Here is a very good article regarding the number of foreclosure filings in Arizona. The number of foreclosures filings has been dropping since its peak in August. Much of the credit goes to lenders willingness to work with bowers and demise of investors who bought homes in Arizona. Lets hope this trend continues and helps stabilize the areas real estate market and economy.
Here is a great article from the East Valley Tribune that analyzes new development in South Scottsdale and the area near SkySong (McDowell and Scottsdale). The area has defininally improved in the past couple of years however; time will tell if the final outcome is what the city of Scottsdale and the citizens of South Scottsdale had in mind when SkySong became the direction for redevelopment.
A developer’s plans to request a tax subsidy for a project adjacent to SkySong is raising questions about whether the high-tech research center is living up to its billing as a catalyst for private investment along McDowell Road in south Scottsdale.
GRAPHIC: Major investments along McDowell Road
Scottsdale already has invested heavily in the McDowell Road corridor and SkySong — a collaboration of the city, the Arizona State University Foundation and private developers. The area struggled after the closure of Los Arcos Mall in the late 1990s and subsequent failed hockey arena and “big-box” store proposals.
In addition to the up to $120 million SkySong price tag, Scottsdale spent $600,000 for a marketing subsidy to the Motor Mile auto dealerships, built a $12 million senior center, expanded its trolley system and is in the process of creating a consistent look for landscaping along improved sidewalks.
And while there is interest in the land adjacent to SkySong, the latest proposed projects are being subsidized, plan to seek a subsidy or are the type of businesses not envisioned to serve the planned influx of high-tech workers.
The $150 million Los Arcos Crossing project to the east plans to turn a nearly vacant shopping center into high-end apartments, town homes, offices, stores, an updated Bashas’ supermarket and restaurants.
But the project — although primarily a private venture — will need an undisclosed subsidy to create a public connection from SkySong to the Indian Bend Wash and pay for other infrastructure costs, said developer Rick Sodja, CEO of PDG America.
The city also plans to sell the developer 3 1/2 acres of land at an undisclosed price.
“We need SkySong and SkySong needs us,” Sodja said. “It takes these two projects to have an anchor for this part of town.”
To the south, Community Services of Arizona’s has used about $1.25 million in federal dollars allocated by Scottsdale to acquire rundown apartments and build a new 44-residence town home project on Belleview Street. About two-thirds of the units will be at market rate, with the remaining one-third reserved for families below 80 percent of the county median income, CSA President Brian Swanton said.
Construction is expected to start late next year.
City Councilman Jim Lane said he’s not happy with the trend.
“I’m not interested in south Scottsdale just becoming a subsidized neighborhood, whether it’s work force housing, subsidized government buildings and now with Los Arcos Crossing, economic development,” Lane said. “From my perspective, this doesn’t really have the desired effect.”
The former Breuner’s furniture store near the northwest corner of McDowell and Scottsdale roads will be the new home of Scottsdale’s main post office, thus eliminating an area for private reinvestment.
And the new private businesses closest to SkySong are a pay day loan store to the north and Skin Cabaret owner Todd Borowsky’s planned carwash on the former Goodyear tire site on SkySong’s southern edge.
And while the car dealers have discontinued their marketing subsidy, at least one dealer is relocating to Mesa.
But that is not to say private investment has not followed the city’s lead. There is the Lowe’s Home Improvement store, the McDowell Village senior apartments and retail center, Miller Crossing condos a half-mile south, a rebuilt Big O Tires store and the planned Villa Contento and Project Miller high-end condo projects.
“It is early, but there’s been some investment down there, which is positive but not as much as we would like to see,” said Scottsdale economic vitality general manager Dave Roderique. “SkySong is a great first start, but there’s going to be more that is needed. It needs to be an ongoing process.”
Planned private investment, including SkySong’s 1.2-million square feet of research, office and retail space at buildout, is estimated at about $375 million for the McDowell Road corridor. Planned city investment, including SkySong’s $120 million city price tag that includes interest, is close to $160 million, according to a city economic report released in September.
Mayor Mary Manross, who said the long-term revitalization process along McDowell is already showing results, said Los Arcos Crossing’s expected subsidy request does not negate from SkySong or other development in the area.
“SkySong was a worthwhile, long-term investment and it shows confidence in the community,” Manross said. “And all the (SkySong) businesses that will open in a few weeks feel that way, too.”
At SkySong, ASU and other tenants are expected to start moving into the first building before the end of the year. The project has broken ground on its second commercial building with apartment units and a parking garage to follow in the next couple of years.
Kevin O’Neill, owner of O’Companies and a member of the Scottsdale Planning Commission, said SkySong was a reason he created the 16-unit Project Miller urban condo project just south of McDowell. O’Neill said the project is being sold to a new owner that plans to complete the project.
“One of the things that attracted us to the SkySong area is knowing there would be newer innovative things going in related to design,” O’Neill said.
Scottsdale Area Chamber of Commerce President Rick Kidder said redevelopment projects such as Los Arcos Crossing and others that could one day occur on McDowell are more costly than building a new project on vacant land. They also can become more political.
“This will be a great litmus test for the city on how it deals with redevelopment,” Kidder said.
Interesting article on a proposed new project on Scottsdale Waterfront. It sounds like a project that will enhance the area if the developers can work things out with city government and area residents.
The proposed Waterview at Scottsdale hotel and condominium project along the Arizona Canal is too massive, does not blend with the surrounding neighborhood and has not adequately addressed the relocation of an electric substation, a letter from the city states.
The nine-page letter sent Monday from the city to Waterview representatives outlines 83 concerns with the proposed downtown project northeast of Camelback and Scottsdale roads.
In addition to the project’s size and proximity to established single-family homes, the city also has concerns about whether adequate infrastructure can be built on the site, the development’s impact on neighborhood traffic and its lack of access for pedestrians.
The report also states the developers have not done enough to inform the public of their plans.
“This does not fit the context of the area, including north of the canal, south of the canal and the canal experience itself,” wrote Mac Cummins, a Scottsdale principal planner.
The developers, Scottsdale Canal Development, have proposed bulldozing aging single-story apartments along 73rd Street on the south side of the canal and replacing them with a six-building, high-end project that would include 72-foot hotel buildings and 65-foot condo buildings along with private homes. About 400 hotel rooms and condo units and 17 single-family homes are proposed for the 11.5-acre site.
Proposed site
If completed, it would be one of the largest of the urban downtown projects that have contributed to more than $3 billion in downtown private investment in recent years.
Susan Bitter Smith, a consultant working on the project, said a number of these issues — expressed during talks with the city prior to this initial written response — are already being addressed.
Bitter Smith said the new design will address immediate concerns by increasing setbacks and scaling back the size of buildings near residences. “These are all good points and all things we’ve been working on,” Bitter Smith said.
One of the more controversial aspects of the project is moving the Salt River Project substation from the northeast corner of Scottsdale and Camelback roads to the east of the project, across the street from single-family homes.
Cummins said the city does not know what the SRP substation will look like because only architectural renderings from one of the four sides were submitted. He said the city has recently received health and safety information, but has not had time to review it. In addition, the developers have not applied for the required use permit. Bitter Smith said the developers are working on a more detailed design for the substation.
As for infrastructure, the city says a larger waterline will be necessary to provide adequate fire service, a private sewer line through the project should be considered, and an extension of the sewer system “may be problematic.” All of the infrastructure, including the planned burying of power lines, may not fit within the right-of-way, Cummins wrote.
The city also was critical of the plan because it did not include a pedestrian bridge across the Arizona Canal or landscaping along the canal bank. Both of these will be included with the submittal, Bitter Smith said.
The project has been applauded by some area residents for proposing to clean up the area, but others have concerns about the SRP electrical substation relocation as well as the traffic the project could bring. City activists who do not live in the area have concerns about increased height and density in the downtown area and have threatened a referendum if the project is ultimately approved by the City Council.
Waterview submitted its rezoning request in July. The request does not seek height or density beyond what’s allowed in the downtown plan.
No public hearings have been scheduled.
With all the talk about home foreclosures, I was wonder where in the valley this was happening. Is it happening in South Scottsdale or is it isolated to certain parts of the valley. 
In looking at data, in the MLS, it looks like Scottsdale and South Scottsdale has very little foreclosure activity. For all of Scottsdale the total number of homes being sold as, Foreclosure, Pre-foreclosure, or Bank owned property, is 12. In South Scottsdale, 85251 (2), 85257 (1), 85250 (0), 85258 (1). Not much activity, when you figure that there are 457 total homes being sold under a Foreclosure, Pre-foreclosure, or Bank owned property situation in all of the valley. Most of the areas that are seeing foreclosure activity, are in the outlying cities of the valley.
Click to Enlarge
Data comes from the Arizona multiple listing service and the date was compiled on 5/18/2007. Distressed properties are any properties being sold (bank owned, REO, Preforeclosure, Foreclosure, Short Sale, Fixer Upper)
Here is a recent article in the AZ Republic that echos some of the same finding about Foreclosures in the Real Estate market.
My Take:
Scottsdale is always going to be in high demand, as a place to live and work. When you factor demand and limited supply of new housing, home prices in South Scottsdale and all of Scottsdale will continue to increase. Currently, you see a lot of remodeling and updating of the older homes and condos in South Scottsdale. This should continue because prices are more favorable in South Scottsdale and this part of Scottsdale provides easy access to the whole valley.
May 15, 2007
Ari Cohn, Tribune
More than 50,000 additional people are expected to be living in Scottsdale by 2020, while vacant land that can sustain residential development in the city continues to disappear.
The result will be high housing prices in the long term because of a high demand to live here, according to economic and business officials.
Population projections recently released by Scottsdale indicate that by 2020, almost 290,000 people will call the city home. At the beginning of the year, the city had about 239,000 residents. That’s about a 21 percent increase in population in a little more than a decade.
Over the last 17 years, however, Scottsdale’s population increased by about 86 percent, from about 128,000 at the beginning of 1990.
Rick Kidder, president of the Scottsdale Area Chamber of Commerce, attrib- uted the slowdown in growth to the decreasing amount of vacant land suitable for residential development. Scottsdale only has about 3,000 acres left, and most of it is zoned for acre lots or larger, he said.
“We’re running out of space. We’re running out of open land,” Kidder said. “That would account for the relatively dramatic slowdown (in population).”
Dave Roderique, the city’s economic vitality director, said the type of housing being built in Scottsdale has changed as well.
“Back in the 1990s, we still had a lot of tract development occurring. You had a lot of available land. We’re pretty much done with that,” he said. “It’s been consistently getting slower, and it’s going to continue to slow down until we reach buildout. We don’t have the land.”
Now, new residential construction consists mostly of custom homes in the city’s north and condominium development downtown, he said.
However, the demand for housing here is expected to remain high because of Scottsdale’s healthy commercial sector.
“Demand will continue to stay very strong despite market fluctuations,” Kidder said. “As long as demand remains strong and the supply is weak, the prices are going to remain high.”
My Take:
In March of 07, I looked at data in the MLS, to see what homes were selling for verses asking price. The difference in March was 96%, in comparison, November of 06, the difference was 94%. When I compare that to 2004, the asking price to sales price was 98%. It looks like buyers and sellers are seeing, more eye to eye, on what homes are worth.
Catherine Reagor
The Arizona Republic
May. 14, 2007 09:15 AM
The standoff between home buyers and sellers in metropolitan Phoenix could be nearing an end.
The wide gap between what a home is listed for and what it sells for is shrinking, which means Valley home sales could start to pick up if more buyers and sellers agree on prices.
Real estate analysts say it’s an early sign the ailing housing market could be on the road to recovery.
“Both buyers and sellers are readjusting their expectations,” said University of Arizona economist Marshall Vest. “Buyers are coming back into the market with reasonable offers. More homeowners are pricing their homes to sell.”
Vest analyzed data from the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service and found that the spread between what Valley home prices sold for in March and what they were listed for is the narrowest it has been since mid-2004. The gap hit a high in mid-2005.
Valley home listings recently hit a new high of 50,000. But housing-market watchers say many of the listings are sellers who put their home on the market last year based on price run-ups from a few years ago. Those houses are languishing on the market with little chance of selling for the listed prices.
Some sellers are taking note.
Thomas Herz realized there was a glut of homes for sale when he decided to sell his central Phoenix home earlier this year. He originally wanted to list it for $340,000, the price he believes his home is worth now. But Herz didn’t want to wait months while it sat on the market and then have to go through the process of lowering his price one or more times. He and his real estate agent watched as the comparable sales in his neighborhood started coming in lower.
“After watching what was going on with the market, I wanted to list it at $319,000 but decided to go with $314,900, hoping it would sell faster,” said Herz, who put his three-bedroom home in the Woodlea historic district on the market a few weeks ago. “Two years ago, homes like mine were selling in the high $300,000s. This house is a great deal for someone.”
Buyers and sellers should watch carefully what is happening in their areas now and not base prices on sales a few miles away or on the other side of the Valley. In some parts of metro Phoenix, houses are going for the full asking price. In other parts, particularly on the fringes, buyers have more negotiating power.
“Home prices need to be looked at neighborhood by neighborhood now,” said Wayne Miiller of Century 21 Arizona Foothills.
In 2005, Valley home prices climbed 50 percent. Since then, prices have been flat in most neighborhoods or have dropped.
“People are realizing this isn’t a fad,” said Margie O’Campo de Castillo of Arizona Dream Realty. “Listing prices have to come down for homes to sell, and buyers have to be realistic. It’s good to see it finally happening.”
Median sales price up to Dec 2007
Median sales price up to Dec 2007
