Trends

We've just added two very cool graphs to the site in the market trends section.

The graphs are:

Active properties in Greater Phoenix, though this is an interactive map so you can select the city, property type, status on whim and get ver detailed information like bank owned condos in Scottsdale or single family homes that are normal sales in zip code 85012. I think that's pretty awesome and it puts a lot of information in front of your readers helping us get to our goal of keeping clients well informed with information to help make better decisions.

Notices of Trustee Sale is the second addition. This graph shows a monthly number of 'notices of trustee sale' These are notices that a home is pending a foreclosure. Many of these homes will go into

The very floor we walk on in our homes has changed drastically over the past few decades but, have your feet noticed? Your pocket might.

At one time it was most common to find ‘Lino’ in all wet rooms, but taste and technological improvements in the manufacture and production of materials has seen a growth in popularity of none-carpet flooring throughout the home.  Wood, stone or tile effects are now amongst the range of materials or vinyl patterns that you can purchase and in looks they often match the originals extremely effectively.   Possibly the most significant feature of carpeted alternatives is the cost.  For example; vinyl floors costs a fraction of the price of real wood or stone flooring and it is easy and cheap to install. With

I'll say it right out. It makes me nervous when investors come from out of town and want to invest in small multifamily properties like triplexes, fourplexes or even a little larger units with the intent of hiring a management company.

I cringe and almost feel like declining helping them, because I don't want them to get into a situation that most out of town investors get into with hiring management companies.

However it is possible to do this thing, but...  First let me get into the common issues I've seen over and over for many years and I'll follow up with some possible alternatives. 

Common Problems

The common problems you'll notice come across is that the management companies have a different goal then you do and a different way

When you break away from the mountain communities of Utah to Phoenix, it is like an escape to an entirely new world.  Phoenix is diverse and vibrant, the climate is warm, and the area offers exceptional things to do and see.  

Phoenix Things to Do

Just as Utah, Phoenix is filled with outdoor water recreation and the mountaineer will have no troubles getting their share of sun.   The Salt River offers great activities and a place where tourists can spend a day on the beach, picnic, stroll, canoe, fish or boat.  Throughout Phoenix, there are urban park lakes stocked with catfish and trout and other fish varieties.  

Hiking and biking: Phoenix is considered ideal hiking with its many trails in the Sonoran Desert, mountains and lakes.  South

40% of single family and condo sales in Greater Phoenix in January 2012 were cash purchases. 

It means people smart enough to accumulate that much cash have a lot of confidence in what they are doing, which bodes well for the market. 

It does somewhat make it more difficult for people with a loan to buy a home, especially a loan that is weak and more prone to falling apart, but 60% of sales are with some type of financing so it's very do-able.

It's almost time again for Fat Thursday - Tlusty Czwartek - a big day in the Polish community, and stuffing yourself silly with those Polish pastires called Paczki. So where can you find these: check out the listings at the bottom.  They are worh the extra few calories.

The Polish community in Phoenix which seems to be growing exponentially as people flee the cold of New Jersey, Connecticut and Chicago, to new plush homes, plenty of parking and of course the warm weather, has brought with it the paczki and every year we have several thousand people find this site because of this post. The Paczek is the king/queen of Fat Thursday. This fried dough filled with jam symbolizes this day and there are more places to get them now then ever before in

I'm a bit annoyed right now. It seems that Jan 1st was just a few days ago and it's already February 1st. I now cringe in disgust when I hear the cliche 'time flies' or 'time goes by faster as you get older.'  It used to sound like BS to me, but now I see it's all true. Maybe it's because the world is so fast paced now. There are many more obligation, small bills nit picking at the pocket book for stuff that few could imagine decades ago and everyone is connected and on demand. 

My uncle is a residential and commercial electrictrician, a really good one by the way. He is getting a batch of new business cards he wanted me to glance at. One line said, "service 24 hours a day". Does he really want someone calling him at 2 am?  Probably not, but it's

Looking at stats is fun and often very enlightening. I use Clicky for tracking websites amongst others in case you're wondering about the display below.

One of the interesting things is where are visitors coming from. This is also indicative of where many buyers and investors are from. In this snapshot we're only focusing on U.S. and Canadian visitors over the last couple of months.  All these are individual ip addresses so repeat visitors are, for the most part, not here, nor are my visits which I block.

Besides the obvious Arizona visitors, California takes second place as is expected. Californians buy a lot of property there. Next are Canadian visitors. 11.2% of visitors are from Canada. You can see where Canadians are buying in Greater Phoenix

Start by looking at the right end of the graph below in the present where it is clear by the graph and the activity in the market that prices have stabilized and many cases are on the rise without any foreign influence: by that I mean government incentives like the tax credits we had a few years ago, which did nothing, but artificially bump the market before it corrected itself after the incentives were removed. 

Those are gone and prices are almost naturally coming back and improving. It's good to see this finally.

We've just added a new feature to each listing details page, that shows similar properties to the one being viewed.

The listings are shown at the bottom of the detailed property sheet. There are 4 initial similar listings and you can easily see more, by clicking on the blue button titled 'View all similar properties here'

I hope you find this new feature a benefit, something that will make your Phoenix homes search much easier and efficient.