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700-acre home project set near Camino a Lago in Peoria, Arizona

 Communities Southwest, a development firm, bought the northern 694-acre portion at a Feb. 15 state land auction. The firm beat 89 other bidders, paying $61.1 million for the tract of vacant land located roughly at 91st Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Road. I wonder what the Land Department’s appraisal was on this Peoria land sale. … Peoria planners laid out infrastructure expectations for bidders when it drafted site plans for Camino a Lago almost 10 years ago, Smith said. That ready-to-order preparation made the parcel desirable to several developers, who in September had no interest in similar state land auctions in Fountain Hills and northeast Phoenix, forcing those auctions to be…

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Confused about tax-deferred exchange

 Bob Bruss; CAN FOREIGN OWNER QUALIFY FOR $250,000 HOME-SALE TAX EXEMPTION? DON’T EXPECT PROFITABLE HOME SALE AFTER JUST 12 MONTHS OF OWNERSHIP Even in the best of real estate times, it takes three to five years of home ownership to at least break even when selling. That’s why home buyers should not purchase unless they plan to stay at least five years. I say it takes at least 2 years to break even so I think Bob may be a bit too conservative there. Nevertheless, I recently told a young man on assignment in Phoenix for 18 months to 2 years that he would probably be better off renting unless…

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Marin County, California real estate market situation

 Marin County is another bi-polar market, it’s good and bad. FYI: Notice in the graph how the median home price increased substantially from 1999 to 2001 when the number of homes sold plummeted. Sure, economic theory says when sales decline, prices are supposed to decline too. But it often doesn’t work that way in real estate. Go figure!

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San Diego sub-prime lender troubles

 San Diego sub-prime lender submerging. A noticeably slowed housing market and increasing interest rates, and hence monthly payments, on adjustable rate mortgages combined in recent months to create the surge of delinquencies, said Charles Tu, an associate professor at the University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate. Before last year, homeowners who missed mortgage payments and got into trouble could sell their properties and come out ahead because of appreciating home values. But that changed last year, Tu said, with the slowing of the residential market.

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Catherine Reagor has a nice piece on the Arizona real estate market

 Is the Arizona real estate market improving? PROs • Home-building permits increased suggesting builders are more optimistic [or perhaps Arizona home builders continue to be delusional]. • The median price climbed $4,000 from December 2006 to January to reach $260,000. • There were almost 16,000 new listings for Valley homes in January, down a couple of hundred from December 2006. CONs • The number of spec homes is still quadruple the number from a few years ago. Cancellation rates in some subdivisions are as high as 60 percent.

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Refusal to Sell for Full List Price Not Necessarily a Fair Housing Violation

 by Phoenix attorney Christopher A. Combs, partner with Combs Law Group, P.C.   Question: My wife and I are a young Hispanic couple who saw a “For Sale” sign on a home in Surprise that looked attractive to us. We contacted the listing broker, and we were told that the listing price was $198,000.00. I went through the home the first time with the listing broker, and the listing broker said that he thought that the seller would seriously consider an offer in the mid-$190’s. When I went to the home the second time with my wife before making an offer, the seller was there. After we left, I telephoned…

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