It’s hot and the time of year when homes with a cool pool are even more appealing.
More Phoenix-area buyers are diving into deals for houses with pools now, say real-estate agents.
I think it was last week — the day the temperature hit 119 — I saw Lloyd Fox of Long Realty’s Facebook post. “The inferno is coming and homes with pools have an increased value when 120 is in the forecast,” he shared. “Cannot wait to put this central Phoenix home on market in a few weeks.”
I stared longingly at the photo of the backyard of the house with an inviting pool, not far from where I live, for a few minutes.
“There’s definitely more interest in pools now,” Fox told me. “All the buyers I am working with from out of state want a pool.”
Moving to metro Phoenix and buying a home with a swimming pool is part of the Valley's special version of the American Dream.
He said many buyers now want a house that already has a pool so they don’t have to wait and pay more to have one built.
How much value a pool adds to a Valley home is one of those tough questions with an answer that doesn’t always make homeowners happy.
Fox said although it can cost $30,000 or more to build a pool, that concrete pond only adds about $10,000 to the value of a Phoenix-area home.
Appraisers can add up to 50 percent of what a homeowner paid for a pool to a property’s value, said Arizona housing analyst Mike Orr.
That doesn’t always mean homebuyers are willing to pay that much for a pool.
But now with triple digit temps, homes with pools are very tempting.
“East Valley homes with really cool pools are more attractive to buyers and command top dollar,” Darwin Wall of Chandler’s ProSmart Realty told me.
There are some very cool newer mansions in the East Valley with resortlike backyards.
Look at Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier Gilbert mansion with a tropical paradise backyard listed for $5 million
Multimillion-dollar mansions in Paradise Valley and north Scottsdale have some amazing zero-edge pools with views of the Valley. Some come with water slides akin to features you would find at a resort or water park. One home has its own very long and winding lazy river.
Pricier pools surrounded by a backyard resort-oasis do typically add more to the value of a home in Arizona, say real-estate agents.
It’s too early to track how many more Valley homes are selling with pools this summer or if buyers are paying more for them. I’ll follow up on that at the end of summer.
Of course, anyone living the American Dream in Arizona in a home with a pool knows the money and work it takes to maintain it.
Pool owners don’t gaze longingly at their concrete pond when a monsoon storm fills it with debris. And they don't get too excited when they jump in and their pool feels like a hot tub.
Even though all Valley pools aren’t exactly cool to dive into now, many still look really refreshing.
