Time for CCIM Scholarships and Adaptive Reuse Webinar Tuesday, October 20th.
TUCSON, ARIZONA — It is now scholarship season and The Southern Arizona Chapter of the CCIM Institute is grateful to be able to offer three scholarships for classes in 2021 that lead toward securing the CCIM designation.
George C. Larsen, CCIM Scholarship
James P. Robertson, CCIM Scholarship
Ryan Heinfeld, CCIM Memorial Scholarship
Background
All three of the Named Endowed Scholarships honor George C. Larsen, CCIM, James P. Robertson, CCIM and Ryan Heinfeld, CCIM as a Past Presidents, & Chapter Board Members of the Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter. The Chapters Named Endowed Scholarships were created by the Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter with matching funds provided by the CCIM Foundation. Named endowed scholarships honor those who have shown great dedication, commitment, outstanding achievement and service to the commercial real estate industry.
About the Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter
The mission of the Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter is to advance professionalism of the commercial real estate industry through:
Strong and effective market leadership
State-of-the-art education of our chapter members and the commercial real estate public
Direct networking opportunities of all commercial real estate service providers in Tucson and Southern Arizona
The Southern Arizona Chapter consists of CCIM Designees, CCIM Candidates, and Associate members. Monthly Chapter meetings serve as a focal point where members can exchange ideas, services, commercial properties, prospective buyers and tenants, and help one another solve both local and national real estate problems.
About the CCIM Foundation
The CCIM Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. CCIM Foundation supports impactful programs and bold initiatives to advance the commercial real estate industry.
The Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter Named Endowed Scholarships were created to support qualified real estate professionals in their efforts to achieve the CCIM designation. Recipient should exemplify the high caliber of professionals that comprise the CCIM Institute. Scholarship Selection Criteria Includes the following:
Each applicant should be able to demonstrate a commitment to a commercial real estate career (see application).
Each applicant should be able to demonstrate active involvement as a due paying member with the Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter (see application).
Recipient of this scholarship should have a need for financial assistance
Scholarship Value
Recipient will receive $1,000 to offset the cost of one of the following CCIM designation courses: CI 102, CI 103 or CI 104.
Procedure
Applications are submitted directly to the Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter.
Deadline for Submission to Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter:
November 10, 2020
Recipient Notification
The second Tuesday of October the Scholarship Committee will submit the applications to the Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter Board of Directors for review. The second Tuesday of November the Scholarship Committee will make a motion to the Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter Board of Directors recommending the recipients of the scholarships.
All applicants will be notified on or before December 1st and their attendance will be required at the Chapters luncheon event on the second Tuesday of December.
All Southern Arizona CCIM Chapter Named Endowed Scholarship recipients will be required to execute a scholarship commitment agreement.
The CCIM Board of Southern Arizona Chapter also invites everyone to its next meeting happening this week.
Adaptive Reuse Webinar
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM (45 minute discussion followed by Q&A)
Free Webinar
The ALL-STAR Panel will include: George Larsen, CCIM, of Larsen Baker, Rick Vol of Volk Company, Marcel Dabdoub, of CID Holdings, and Jason Wong, CCIM, Redpoint Development
Larsen Baker LLC is a small business in Tucson (30 employees). Like for many of you, my business is a very important part of my life. My employees are my friends.
I have zero interest in who my friends and co-workers vote for. That’s their business.
But in every election cycle, it seems like some special interest group puts a proposition on the ballot that will damage the Arizona economy. This year it’s Proposition 208. I believe business owners have a compelling interest in calling their employee’s attention to ballot propositions that will hurt the economy, and – by extension – hurt their employees.
Proposition 208 is a referendum by #RedforEd that will nearly double the state income tax rate for single filers earning more than $250,000/year and joint filers earning more than $500,000/year. It is a 77% increase in the tax rate on successful small business owners because most small businesses are “pass-through” entities.
Now is not the time to join high tax states like California, Illinois, New Jersey and New
York. It’s not just the rich who will pay. Half of those whose tax rates will be increased are small business owners, who cannot absorb a 77% tax increase.
Arizona is poised to be the economic beneficiary of the growing out migration of businesses from those high tax states. Those businesses want to relocate to more “business-friendly” states. Arizona is (was?) one of those states.
But that won’t happen if Proposition 208 passes this November. The states that will benefit if we become a high tax state are: Texas (no state income tax), Utah (4.95% top state income tax), New Mexico (4.9% top state income tax), Nevada (no state income tax) and Florida (no state income tax). Hundreds of companies, large and small, are relocating from high tax states. They will not be relocating to Arizona if we start taxing businesses at the same high rates of the states they are fleeing.
Public schools need more public funding, but there are ways to fund our schools that will be less damaging to Arizona’s future than Proposition 208. I think we small business owners should point out to our employees the hidden problems with Proposition 208.
I have attached a summary of a report “Arizona Proposition 208 Loses Jobs and Harms Small Businessesby economists Dr. Art Laffer, Stephen Moore and Dr. Erwin Antoni that claims that Arizona would probably lose ±200,000 jobs if Proposition 208 passes. Wage growth would decline in the state. Average household income would likely be ±$6,000 lower because of this tax hike. It isn’t only the rich that will bear the burden of this tax. It will be all of us.
Please use this information in any way you feel is appropriate.
Sincerely,
George C. Larsen, CCIM
Tucson’s Land and Housing: 2020 and Beyond – Part 4 of a 5-part series with Will White of LAO Tucson.
Will White, Land Advisors Organization, Tucson
By: Will White, Land Advisors Organization Tucson
TUCSON, ARIZONA — (Editor’s Note) In Q1 Real Estate Daily Newsbegan publishing “Tucson’s Land and Housing: 2020 and Beyond”, a 5-part series written in conjunction with Will White of Land Advisors Organization-Tucson. The focus of the series is to provide an insightful look into the various components driving Tucson metro’s successful, but complex, land and housing market. Will has been a Land Broker in Tucson for over 20 years and currently represents many of Tucson’s most successful master-planned communities and large-scale residential projects.
For the first time in the series of installments here, we have a similar theme to the last one and that is a big positive. 2020 has been an amazing year of volatility and surprises. As we reflect on it so far it is even more impressive to see how the housing market has thrived in a macro atmosphere that has lacked so much clarity. The acceleration of the housing market in Tucson is not a total surprise as we feel that the fundamentals have been assembling for many years here. As expressed in earlier installments, what we are experiencing is a perfect storm of these building components over years in combination with historic low interest rates and a renewed focus on “home”. 2020 continues to impress in the homebuilding arena across the country, in Arizona, and definitely in the Tucson metro area. With home sales continuing to support the land acquisition strategies we are seeing, increased demand on many fronts, and a historic supply problem of land and housing stock, this situation looks to be favorable for a busy 24 months in Tucson.
2020 review
Most everyone we discuss the current state of the land and housing market with describes the year as a “head scratcher” with no one ready to give a great answer of how we got from pandemic to a great market and absolutely no one ready to predict the future of things with so much uncertainty. If we look back into March it looked bad, the homebuilders paused all risk associated activity. From land spend, vertical construction, to overhead costs. An overall assessment of cash control in a market that looked like things were about to get very painful. It went from bad to looking terrible. Then everyone waited and watched to see how homebuyers would react. Slowly but surely sales continued, and it improved rapidly into April. It was about this time that any paused land deals were back on the table to close as it was evident that sales were not being affected. Then we entered May and June and record sales came out of nowhere to the delight of Tucson homebuilders. This surge in sales activity caused the builders to reassess their land positions and revise their growth projections locally. This required that they buy another round of land deals. As June and July came around it was clear that sales were not going to slow and despite overall macro conditions and unknowns, homebuyers were out in full affect. The “head scratcher” became the fact that now we have gone from a terrible outlook to one of the best years in Tucson housing in more than a decade in about 5 months. The continued pace and price increases that were seen by the homebuilders forced them to look once again at the inventory and ability to meet demand and grow also required them to make a third round of orders for lots into August. The majority of these orders in Tucson are pending at this point and the only real reason they are pending and not closed is that this caught the industry by surprise and there is a mad scramble in many professions to accommodate this rapid pace.
Supply/Demand Equation:
In past installments, I have touched on the supply problem many times. The positive swing that the market has experienced caused a large amount of analysis as to how, in a pandemic, is housing and land thriving. Mortgage rates were a big topic, but underneath it was a bigger driver and that was a lack of overall supply to feed demand. What is key to keep in mind is that this heated market is not like the last cycle in 2004-2006 and the key is supply. Tucson had a huge supply of new homes, lots, and resale homes available last time. Rates/Demand can move based on economic conditions and policy that can change quickly in this type of environment. A battleship that is difficult to turn around is “supply”. To increase resale supply, you would have to motivate people to put their homes on the market in an era where most people are at home more often. To increase new housing supply, you would have to find new labor and trades quickly and that would take a long effort on many fronts. To increase new home supply, you would also need to have more lots available to open communities. As we look at these factors, it would take a long time to shift mentality of the average homeowner to want to add a tremendous amount of supply to MLS, labor and trade availability would take years to over stock, on the land front, Tucson was at a historic shortage before COVID and with communities selling out and no infrastructure available on a large scale, it would be years to produce a sufficient amount of lots for the market. In summary, it appears that Tucson will remain undersupplied for a long time. Demand can come and go but if it continues at this record pace then expect some healthy conditions and a bunch of work for everyone. Demand drives markets and demand is coming from low rates, low resale options, migration from other cities, work from home lifestyle, and other unanticipated factors. Tucson supply problem (in all categories) has been evident for years but now is exacerbated with this rapid increase in demand.
Pulling the market forward
As we have studied 2020 and worked to come up with some going forward opinions, it has become very clear that the 180 degree turn of the market sentiment and activity from March caught many on their heels. Homebuilders have been forced to not only fill a 2020 business year, but because of the feverish demand but to begin pulling a lot of the 2021 market into 2020. This is in the form of additional homes constructed and sold and, in turn, additional lots orders than expected. This has a big effect on a market like Tucson as it forces a scramble to accommodate an unexpected level of demand. Builders are working to regulate sales in the event they cannot get homes built due to labor constraints. Developers did not anticipate new phases of projects being ordered and are working quickly to engineer new lots and get approvals on plats that were expected to be offered and sold in 2021. Engineers and municipalities are being rushed with applications and requests at a higher volume than they were prepared for. What this means to the market is that, while everyone welcomes the business demand, things can get backed up quickly and we are seeing some signs of that.
Infrastructure Watch:
Another challenge to pulling things forward is that Tucson’s lot supply and infrastructure availability was historically tight to begin with, this has put many large communities facing sell out of their land years earlier than their models had shown. If this is the case, then Tucson’s next chapter in the various submarkets will be called “Infrastructure: needed it yesterday” Infrastructure has long been the key to how Tucson grows. Since the last downturn and recovery, it has been extremely difficult to design and construct major infrastructure projects to unlock potentially 20-30,000 lots in the Tucson metro area. Adding to the pain of this challenge, horizontal costs have spiked in the past 3-4 years making it substantially more expensive. The surge in activity has now highlighted an issue that was already problematic. Infrastructure is challenging to fund, and once funded, takes TIME to design and construct. This is one of the main reasons that Tucson is dwindling in community counts every year. there and if demand is not met then you may see a traffic jam of activity that is also historic.
Going Forward:
It is great to report such positive news in a year that has lacked so much clarity. As we head into Q4 we have some huge events left to unfold for 2020. In our discussions, the Tucson market will remain reactive to homes sales and consumer sentiment. There will be a lot of catch-up work done to properly supply the market going forward and that will continue for some time. Increased staffing at all levels to handle increased workload will be critical going forward to ensure that business can continue uninterrupted. Tucson metro reacts well, and we are seeing that on many fronts. A lot of people in this industry have waited for a market like this and the real goal is to stretch this out as long as possible. As this market evolves, the best thing everyone can do is continue working to capitalize on the good news. 2020 continues to be of one of the strangest years but also affords us one of the most prosperous outlooks in Tucson’s history.
See the three previous editions of Tucson Land and Housing: 2020 and Beyond series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Time for CCIM Scholarships and Adaptive Reuse Webinar Tuesday, October 20th.
Larsen Baker LLC is a small business in Tucson (30 employees). Like for many of you, my business is a very important part of my life. My employees are my friends.