Jun 24 2011

The desert heat melts Arizona home prices – Phoenix home prices now back to late 1990s levels while state tax collection drop to 1998 levels. The second lost decade in the desert.

The real estate crash is much deeper than the media is making it out to be.  Entire life savings are being wiped out in markets that are tanking like the Titanic.  What is troubling is that some markets are having depression like symptoms with home prices falling 50, 60, and even 70 percent in a […]

May 16 2011

Scorching the desert housing markets – Arizona and Nevada real estate blossomed with cheap fuel and easy access to debt. For last two years 40 percent of buyers came from all cash purchases. What happens when the well runs dry in the financial desert?

The Arizona housing market is a perfect example of what happens when the housing religion spirals out of control and implodes in dramatic fashion pushing up against environmental limits.  I remember driving in the blistering summer heat through Arizona before all the housing mania launched out of control in the late 1990s and thinking that […]

Mar 3 2011

Phoenix real estate breaks a record with 50 percent of all home sales coming from all cash investors. Locals barely can buy with FHA insured loans. Can a desert market dependent on cheap oil and survive in the $100+ a barrel world?

The Phoenix real estate market is a fascinating case examination of an area guided by FHA loans for first time buyers and all cash investors purchasing 50 percent of properties.  In January of 2011, the latest month of stunning data, 1 out of every 2 homes sold went to an all cash buyer.  We are […]

Feb 2 2011

Phoenix real estate market being held up by all cash buyers – 47 percent of Phoenix sales were from all cash buyers in December. The $1 priced Detroit home.

The Phoenix real estate market has collapsed after reaching a price apex in 2006.  It is hard to imagine another market with similar real estate fundamentals but Las Vegas is a mirror image of foreclosure ridden Phoenix.  These desert cities rose up during the housing bubble with plentiful and cheap land to expand on.  Builders […]

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