Now this sounds interesting…. This weekend (March 7 and 8, 2009), the 21st Annual Great Arizona Beer Festival takes place at Tempe Beach Park. Live music, food and of course beer – some 200 varieties – are on tap, so to speak. Regular tickets are $40 in advance (hurry!) and $50 at the gate, bu...

Over the next couple of days, home owners across Maricopa County will be getting their property tax assessment notices in the mail. It’s quite likely (almost a certainty) that you’ll see the assessed value of your home has declined since your last notice. That’s because, of course, generally s...

The mainstream media, the blogiverse and the average Joe on the Street are all abuzz today with the “Mortgage Rescue�, “Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan", “Homeowner Bailout� – pick your title. Announced yesterday right here in our backyard of Mesa, Arizona, the President ...

At this moment in time there are hundreds of people lined up at Dobson High School trying to get tickets to hear President Obama speak at the school on Wednesday, Feb 18. Obama is supposed to be talking about his plans to fix the foreclosure mess – something that has hit the Phoenix real estate ma...

Update: Saturday Feb 14 — here is an article with a chart highlighting the changes in the first time home buyers tax credit. It is expected to be signed into law by Feb 16 “It’s $15,000. No wait, it’s $8000. Or is it $7,500? It has to be paid back. No it doesn’t! Yes, it does! Itâ€...

Fair warning, rant ahead. Fewer things drive me crazier than seeing lousy photos in a real estate listings and marketing material.  The one thing that may be worse is a lack of photos. I just don’t get it. Here are two real life examples. There are hundreds thousands more. Just in Phoenix. Ex...

Back on December 5, several real estate types across the country entered into a weight loss challenge. Final weigh-in day is today, Feb 1. Here are what the scales looked like for me on December 5: And here is what I saw today: That’s a loss of 13.5 pounds (or 5.63% of my initial weight– the con...

For whatever reason, it is tedious finding a chart for the average monthly temperature in Phoenix. They are out there for the temperature in Fahrenheit, but good luck finding anything in Celsius. So being somewhat of a chart-o-holic, I made my own. The charts below show the average daily high a...

It’s Thursday, and I just received my fifth call this week that started out something like this: “I’m thinking about moving to Phoenix. What can you tell me about the real estate market and living there?” A reasonable question that is just begging for a blog post. . . 10 Thin...

“Shock the World!”“Stunned disbelief.”“Are you f’ing kidding me?!?” Those are some common reactions when folks hear the Arizona Cardinals are in the Superbowl. I can barely get my fingers to type those words. The Arizona Cardinals are in the Superbowl. Wow. ...