What Is Next For The Phoenix Real Estate Market

What Is Next For The Phoenix Real Estate Market

This is a question I am getting a lot right now.

That along with “Did I miss the bottom of the market?”

First, YES- you did miss the very bottom of the market!

However, the market still has a ways to move and you can still benefit tremendously.

If you have been following this blog for the last couple of years then you already know I have accurately predicted this market every step of the way.

I called the end of the foreclosures that have been dropping since 2009.

I shared with you there is NO shadow inventory and showed how that was a myth!

I accurately predicted the very bottom of market prices months in advance!

And even accurately predicted a massive housing shortage and how that would create a very sharp increase in prices (even accurately predicting the actual prices themselves).

I do NOT have a crystal ball but anyone that understands supply & demand, watches the correct numbers, and ignores the media, can see how short term market predictions are very very easy!

So, now what?

What is next for the Phoenix real estate market? Read more »

How A Homeowner Can Get Paid To Short Sale Their Home

How A Homeowner Can Get Paid To Short Sale Their Home

Obviously right now most homeowners here in Phoenix are upside down with negative equity (meaning they owe more then the home is worth).

Because of this it seems to be very popular for homeowners to just let their home go to foreclosure.

For some reason they just don’t understand how short selling their home has so many advantages over foreclosing.

It is quite sad actually.

And although there a plenty of advantages to share, I want to focus on at least one that should get their attention- CASH!

And how a homeowner can get paid to short sale their home. Read more »

Buying A Phoenix Home? How To Win The Bidding Wars

How To Win The Bidding Wars

As I predicted here over a year ago, there is currently a massive housing shortage in Phoenix.

It has become a sellers market.

With no supply of homes and at the same time a huge demand from home buyers, just about any home for sell gets multiple offers within a couple of days!

This is why prices are rising daily!

This is great news if you are a seller and see bidding wars on your home jacking the price up.

But if you are a buyer, it can be quite frustrating.

Nothing worse then to find your dream home, make an offer, only to find out 3 other buyers also made an offer, and the seller went with another offer.

So I thought I would take a minute and give a few suggestions on what you can do to increase your chances of winning the bidding war. Read more »

Are Lending Requirements To Buy A Phoenix Home Easing Up?

Are Lending Requirements To Buy A Phoenix Home Easing Up?

For the past several years only a small percentage of the population could qualify for financing on a new home.

This is one of the reasons why a much larger percentage then usual of all home purchases are made with all cash.

That and the fact that the smart investors know when to buy where most of the public listens to the media and misses out.

I know some will argue it should be extremely difficult to obtain financing and they should be required to have a large down payment.

Unfortunately, most of those people don’t have a clue as to how the markets work and/or why we had the mess we did.

But that is another topic for another time.

Right now the question is are lending requirements to buy a Phoenix home easing up? Read more »

Phoenix Home Prices Have Risen Almost 20% In Past 6 Months!

Phoenix Home Prices Have Risen Almost 20% In Past 6 Months!

I was very blunt and flat out challenged anyone reading that article if they were smarter then a 5th grader?

Cause it was very obvious to anyone actually looking at the facts and NOT relying on the media what was happening and about to happen to our real estate market.

I boldy predicted that the monthly median home price would rise from at that time $108,00 to at least $130,000 and that the average monthly sales price would rise from 162,895 to at least $180,000.

At the same time I clearly stated that when it happened it would happen very quickly and this would all occur within 12 months from June 28, 2011.

Be sure to reread that article here!.

Well, guess what? Read more »

Considering Short Selling Your Home? Why You Better Do It Now Rather Then Later!

You Better Short Sale Now Rather Then Later!

If these homeowners need to sell for any reason, their only option is as a short sale.

A short sale is where the bank agrees to take less then the amount owed as settlement for the debt.

The homeowner still receives a 1099 for the amount the bank forgave but because of the debt foregiveness act of 2007 no taxes are owed on this money.

However, some changes are coming soon.

So if you are considering short selling your home you better do it sooner rather then later.

As in you better do it NOW!

Why? Read more »

Does Arizona Anti-Deficiency Laws Protect Homeowners With A ‘Cash Out’ Refinance?

Does Arizona Anti-Deficiency Laws Protect You With A 'Cash Out' Refinance?

Then of course the real estate collapse occurred finding most homeowners now severely upside-down.

Many homeowners then either lost their home to foreclosure because they could no longer afford it or just choose to walk away from the home because of the negative equity.

Many homeowners thought that since Arizona is an anti-deficiency state that they were protected from the banks coming after them.

But, does Arizona anti-deficiency laws protect homeowners who did a ‘cash-out’ refinance? Read more »

How To Buy The Hottest Phoenix Home Deals Today

Hot-Phoenix-Home-Deals

We all know (at least those following this blog) that we are currently in a sellers market.

Every home that goes up for sale, if it is priced within reason, will receive multiple offers within a couple of days and sell immediately.

As a buyer this means you are paying the absolute highest prices (if you are even lucky enough to get the home as highest offer).

Of coure this is known as the basic law of supply and demand.

Even if you were to go to an auction right now it is a sellers market.

Most of those homes are going for MORE then retail- meaning you could have bought it cheaper outside of the auction.

This is caused by too much demand!

Especially coming from new & rookie real estate investors OR because of all the foriegn investors (mostly Canadians) investing in our market now.

Seems that they understand our market is at a bottom more then our own residents that listen to the idiot media. How sad!

Anyway, what about bank foreclosed homes?

Same situation.

There are very few of them and the demand is absolutely scary.

Once they are listed they receive multiple offers and sell very quickly.

On top of that the banks know what is going on in the market and have tremendously jacked up the prices.

Trying to find a good deal with bank foreclosed homes is extremely difficult if not impossible right now today as I write this.

So then, where can you find the absolute hottest deals today? Read more »

Phoenix Supply Of Homes For Sale Now At Lowest Level EVER!

Phoenix Supply Of Homes For Sale Now At Lowest Level EVER!

I have been stating for months and months that Phoenix was heading for a severe housing shortage.

Well, guess what?

It is already here and is going to be worse then I even thought!

Lets take a look at the numbers and what they mean going forward.

As I write this, there are only 5,144 single family homes for sale under $250,000 in greater Phoenix.

If you take the current demand for homes (average of actual sales the past 12 months) then this tells us there is less then 27 days of supply of homes available to buy!

This is the lowest number EVER in Phoenix.

Yes- even lower then the insane years around 2005!

What is even more alarming?

This supply has dropped 21% in the past 30 days!

Demand for homes is at record levels and increasing.

But supply of homes do NOT exist and will not exist in the near future!

As I have been showing for months there are less and less foreclosures, no shadow inventory, and new homes are just now starting to get built.

There are NO supply of homes to keep up with the demand.

What does this mean?

First, prices MUST keep rising! The law of supply and demand tells us this.

Second, new home builders must start coming back into the market and start building immediately!

And hopefully as prices continue to rise this will allow some home owners that were unable to sell because they were upside-down to now be able to sell.

Other then that, I have NO idea where the homes are going to come from!

And do you believe all of this is happening when getting financed for most home buyers is still very difficult!

Just imagine what happens when financing continues to loosen up!

Phoenix supply of homes for sale are now at lowest levels ever and dropping quickly with no supply of homes seen in the near future.

So my best advice to anyone and everyone, buy-buy-buy-buy at these prices while you can!

Arizona Ranks #1 In Foreclosure Improvement Over Past 2 Years

Arizona Ranks #1 In Foreclosure Improvement Over Past 2 Years

Now Arizona is the leader out of the mess!

As I have been sharing here for months, our real estate market has bottomed and is recovering.

Unfortunately the media is always 6-8 months behind the facts and for whatever reason the general public thinks the media is always correct.

It is very frustating.

Finally, in the past 30 days there have been several postive (fact driven) reports by the media regarding Arizona and Phoenix.

The latest positive facts reported came from Lender Processing Services as they released their Mortgage Monitor report.

So what did it show? Read more »

What Is Harp 2.0 And Will It Help Phoenix Homeowners?

What Is Harp 2.0 And Will It Help Phoenix Homeowners?

And if you have it wasn’t because you found it helpful but rather heard what a failure it was.

What a surprise- a government program that failed and cost us taxpayers millions of dollars.

A reliable source recently told me that Arizona received about 262 million for this program and only 6 homeowners used it and that as of today no one can account for where the rest of the money went to.

When HARP came out it was suppose to be a solution to help upside down homeowners refinance to lower rates therefore lowering their monthly payments.

However, the banks refused to participate in the program and even if they did the requirements were so strict no one could qualify.

So now a couple years later our government (election politics) rolls out HARP 2.0 that goes into effect this month.

But will it help Phoenix homeowners this time? Read more »

Phoenix Real Estate Market Taking Off

Phoenix Real Estate Market Taking Off

If you missed that be sure to check that out first- “Rising Phoenix Home Prices Gaining Steam”

I promised to follow that up with more facts to show how the Phoenix real estate market is really taking off.

I have been providing facts for months that this was coming and that the media and public would be 6-8 months late to the party (they always are!).

Now that we are 6 months from the bottom (prices rising quickly last 6 months) the media is beginning to take notice.

However, they still are not reporting the entire story yet.

The Phoenix real estate market has a serious housing shortage right now and it is only going to get worse (or better if you want rising prices).

Here are the simple facts! Read more »

Rising Phoenix Home Prices Gaining Steam

Rising Phoenix Home Prices Gaining Steam

Also as predicted the media is finally starting to see the light 6 months after the fact (they are always 6-8 months behind).

Just in the past 30 days I have seen more positive local news regarding our Phoenix real estate market in the media then the previous 6 years combined.

Even on the national level we just had the S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Index report come out and state that Phoenix was the ONLY city of the 20 major cities they track that had a price increase!

Of course we already told you they were going to report that because they report data 3 months behind. They just reported the November data.

Guess what? They will continue to report stronger price gains in the next several months!

Here is a breakdown of how each individual city within metro Phoenix has performed in order from best to worst the past 12 months. This is based on price per sq ft from February 1, 2011 to February 1, 2012: Read more »

Great News Regarding New HOA Regulations

Great News Regarding New HOA Regulations

Yes I understand they have been struggling financially but that does not give them the right to play ‘King’ and flat out take advantage of situations.

For example, charging new home buyers up to $1,200 just to put the HOA paperwork into their name. Are you serious?

Or taking several weeks to get the HOA ‘demand statement’ delivered effectively almost killing (or in some cases actually doing so) a short sale deal with the bank.

Or best one I have personally seen is using their leverage with the ‘demand statement’ as ransom to force either seller or new buyer into paying hundreds of dollars to release it!

Oh, and I almost forgot having the HOA charge a fee to the owner for putting up a ‘for rent’ or ‘for sale’ sign. Again, seriously?

Great News! Read more »

The Three Biggest Mistakes New Real Estate Investors Make! Part 3

Three Biggest Mistakes New Real Estate Investors Make

If you have not read parts one or two be sure to read those first (part 1 here) (part 2 here).

In part one I shared that I believe the #1 biggest mistake new real estate investors make is not treating real estate investing as a business.

I also shared in part two that the #2 biggest mistake is focusing on their own needs instead of the market needs.

So what is the #3 biggest mistake in my opinion that I see almost all new real estate investors make (including myself when I first started)? Read more »

The Three Biggest Mistakes New Real Estate Investors Make! Part 2

Three Biggest Mistakes New Real Estate Investors Make

In part one (found here) I shared what I believe is the biggest #1 mistake made: Not treating real estate investing as a business!

So what is the biggest #2 mistake?

In my opinion, the number two biggest mistake is that new real estate investors are focusing on their needs rather then the market needs!

Let me explain.

Almost all new investors are focusing on “How can I make a lot of money?”.

Of course we all want to make money but what happens when this is the only focus? Read more »

The Three Biggest Mistakes New Real Estate Investors Make!

Three Biggest Mistakes New Real Estate Investors Make

They want a better financial future, or maybe just sick and tired of their current profession/job and want a new direction.

Unfortunately though, most of them will fail!

Almost all of them will lose money and most of them will never even do a single deal.

Only a very small percentage are ever profitable and/or achieve the outcome they desired prior to getting into real estate investing.

This isn’t due to a lack of desire or effort.

But rather making the same mistakes that just about everyone seems to make when entering this industry.

Based on my own experiences (investor since 1999 and full time since 2002) as well as working with and witnessing hundreds of other potential investors, I have put together what I believe are the three biggest mistakes new real estate investors make. Read more »

Happy New Year- What 2012 Will Bring To Phoenix Real Estate

Happy New Year

I hope you and your family had a wonderful and safe holiday season.

With 2011 now in the books we can look forward to 2012.

But before we do, lets quickly overview 2011.

As we predicted at the beginning of 2011, the bottom of the market was reached during the year.

This was fairly easy to predict by just viewing the proper data and not listening to the media.

Eventually, the media will figure out that market prices bottomed out in August/September 2011 and have since been rising.

They will also eventually figure out (as we have been stating and proving with facts for over a year now) there is no ‘shadow inventory’ of foreclosed homes coming.

The foreclosure market peaked at the end of 2009 and we have just been depleting inventory ever since. Read more »

Phoenix Home Prices Are Rising

Phoenix Home Prices Are Rising

Since they could not find anything negative to report with the foreclosures I guess they had to go this direction instead.

However, their conclusion and headlines are WRONG!

Phoenix home prices are rising!

So lets review the facts.

Regardless of what factual local data you want to review, they all show rising prices! Read more »

Phoenix Foreclosures Have Dropped Over 50% in Last 6 Months!

Phoenix Foreclosures For Sale Have Dropped Over 50% in Last 6 Months!

I predicted this knowing that last November is when Bank of America stopped ALL foreclosures due to ‘robosigning’.

At the same time, after they started back full throttle they had a very large spike of notices back in August thus making November the month a lot of them should be foreclosed on.

Adding both of those odd events together should have created the first increase this year (year over year) in monthly foreclosures in Phoenix.

However, I was wrong! I completely underestimated just how quickly our foreclosures were dropping! Read more »