There’s a lot of numbers spinning around suggesting that buyers who may have sitting on the fence need to jump off now to purchase their home or investment. Inventory numbers in Phoenix continue to drop, buyer demand shows no indication of lessening and Phoenix is poised to be the flagship market to help the nation pull away from the housing-crash blues. So way wait? Prices have never been better and one day soon mortgage lending will loosen up so this may be the best time to take advantage of the selection and pricing before Phoenix’s home market is in a full-fledged recovery (image: Timothy Tolle).

Report: Asking Prices Bode Well for Spring Sales, Wall Street Journal:

A report out Thursday says that strengthening asking prices for homes point to higher sales prices as early as June, which would be a welcome turn for the beleaguered sector. “When we look back years from now and try to figure out when the turnaround in prices actually happened, September 2011 is the time when prices look like they stabilized,” Mr. Kolko said.

Phoenix tops list of 10 turnaround markets, Inman News:

The fast-rising Phoenix-Mesa, Ariz., metro continues its remarkable turnaround as No. 1 on the list, up from No.4 in the third quarter of 2011 and No. 2 in the fourth quarter of 2011. Just two years ago, in 2010, it topped the nation’s metros with 55,732 bank repossessions in that year.

Home Prices in Phoenix area up 20 percent in past 12 months, The Republic/azcentral.com:

Home prices are surging in metro Phoenix, climbing 8 percent in March alone and 20 percent in the past 12 months.

The median price of a house in the region climbed to $134,900, according to a new report from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

Phoenix tops Zillow list, azcentral.com:

Phoenix topped real-estate portal and online valuation service Zillow’s list of metro areas expected to achieve growth in home values in 2013 in a report issued Tuesday. According to Zillow, the Phoenix area is expected to experience a 6.5 percent increase in median home price in 2013 compared with the current year.

…An Arizona State University report issued Thursday said the Phoenix area’s median single-family-home price was up more than 20 percent in March compared with a year earlier.

Ranieri: Housing Has Bottomed but Credit Issues Loom, The Wall Street Journal:

“Many, myself included, think we are at the bottom,” Mr. Ranieri said at a conference of the Mortgage Bankers Association in New York. From the perspective of his firms, “we can’t buy loans fast enough,” he said.

Rise in Phoenix Housing Shows Path for Other Cities, The Wall Street Journal:

As home prices continue to drop in most cities, a nascent real-estate rebound here holds lessons for the rest of the country.

Tags: dropping home inventory, housing market bottom, housing market trends, Phoenix price increases

The Wall Street Journal seems to think that this is a great time to purchase a vacation home. From Vacation Homes Beckon (image midiman):

Near-record-low mortgage rates, bargain prices and dwindling home inventories are bringing some once-untouchable markets within reach for the first time in a decade, say housing-market experts.

Those factors are “creating a sense of urgency,” says Pam O’Connor, president of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, a broker network. “People feel like they might miss this window.”

…The bottom for vacation-home prices will be clear only in retrospect, but there are signs one might be forming, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. Some markets in California already are seeing price increases, while hard-hit markets like Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz., have seen slowing declines, he says.

“From a long-term investment horizon, vacation homes will do very well,” Mr. Zandi says, citing low interest rates and expected price appreciation in many markets.

Tags: empty-nester, retiring, second home, vacation homes

There’s no question that the financial market crash of 2007 took the vromph! out of housing. While the residential markets have stabilized in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and our local job base is growing at a nation-leading clip, what are the realities of future home ownership? The coming reality, certainly to professionals like us who have experienced multiple real estate downturns going back to the S&L crisis of the late 80′s and early 90′s, is a more rational (historically normal) housing market where residential lending is more inline with reality, a higher percentage of people will be long-term home renters and houses won’t be a piggy bank to every investor and home buyer that feels like buying some more frivolous bling-bling. Housing prices can be expected to increase at a more stable rate (rather than the exponential spike of housing prices from 2000-2007) and people will see housing, bolstered by the advantageous tax credit and write-offs, as a very worthwhile but typically long-term equity investment. So if you want to buy or invest – smart purchases now, held for the long-term, should turn out to be an excellent addition to your retirement or investment portfolio. But if you yearn to buy and you’re living too close to the financial edge, hold back and take a breath first. You won’t be the only renter out there in THIS economy. From Renting Prosperity, Wall Street Journal:

The answer lies in consumers following the example of corporations—that is, becoming more efficient. The reaction to extended leverage and foolish borrowing isn’t to stop consuming and buying; it is to consume and buy more intelligently. That’s what the Rentership Society is all about. And it starts at home. Literally. Housing is the biggest single component of consumption in the U.S. economy and the source of much of our present misery. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the typical consumer spends about 32% of his or her budget on shelter. In the last decade, that generally meant borrowing a lot of money to take “ownership” of a home.

…Ownership-boosters failed to note that homes purchased in 2005 and 2006 with no-money-down, interest-only mortgages weren’t really bought. They were simply rented until the “owner” flipped them or walked away from the mortgage. Far from strengthening low-income neighborhoods, this destabilized them through the inevitability of foreclosure.

…The depressed home-building industry has also shifted gears to adapt to the new reality. Housing starts for multifamily units have risen sharply since 2009, according to the Census Bureau. In 2011, whereas single-family housing starts fell 9% from the year before, starts of structures with five or more units were up 60%. In the first quarter of 2012, starts of multifamily housing structures were up another 27%, while single-family starts were up only 16.7%.

What’s more, the builders of these structures increasingly intend to rent them out. In 2007, only 62% of the housing units in buildings with two or more units were built for rent. In 2009, 84% of the units in such buildings were built to be rented. In 2011, 91% of the units in such structures were aimed at the rental market.

So, understand that the last two decades seemed wonderful in terms of opportunities for almost everyone but the bottom-line is that home ownership is not a right. The entry fee is not a supercharged financial market passing out easy loans but a more rational approach to people and money: that of hard work, saving for a larger downpayment and making some real decisions about some of the crazy things we used to buy, and may need to give up, to get the home of your dreams.

Tags: home ownership, renting vs buying

Tired of unchecked urban sprawl? Convinced that ever-increasing gas prices will have a major impact on residential development and the human mindset on commuting? Feeling disconnected from the reality of community living in this crazy world we’ve patched together across vast stretches of land? New Urbanism, an urban design movement, seeks to heal the human soul with a emphasis on walkable communities blending with a wide range of housing, job and transit types. New Urbanism’s time may be rising and enclosed is a profile from multiple sources to give you a better feel of a design movement that offers salvation from a modern culture too often shaped in the eye of bottom-line developers. From Cities of the Future Have Arrived, Mark David, Mainstreet.com, Apr 8, 2010:

Housing developments have come a long way from the cookie cutter suburban tracts and communities like Levittown, N.Y., where commercial centers are completely separated from residential areas and where hundreds and thousands of modest and nearly identical homes line the monotonous streets.

Beginning in the early 1980s, many community master planners adopted the principles of New Urbanism, a movement which aims to create compact, walkable and mixed-use villages, towns and cities for a diverse cross-section of residents that ideally include everyone from singles and families, young and old, rich and poor.

New Urbanist communities typically include easily accessible town centers, pedestrian friendly neighborhoods with narrow, tree-lined streets and the intermixture of housing types from small apartments to substantial single-family dwellings. New Urbanists are committed to creating communities that embrace a unified architectural vernacular that fits with and enhances the geographic location and they place a premium on public spaces, parks, playgrounds, community centers and schools that promote the interaction of residents with each other and the physical surroundings.

Also check out Wikipedia: New Urbanism

And from think or thwim: a 9-part presentation by Andres Duany - How to Fix Urban Sprawl

Tags: new urbanism, urban trends, walkable communities

Here are 10 painless quick tips to help save the environment:

1. Insulate your water heater.If it was built before 2004, you can save as much as 10% on your annual water-heating bill by wrapping the tank in an insulating fireproof blanket.
2. Tune up your furnace. Getting your furnace serviced every two years not only reduces the amount of carbon dioxide it emits, it also cuts your heating bills by up to 10%.
3. Raise A/C – Lower the heater. The Alliance to Save Energy estimates that you can take 5% off your heating bill for every degree you lower your home’s temperature during the cold season.
4. Pad those pipes. You can cut heating costs just by insulating exposed hot water pipes in your home.
5. Weatherstrip your doors. Putting weatherstripping around your front and back doors will net you around $30 a year in energy savings.
6. Wash your clothes in cold. That uses 50 % less energy than washing them in hot water.
7. Don’t use permanent press. Employing the regular setting instead of the permanent press setting on you washing machine will conserve five gallons of water per load.
8. Watch your water flow. Save a gallon of water per minute when you’re doing the dishes by restricting the water flow to a stream the width of a straw. Save another two gallons by turning off the water when you brush your teeth for two minutes.
9. Fix that leaking faucet. That constant drip, drip, drip isn’t just grating, it’s also wasting water — 2,700 gallons a year to be exact.
10. Check your toilet tank. If you put a drop of food coloring into your toilet bowl and it doesn’t disappear, your tank is leaking, says Clark. Get it fixed and you can salvage 200 gallons of water a day.

Tags: green home living