last thing I would do is try to sell my house," said Jodi Erwin, an agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Tempe. "We don't know what is going to happen. It (freeway) may never happen or it may."

She believes most people are selling in the area because of job transfers or perhaps because they have lived in the house for at least two years and want to move elsewhere and roll their equity into another house to avoid or reduce capital gains taxes.

The Foothills Reserve development is only about 3 years old.

Houses in the area sell from the low $300,000s to about $1 million.

About a tenth of the homes in the Ahwatukee Reserve community at the far western end of Ahwatukee Foothills are for sale.

Because the area is so far west and at the end of Pecos Road, potential buyers don't often pass by, Erwin explained.

She and other real estate agents, title companies and lenders are sponsoring a Foothills Reserve Parade of Homes on Saturday and Sunday that will feature about 25 open houses at homes in the area.

"Because it's at the end of Pecos Road, nobody drives by and sees (for sale) yard signs," she said. "We decided what we really need to do is make it a destination."

The Parade of Homes will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. both days. Signs will direct people to information booths with maps showing all the open houses.

Erwin said there are about 40 homes for sale in the development, which snuggles up against the South Mountain Preserve. That's about 10 percent of all the homes there.

It is the second time in two months that Ahwatukee Foothills Realtors had a group of open houses. Keller Williams Realty Ahwatukee Foothills had one in early March to showcase more than 40 homes for sale.

The Arizona Department of Transportation last October laid out details of a possible route for the proposed South Mountain Freeway. The Foothills Reserve developer and homeowners learned for the first time then that many of their homes could be in the path of the long-delayed freeway.