Slow but Steady Progress for Phoenix Real Estate Market

The real estate market in the East Valley is making slow and steady progress. The number of listings came down from May to June of this year. They decreased in June by 7.4% over June of last year. We still need significant reductions in listing inventory in order for the real estate market to come back into balance; however, the market does seem to be moving in the right direction. Additionally, the number of sales increased from June of 2007 to June of 2008 by 10%.

These statistics are for the homes listed or sold by members of the Southeast Valley Association of REALTORS® (SEVRAR). They will include sales of homes in the greater Phoenix area that were made by SEVRAR members. Even so, these statistics should be fairly representative of what is happening in the East Valley. SFD stands for Single Family Detached Homes.This data is supplied by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. ARMLS, West USA, and Pat & Amy Monahan do not guarantee the accuracy of the data.

Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008

President Bush signed into law the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. The link below provides a good summary of the act (provided by the National Association of REALTORS®). You should read this if you are considering purchasing a home, selling a home, or feel that you need to refinance an existing home loan.

Summary of Provisions

The Met!

New condos in Chandler. Right near the Chandler Fashion Center. It's called The Metropolitan and it will be 13 buildings of retail and housing. There's no other place like it in Chandler. Many of the buildings will be 6 stories tall, the largest in the city.

Here's some of the amenities that The Met is including -

Pool/ Hot Tub/ Firepits

24 hour security

The Met Ride - shuttle to / from work within 4 miles.

World Class Fitness Center

200 Channel HD TV service

Fiber Internet

Movie and Billiard lounge

Prices start around $200,000 and go up to $600,000. Square footage is from 1100 up to 1700 and views from the upper floors should be incredible. If this sounds like the home for you, give us a call and we'll get you in "The Met."

New Type of Display for Search Results

Sometimes teenagers can be good sources of information about the Internet. I recently learned about http://www.searchme.com/ from one. I don't think it will replace Google or other search engines for me but I do like it. Instead of displaying short descriptions of the search result matches, it displays an actual image of the web page.

Click here to see the results I got for African Spurred Tortoise. As usual there were some results that were useful for me and some that were not. I saved the pages that are useful into a stack.

Buy a Kiva in Chandler

Every now and then I'll see something unusual when showing homes. Today I saw a Kiva for the first time in a Chandler backyard. Wikipedia does a better job of describing a Kiva than I do.

Now of course, I doubt this is an archaeological ruin. I guess I would call it a faux kiva. I doubt that it was used for religious purposes, but you never know. Might be worth getting the info from the past owner. After all, I'd hate to move into the home and find out I could not take it down.

If you need a home with a faux kiva, let me know. I know of a house that has one.

Cell Phone Lot at the Airport

Planning on picking up relatives at Sky Harbor? Here's a great idea. The airport now has two lots with incoming flight info for you to wait in. No more having to circle the airport clogging up the road. Tell your friends to call you when then leave baggage claim. You pull into the lot up to 30 minutes prior to the planes arrival. Check out the board and wait. They get their bags and call you with what terminal they are at and you drive up to meet them. It's that simple. A great idea. Hey, don't forget to bring a book!