Economics

Arizona Ranks #1…

Op Ed

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…in Highest Number of Realtors per capita. Yesterday Jay Thompson (my broker, by the way) did some crack research to pull together a list of the top 10 states, by number of Realtors, and compared their population with number of Realtors. yeah, sounds about right.  Not only has the market done a number on us, [...]

27 August 2010 Read the full article →

Phoenix-area real estate coming back soon?

Op Ed

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A client who’s also a friend emailed me through LinkedIn the other day. He said, David: How’s the market going for you? Do you see residential real estate coming back anytime soon? Thought our readers might be interested in my answer. Heather: Sadly, no, I don’t see it coming back anytime soon. Earlier this year [...]

23 August 2010 Read the full article →

Arizona tops in alternative energy

Op Ed

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8/4/10, from AZCentral.com Business Facilities magazine recently ranked Arizona tops in solar energy and sixth in economic growth potential. It’s more long-term good news for our area, and similar to what we’ve been saying for several years already – survive long enough and everything will be ok.. the growth will come back…  (why do I [...]

7 August 2010 Read the full article →

80% of no-money down buyers in 2006 default

Market Analysis & Stats

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Colleague & friend John Wake found a wopper of an article yesterday, quoting a Federal Reserve study on negative equity and default decisions. “The study examined borrowers in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada who bought homes in 2006 with no money down.  Nearly 80% of those borrowers had defaulted by September 2009.” Wow.  Not entirely [...]

30 June 2010 Read the full article →

Phoenix has less Shadow Inventory than other major markets

In The News

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There’s been a lot of discussion about Shadow Inventory around the internet over the last year or so.  I can hear those of you not in the industry saying “What in the bleep is shadow inventory?!” Shadow Inventory is the amount of homes the banks are ultimately going to foreclose on and put on the [...]

28 June 2010 Read the full article →

Bank of America’s No Job, No Payment Plan

In The News

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(picture credit to StockExchange user brokenarts) This is an opinion piece. From the Charlotte Observer: Bank of America wants to give struggling mortgage customers who are collecting unemployment benefits up to nine months with no mortgage payment. That’s right. Zero payment. Customers would have to agree that, if they haven’t found a job within the [...]

18 June 2010 Read the full article →

Credit CARD Act, what’s in it for you?

In The News

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The recently enacted federal Credit CARD Act gives consumers some more protection when it comes to credit card fees. Hat tip to Geri Detweiler at CreditBloggers for the following details on new federal limits on credit card fees: . . .credit card issuers can’t charge a late payment fee (or other penalty fee) of more [...]

17 June 2010 Read the full article →

Housing Starts and screaming headlines

In The News

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Chris often writes about how the media causes confusion among consumers by shouting over-generalized headlines. No surprise, it happened again this week. On Tuesday The Atlantic reported “Housing Starts Rise as New Permits Fall”, sowing confusion and possibly fear in the minds of consumers. If housing starts are up, that’s good, right? But if new [...]

20 May 2010 Read the full article →

Save on your phone bill

Homeowner Help

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(photo credit StockExchange user gokoroko) I stumbled on this money saving tip by accident this morning. Do you have a land line telephone in your home? I do. Never use it. I called the phone provider – who is also my internet provider – and asked them to drop the line. Almost immediately, they offered [...]

7 May 2010 Read the full article →

Top 10 most risky, least risky real estate markets

In The News

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No metro Phoenix cities on are the latest PMI Mortgage Insurance Co risk of the top 10 most risky and least risky real estate. (I don’t consider Kingman ‘metro’ Phoenix, although some might argue with me on that) Unfortunately for the Sunshine State, 7 of the top 10 most risky markets are in Florida. 10 [...]

5 May 2010 Read the full article →

Entire condo complex to walk away from their mortgages

In The News

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A couple of Viewpoints ago I wrote “Bad news for condos”, touching on (among other things) many condo complexes reaching a tipping point where it will be almost impossible for them to regain their former owner-occupied levels. Recently economist Mike Shedlock (Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis) wrote about a condominium complex in Redmond, WA, which [...]

4 May 2010 Read the full article →

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