Gene Urban -- The Urban Team

• Manage |RSSReal Estate Bloggers

Hi Marcie, Great article and very topical. We just had a speaker come to one of our downtown Phoenix meetings who specializes in Urban gardens. I wrote up a piece on Urban Life discussing his thoughts. You can check it out at: http://www.urbanlifeblog.com/2009/04/radiate-phoenix-meets-at-maizies-and-talks-urban-gardens-with-greg-peterson.html. We still need to get together next time you are in Phoenix. Take care, Gene Urban The Urban Team at Realty Executives 602-234-5777 www.UrbanTeamAZ.com www.UrbanLifeBlog.com www.greatinvestmenthomesaz.com

The Phoenix market saw a big shift in March. Our sales and pending numbers have been consistently rising for several months and simply exploded in March '09. Closings bounced up to 7100+. This is the first time we've been above the 7000 mark since mid-2006. Pendings rose as well to 12,587 indicating our April closings will be even stronger. Another important factor is inventory levels are down 20% from a year ago. On the flip side, a high percentage of sales are REOs. They count for about 25% of the inventory and nearly 80% of the sales (depending on who supplies the stats.) Generally, we are feeling more optimistic, yet we do not expect to see values rise for some time with the exception of the under $80K market. Mostly seeing first time home buyers and residential investors in the under $250K range. The 600K+ market is still very slow accounting for about 2% of the total sales last month. Thanks for providing ths forum. Helps to get a perspective on the market. Gene Urban The Urban Team at Realty Executives 602-234-5777 www.UrbanTeamAZ.com www.UrbanLifeBlog.com www.greatinvestmenthomesaz.com

Lou, You are scaring me. You sound like the actions of the FED are a good or reasonable thing. You are right about one thing, most do under estimates the power of the FED. You just decribed a lever pull that dropped 750 billion fake dollars into the system. The press has barely mentioned this act. The FED was a MAJOR player in creating our current economic troubles, yet they are so powerful few blame or even dare mention their role. Even you blame corporate greed. However, it was the FED that placed huge sums of money in front of corporate America and said... let's play. Congress did everything in it's power to stop oversight and push for more lending, thus creating windfall profits and staggering sums of money. It's like the guy who puts his new BMW on the street with the keys in it, a big sign saying "steal me" and is shocked when it happens. Prior to and during the housing boom the Fed printed money, artificially lowered interest rates and flooded the mortgage market. Congress threatened banks, Fannie and Freddie to lower lending standards and promote affordable housing. Huge money was made from unwise actions and policy. Now that the house of cards has fallen, everyone is shocked. The current outrage would be laughable if the media pointed the finger where it belongs... The Fed and Congress. They created the "cause" while the other players were the "effect." As Tom Woods so eloquently wrote, the FED is the elephant in the living room that no one sees or talks about. Let's start having a real conversation about the FED and both side of Congress before they pull the lever a few more times and inflate the dollar to the point where twenty bucks just buys a gallon of milk. Gene Urban www.UrbanLifeBlog.com www.greatinvestmenthomesaz.com