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Vertical neighborhoods

 Well, Arizona is sure seeing more than it’s fair share of vertical neighborhoods. Think Kierland and the planned CityNorth, Palisene and One Scottsdale among many others. “The two most important trends shaping residential developments today are easy access to jobs and commercial activity”

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U.S. real estate market forecast – Sunny with 2 possible storms

 Here is a very nice summary of the current U.S. housing market situation from Freddie Mac. Real estate geeks should read it all. Most analysts expect a more hospitable environment later this year, with the level of buyer traffic as the spring selling season gets underway an important test for the market. Even the most cheery forecasters, though, warn of two possible storms still on the horizon: the burgeoning overstock of unsold homes, and the shakeout in the subprime mortgage market.

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Special thanks to Ryan Horn for solving a map bug

 Home Sale News reader Ryan Horn emailed me with the solution to an annoying problem we were having with our maps. When you click on the address in a Home Sale News e-newsletter, it is supposed to take you to a Google Map for that address. But it didn’t always work, however. I had assumed it didn’t work when the street was too new to be in Google Maps. Ryan said that Home Sale News mapping in his area, 85045, didn’t work on any addresses where the street name was a number, for example, “5th Ave.” And he explained that if I added an “AZ” to the address used in…

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Arizona home prices – February 2007 – 14 cities

 EXCLUSIVE PRESENTATION of ASU data by Arizona Real Estate Notebook Only Phoenix, Peoria, Scottsdale and Chandler show median home price increases from February a year ago. For all of Greater Phoenix the median home price was down 2%, from $265,000 in February 2006 to $260,000 last month. That was the same median sale price as in January. Previous price charts

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Quiet Title Action May be Necessary to Clear Clouded Title

 by Phoenix attorney Christopher A. Combs, partner with Combs Law Group, P.C. Question: Six years ago my mother and father bought a five-acre parcel of land near Taylor, Arizona for $40,000. They paid $10,000 down and entered into a carryback agreement with the seller to pay $10,000 per year for the next three years. My parents have mailed to the seller all three of the remaining $10,000 payments, plus interest, and have the cancelled checks to prove that they made these three remaining payments. The carryback agreement with the seller is still a recorded lien, however, and the seller cannot be located. My parents now want to sell this five-acre…

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Reverse-mortgaged home may be lost after death

 Bob Bruss DON’T CO-SIGN MORTGAGE FOR YOUR PARENTS [The question to Bob Bruss above refers to Arizona as I’ll add a very important piece to the issue that applies to Arizona but not most other states. As I’ve mentioned before, in Arizona it’s easy to prepare and record a “Beneficiary Deed” so that upon the owners death, ownership of the property immediately passes without probate to whoever is designated in the Beneficiary Deed. It’s a great way to go for many people. Arizona real estate lawyer Richard Keyt has a fantastic web page that explains Arizona Beneficiary Deeds. John L. Wake] WHY BOTH SPOUSES SHOULD HOLD TITLE TO THEIR HOME…

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Oahu, Hawaii real estate market – bottomed out?

 But Brewbaker, chief economist for the Bank of Hawaii, said a pattern of stabilization has recently emerged from Oahu’s latest real estate statistics — as it has in many other parts of the nation. Below is what I also expect to see in Arizona. When the slowdown became more obvious last year and the market started heading south, many people took a wait-and-see attitude, Brewbaker said. “People kind of went into their cave, but now they seem to be coming out and there’s been a reawakening in the market.” A year from now I suspect we will be thinking that these were the good old days.

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Cactus League baseball spring training score – Arizona 14, Florida 16

 Arizona spring training baseball has become a “national” holiday in Arizona. It’s nice to hear 2 more teams are coming from Florida. The migration of Major League teams from Spring Training homes in Florida to Arizona has accelerated in the last decade. But that influx is expected to end in 2009 with the coming of the Dodgers to nearby Glendale and the return of the Indians to the Cactus League, the Commissioner of Baseball said this weekend. If you’re also planning to move to Arizona from Florida, I can help you with that. I got my Master’s degree at the University of Florida and met my wife Liz there so…

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