After you buy that Scottsdale home, you’ll want to know what to do, so here is a great video about what to do in Scottsdale that was made by the Intercontinental Hotel in Paradise Valley.

Check it out!

The real estate bust appears to the main driver behind Arizona bankruptcies.

The recent easing could prove to be a summer lull. Diane L. Drain, a Phoenix bankruptcy attorney, said she expects the tally to rise in coming months, citing a spike in local foreclosures over the past few weeks. Foreclosures often are a precursor to more bankruptcies, she said.

Although unemployment is a catalyst that persuades some debtors to file for bankruptcy protection, Drain pointed to lower housing values as the main factor.

“Real estate is the biggest reason people are calling and asking for help,” she said.

Some calls are from homeowners who have been using credit cards to help pay their mortgages and finally have decided they no longer can afford the home, Drain said.

“They’re often at a point where all the other debt has piled up because they have struggled to service the real-estate debt, so they decide to let the house go,” she said.

Joe Volin, a bankruptcy attorney in Tempe, also cites housing problems as a primary motivator.

“If a person’s only problem is a first mortgage on a house, he or she rarely will need to file for bankruptcy in Arizona,” he said, citing consumer protection given by the state’s anti-deficiency statutes.

But in many serious cases, debtors have taken out other loans on the property, maxed out their credit cards and amassed additional IOUs, he said.

Chapter 7 filings, which provide a fresh financial start after a debtor’s non-exempt assets are used to pay creditors, accounted for four in five Valley bankruptcies last month.

Conclusion: Don’t use your credit cards to pay your mortgage.

(Via KeytLaw.com.)

Parenting magazine ranked Scottsdale #8 on family environment.

From The Arizona Republic.

Here’s a great little video from Kristin LaVanway of the East Valley Team at Thompson’s Realty.

Outstanding HOA fees are a constant pain in the neck and they can kill deals. I had a buyer in the Spring who backed out of a transaction because the seller wouldn’t agree to language committing the seller to pay all outstanding HOA fees, liens and legal fees. (Earlier, I wondered why the seller wanted a weird change to the HOA Addendum!) I’m sure glad we found the outstanding fees (over $2,000) during the inspection period.

The quote below is from Christopher Charles at the Combs Law Group. I can’t find this information on their website, I got it via email.

By the way, check out the makeover to the Combs Law Group blog. Their website used to be terrible but now it’s quite good… except that I can’t find this information on their website.

Following the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009, the Arizona Legislature recently enacted a new law that compels landlords to provide written notice to tenants if a rental property is already in foreclosure. The new law, A.R.S. §33-1331, provides that if a property is in the foreclosure process, before renting the property, the owner must include specific language in any lease agreement warning the tenant that the property may result in foreclosure.

The new law gives tenants the following remedies against landlords who fail to give the notice:

Deliver written notice to the landlord informing him or her of the violation and that the lease will terminate in ten days if the violation is not remedied within ten days; Obtain injunctive relief; and Obtain a refund of the security deposit.

The new law is intended to work in conjunction with the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009. The Act essentially provides that, if a tenant has a bona fide lease in place at the time that there is a recorded notice by the lender of a foreclosure, the new owner must honor the tenant’s lease.

Great graph of foreclosures from John Hall & Associates website.

Comments from Jim Sexton of John Hall & Associates on the Phoenix foreclosure market are here.

The chart shows that New Notices of Trustee Sales are down 21% for the first 5 months of 2010 compared to 2009; Completed foreclosures are up 16% ; Pending Foreclosures are down 13% since the first of the year; and the biggest change is 70% more Cancelled in 2010 than the first 5 months last year. The current number of Bank Owned properties in Maricopa County is 16,301, which is made up of 5200 Active listings; 3850 are Pending; and the balance of 7250 are waiting to be marketed.

Bank of America official says mortgage walkaways highest ever.

BofA’s credit loss mitigation executive, Jack Schakett, said the amount of strategic defaulters (those who can pay their loans but opt not to) are “more than we have ever experienced before.” He went on to say, “there is a huge incentive for customers to walk away because getting free rent and waiting out foreclosure can be very appealing to customers.” [emphasis mine]

This is the best report I’ve seen on the situation and outlook for short sales in the metro Phoenix area.

The report was written by Mike Orr of the Cromford Report. Mike is one of only a handful of people who I think understand the metro Phoenix real estate market as well as I do.

“In the above chart we see that while the total number of active listings has fallen by 23% since January 2009, the number of short sales offered for sale has grown by 50%.”

Mike’s Conclusion

“The end of the REO market is certainly not here yet but in the last few months we have seen a significant drop in the flow of new Notices of Trustee Sales. An increase in cancelled Trustee Sales also suggests that the supply of bank-owned properties is starting to dry up and will fall back to more normal levels over the next two to three years. However the situation that creates short sales (negative equity) is here for the foreseeable future… I suspect that bargain hunters in the market, who make up the vast majority of buyers, are increasingly going to be looking at short sales to satisfy their needs. The analysis by price range and of the ZIP codes with the highest penetration by short sales both suggest that short sale pricing is getting increasingly competitive with REOs.”

Read it all.

The median home price in Scottsdale in April was $360,000 in April, down 10 percent from a year ago and a dip of 3.2 percent from January, according to an Arizona State University Realty Studies monthly report released last week.

The ASU report shows foreclosure activity is hitting higher-priced homes as well. In April, 17 homes valued at more than $1 million were foreclosed on, including three over $2 million.

Foreclosures accounted for 34 percent of the home sales Valley-wide last month, compared with 18 percent in Scottsdale.

“The surge could be related to the end of the foreclosure moratoriums put in place in late 2009 and the still-weak economy,” said Jay Butler, ASU associate professor of real estate.

Arizona had the nation’s second-highest foreclosure rate in April behind Nevada, according to a RealtyTrac report. One of every 169 homes in the state received a foreclosure filing last month, double the national average.

Recently foreclosed homes that were resold accounted for about one in four of the traditional home sales in the Valley last month, ASU Realty Studies reported.

In north Scottsdale, the median price was $448,000 for traditional sales and $351,000 for foreclosed homes.

South Scottsdale’s median price was $195,000 for traditional sales and $179,260 for foreclosed homes.

Paradise Valley’s median price was $1 million. It was as high as $2.06 million in May 2006.

The Valley’s overall median price was $144,000.

From AZCentral’s Real Estate and Growth blog.

Arizona Law #1 – Foreclosure consultants can’t charge up-front fees.

SB 1130 regulates the growing number of foreclosure consultants working with homeowners. This legislation makes it illegal for foreclosure consultants to collect upfront fees from homeowners. Consultants must also disclose all fees through a signed contract, which a homeowner can cancel up to three days after signing. The bill gives homeowners the right to recover damages from foreclosure consultants, and state and county prosecutors the ability to file criminal charges against any consultant or firm that breaks the new law.

Arizona Law #2 – Tracking down purchasers of foreclosures.

HB 2479 requires more identification from buyers of foreclosure properties. The law requires foreclosure documentation contain a name and contact information of the person responsible for the property. This information will assist cities in contacting someone to take care of vandalism and maintenance issues on foreclosure homes.