Arizona Real Estate Notebook

The nation’s biggest lender Countrywide Financial said today it will cut as many as 12,000 jobs and cut back on loan originations by 25 percent.

The lender’s Chandler facility is bound to be impacted. More than 2,000 people currently work there. In a cut announced last week, about 50 Countrywide jobs were eliminated in Chandler.

A young woman who cleaned by teeth last week mentioned that her husband had been a loan officer but lost his job in recent months. It sounds like he was making big money and now is starting over back in a field where he used to work.

She went back to work 3 days a week for money reasons while her husband got re-established in his new-old field. They are also planning to sell their home on an acre in Scottsdale to lower expenses.

As the effect of such real estate job cuts winds its way through the Arizona economy, I suspect the 2008 Arizona economy will not be as good as 2007.