Arizona Real Estate Notebook

The Arizona Republic had a nice piece on the real estate market in Maricopa, Arizona. Two or three years ago, Maricopa got a ton of press, even national press, about being ground zero for the real estate bust. There was an article in the New York Times, a feature on ABC’s “Nightline,” and tons of [...]

I got a bird feeder for Father’s Day and this morning was surprised and delighted to see what appeared to be green parrots at the feeder. After an internet search, it turns out they are Peach-faced Lovebirds. Although native to the Namibian desert in southwest Africa, they have escaped from captivity in many parts of [...]

The azcentral.com has a piece on Beth Jo Zeitzer, a Realtor who specializes in representing banks. She has about 400 lender-owned listings. Zeitzer doesn’t think she will continue at this pace, explaining that the market is hitting its bottom, at least with entry-level homes. She expects to be dealing with smaller numbers of higher-dollar properties [...]

Gee, what could possibly be the problem? Two Florida homes had $1 million off coupons but the homes didn’t sell. Great marketing! One home was written up in the Wall Street Journal and was on TV programs in California and Chicago… and now it’s in Arizona Real Estate Notebook. You can’t buy that kind of [...]

So far this year in Arizona, more than 12,000 people and businesses have filed for bankruptcy.. She is seeing a type of client that she hasn’t seen since the 1980s — the so-called “financially healthy” client. “They can’t afford the consequences of all the real estate investments because the tax issues related to that, bankruptcy [...]

Burt Carlson of Smart Financial has the best weekly mortgage newsletter that I’ve seen so I asked Burt if I could post the information here on Arizona Real Estate Notebook. See below.

The son of Page, Arizona Realtor Heather Rankin shot this amazing video following a 2-inch downpour. One summer in college, I worked for the U.S. Forest Service on the North Kaibab so I got a taste of the mystery and magic of the nearby Marble Canyon area whenever I drove through. Interestingly, a few years [...]

Realtors like to collect the stupid things other Realtors write about homes in MLS listings. Here are my favorites taken from Los Angeles Realtor Gwen Banta’s list. (The parenthetical comments are Gwen’s.) “The lime in the crawl space is to absorb moisture.” (So what’s with the hatchet and the duct tape?) “The odor was from [...]

Yesterday I got two inquiries from folks who were considering walking away from their current under-water homes and they wanted to know about the possibility of buying another home given the great prices we now have in many areas. That’s a financing question, “Will lenders lend me money after I walk away?”, so I emailed [...]