Phoenix Real Estate Blog

I was featured on REALTOR.com® again - they posted a blog I wrote called "Are low interest rates a silver bullet?" Go read the full post, but the gist was this: mortgage rates have fallen over the last two months to the lowest level in decades. In fact, there are rumors that rates could drip belo...

For many home sellers, it's been a hot summer but a cool housing market as inventory stays on the books for longer than sellers anticipate. Indeed, resales plunged last month to the lowest level in 15 years. And despite the 4.44 percent mortgage rates and low home prices, July's sales were less t...

While experts predict that the rate of foreclosures in 2010 will exceed those in 2009 - and 2010 is being dubbed the Year of the Short Sale - there was some good news reported recently. RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based data company, reported that the foreclosure rate dropped by about 5 percent...

An article from the Arizona Republic today reported that, according to a new reading of credit-bureau data, Phoenix homeowners are doing a better job keeping up with their mortgage payments. For the second straight quarter, Valley mortgage delinquencies dipped in the April to June period. Accordi...

I was featured on REALTOR.com® again - they posted a blog I wrote called "The Year of the Short Sale?" Go read the full post, but the gist was this: 21.5 percent of Americans are still underwater - many of whom have been forced to consider a short sale of their home. Last month, the New York Time...

According to new research from the real estate Web site Zillow.com, nearly 67 percent of all homeowners with mortgages in the Phoenix area are underwater on their homes. I blogged last month about how the national average is closer to 25 percent and it's true that the percentage of single-family ...

I've mentioned that I'm taking the month of August to discuss foreclosures and short sales. Well, today I'd like to quickly mention some recent statistics that came out from ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business regarding foreclosures in the Phoenix real estate market and then take a look at the d...

Freddie Mac reported today a second-quarter net loss of $4.7 billion (down from $6.8 billion in the first quarter) and asked the U.S. Treasury to provide another $1.8 billion infusion into their company, raising their government-financed loan to $63.1 billion.  This second-quarter loss, the 11th ...

A new law - Senate Bill 1130 - is putting a stop to foreclosure consultants or mortgage rescue companies charging fees in advance of their services rendered. It's been a big problem for thousands of people who paid up-front fees and then got nothing in return. In fact, the Arizona Republic report...

Yes, verifiably, according to researchers in a recent working paper, "Forced Sales and House Prices". An MIT economist and two Harvard researchers analyzed 1.8 million home sales in Massachusetts (1987 to 2009), finding that "foreclosure reduces the value of a house by 27 percent, on average." Co...