Thank you for subscribing to AARNews.com, the news portal for the Arizona Association of REALTORS® (AAR). Recently, the association decided to discontinue AARNews.com. Instead, news will be delivered to members in these four ways:

• AAR on Facebook
  http://www.facebook.com/realtorsuccess
  AAR frequently features local, state and national news stories relevant to real estate agents on our Facebook page. Discuss the articles with other members in the comments.
• AAR on Twitter
  http://www.facebook.com/realtorsuccess
  AAR frequently features local, state and national news stories relevant to real estate agents on our Facebook page. Discuss the articles with other members in the comments.
• AAR on Twitter
  http://www.twitter.com/aarsuccess
  AAR tweets often include links to news articles, blog posts and websites that are causing a buzz in the real estate community on Twitter.
• AAR’s Blog
  http://blog.aaronline.com
  The blog highlights timely information of interest to the membership. Contributors include practicing agents in Arizona. You can subscribe via email or RSS feed reader.
• Arizona REALTOR® Magazine
  http://www.aaronline.com/AZR
  The monthly online-only publication of AAR delivers articles on hot topics (such as short sales), legal/risk management, effective business practices, legislative/regulatory issues and more.

If you are looking for a digest of real-estate articles from around the country, consider REALTOR® Magazine’s Daily Real Estate News email subscription or RSS feed.

If you have any questions about the decision to discontinue AARNews.com, please do not hesitate to email editor@aaronline.com or call 602-248-7787 x446.

– Arizona Association of REALTORS®

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“Robust activity in the Tucson housing market may portend an end to the housing crisis there, even though home prices are still bumping along at low levels.

Sales are rising as home buyers take advantage of big inventory, sellers willing to deal and the federal home buyer tax credit, says Bob Herd, president of the Tucson Association of Realtors.

• Sales status. In Tucson, home sales were up 6.6% in February compared with the same month in 2009. ‘The first-time home buyer market is very robust, even with multiple offers in some cases,’ Herd says. ‘And the move-up market is starting to show small signs of life…’”

Read the full article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/closetohome/2010-04-05-tucson-housing-market_N.htm

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“During the U.S. housing boom, even amateur investors could buy and sell a property within a couple of months and turn a profit. Today there’s nothing amateur about house flipping.

Homes with punctured walls and missing appliances draw multiple offers from professional investors at auctions in foreclosure-ridden states such as Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada. Competition is so stiff that experienced flippers such as Sergio Rodriguez and Brian Bogenn look back with nostalgia at last year, when they turned over 48 residences in the Phoenix area.

‘A year ago, bums outnumbered bidders at the courthouse steps,’ where many foreclosure auctions take place, Rodriguez said. ‘Now the bums are way outnumbered…’”

Read the full article:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aH_4WjvZMGrE&pos=11

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“Short sales are the hottest thing going in the distressed-property market, and the trend is expected to get even hotter in coming weeks, when the government starts handing out cash to encourage lenders to close these deals.

‘Banks have ramped up short sale approvals,’ said Duane Legate of House Buyer Network, which connects short sellers with buyers. ‘They’re hiring a lot of the people who once worked in the mortgage-lending industry and moved them over to short sales.’

These transactions, where lenders allow homeowners to sell their houses for less than they owe, accounted for 17% of all residential real estate sales in February, up from nearly 13% in November, according to a monthly real estate market survey by Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance…”

Read the full article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/29/real_estate/short_sale_explosion/index.htm

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“The Obama administration on Friday announced a $14 billion effort to try to stem a rising tide of home foreclosures by giving lenders incentives to erase some mortgage debt and slash mortgage payments for the unemployed.

The new aid programs, funded from the $50 billion allocated to housing rescue under the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, will also allow borrowers to erase mortgage debt down to a maximum of 115 percent of their home’s value by refinancing through the Federal Housing Administration.

The plan comes as President Barack Obama is under increasing political pressure to change his strategy for helping struggling homeowners and stem the tide of rising foreclosures and is the second major housing initiative announced in as many months…”

Read the full article: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62O5JL20100326

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“Existing-home sales declined slightly in February, with modest gains in the Northeast and Midwest offset by softer sales in the South and West, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

Existing-home sales 1, which are finalized transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, slipped 0.6 percent nationally to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.02 million units in February from 5.05 million in January, but are 7.0 percent higher than the 4.69 million-unit pace in February 2009.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said widespread winter storms in February may mask underlying demand. ‘Some closings were simply postponed by winter storms, but buyers couldn’t get out to look at homes in some areas and that should negatively impact near-term contract activity,’ he said.

‘Although sales have been higher than year-ago levels for eight straight months and home prices are much more stable compared to the past few years, the housing recovery is fragile at the moment.’”

Read the full release: http://www.realtor.org/press_room/news_releases/2010/03/ehs_ease

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“The uncertain line between hope and despair divides this exurb of Phoenix, where the trim stucco houses used to sell so briskly.

It winds around the swimming pools and the pebbled yards of East Montgomery Road like a slow-burning fuse.

On one side are people like the Setbackens, Gary and Cissie, who moved here from Washington State and, with prudence, have managed to pay their mortgage bill month after month. On the other side are those like Kelley Carter, who never dreamed that home prices would fall so hard, and got in over their heads.

Two in five homeowners in this sprawling development 30 miles northeast of Phoenix are underwater on their mortgages. And that reality is wearing away household budgets and people’s patience…”

Read the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/business/23lend.html

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“More home buyers are snapping up properties with cash, a trend driven in large part by investors returning to the market after four years of falling prices around the country.

The share of home sales involving all-cash transactions was 26% in January, up from 18% a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors. The figures come from a survey of members about their most recent transactions. Many home buyers also are paying cash, but investors are largely using cash so they can avoid paying interest charges on loans and get a larger return on their investment…”

Read the full article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2010-03-22-homeinvestors22_ST_N.htm

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“For the Phoenix area housing economy, 2009 might be remembered as Year of the Investor.

Of the 79,000 home sales that closed in Maricopa County in 2009, a majority were connected to real estate investor activity. All sales were somehow influenced by investor presence.

Thousands of individuals and institutions with dollars, deutschemarks, dinars or yen to spend began buying up homes in the Phoenix area after learning of an unprecedented spike in lender-initiated foreclosures that was clearing families out of starter-home subdivisions as quickly as deferred-payment plansnd zero-down financing had ushered them in a few years earlier.

In 2009, investors had both hands on just about every housing-market mechanism…”

Read the full article: http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/2010/03/21/20100321real-estate-investors-phoenix-homes.html

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“Phoenix area home prices could experience another drop in value because of tens of thousands of properties that could flood the market in 2010.

This shadow inventory, located across metropolitan Phoenix, is threatening the recovery of the real estate market and overall Arizona economy.

It includes an unknown number of pending foreclosures, bank-owned homes bought at foreclosure auctions by investors who might try for a quick sale, thousands of homes foreclosed on by banks that have not yet put them up for resale and homes that will go into foreclosure after their owners abandon them and walk away from their mortgages…”

Read the full article: http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/2010/03/20/20100320phoenix-home-values-could-fall-more.html

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“Homes that fall into foreclosure in Phoenix are sold at a public auction. The highest bidder becomes the new owner. The former owner then has to move out.

Departing owners have five days under Arizona law to vacate the property. But in the overheated foreclosure market that has come in the wake of the metropolitan Phoenix housing crash, some people are being told to get out the same day their house is sold at auction.

In some cases, people aren’t allowed back into their house to collect their belongings. In others, people leave the house for a few hours, and the new owner changes the locks.

Facing aggressive foreclosure buyers who want to resell homes quickly, struggling homeowners often don’t know their rights…”

Read the full article: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/03/07/20100307evictions0307.html

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“Tuesday’s latest home-price reading shows that momentum slowed at the end of 2009 for the housing market, adding to the confusion about where prices are headed from here.

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite index in December fell 0.2% from November, but after adjusting for seasonal factors, home prices were up 0.3%. That was the same change that the index showed in November.

Fifteen of 20 markets tracked by the index showed monthly declines, though the battered Southwest fared well. Las Vegas had its first monthly gain in more than three years (and today’s story helps to explain why conditions there have improved), while Los Angeles led the nation with a 1% monthly increase…”

Read the full article: http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2010/02/23/case-shiller-adds-to-confusion-on-housing-market/

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