Arizona Real Estate News Access
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February 2007
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02/25/07
Mortgage company shut down
Filed under: General, Mortgages
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 5:33 pm

Regulators have shut down Mesa-based Eagle First Mortgage and its more than 75 Valley branches, citing illegal lending practices. The Arizona Department of Financial Institutions pulled the license of the mortgage firm and its broker, David Sanchez, last week. Regulators described more than 100 illegal money transactions, loan activities and hiring practices.  More…

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02/24/07
Phoenix OKs new plans to alter Patriots Square
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:37 am

The battle for Patriots Squarehas reached a milestone. Supporters of the $900 million mixed-use retail project to be built in downtown Phoenix rejoiced Thursday night when the Phoenix Parks Board approved the design, 5 to 2. The opposition was not pleased, but did not feel defeated.  More…

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$111 mil bond sale to fund new parks
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:32 am

Residents of southeast Chandler are one step closer to getting several new parks. The City Council cast its final vote Thursday to sell $111 million worth of bonds to finance new public recreation areas, improve roads, build a water treatment plant and add new police and fire buildings. A big chunk of the money - $42.5 million - is going for parks.  More…


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Revenue producer is proposed for 20 acres at Stapley, Southern
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:29 am

The northwestern corner of Southern Avenue and Stapley Drive has sat vacant for decades, a barren spot of desert in the middle of a city that grew up around it. But a Scottsdale-based development company has big plans for the site that could finally turn the 20 acres into a revenue producer for MesaMore…

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9-house project taking years to finish
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:26 am

A nine-house infill project in Ahwatukee Foothills has taken much longer to finish than anyone expected, with some buyers blaming the builder, and the developer blaming hillside rock - and sometimes a petroglyph on a nearby big rock. “It’s the hardest soil I’ve seen in 30 years of building homes,” said builder Larry Kush, owner of Montevina Estate Homes. “It’s solid rock. The whole mountain is solid granite.”  More…

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Mortgage scams began with simple forgeries
Filed under: General, Mortgages
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:19 am

One set of victims bought a house as an investment, only to realize that it belonged to someone else. Another had a lender knock on the door and immediately foreclose on the home, leaving the family on the street. They’re just a few examples of how a Valley mortgage-fraud ring with ties to a former Goodyear real estate agent left seven families in the lurch.  More…


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Builders work to expand ASU construction school
Filed under: General, Business, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:14 am

Construction is everywhere in metropolitan < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Phoenix. There’s light rail, the Phoenix Convention Center expansion and a new hotel in downtown Phoenix, and several mega-industrial spaces are popping up, particularly in the southwest Valley. Several infill projects, particularly in Scottsdale, and the new retail developments, schools and hospitals that have followed rooftops on the Valley’s fringes in every direction are keeping construction crews fully occupied.  More…

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Warehouse District high-rises OK’d
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:11 am

High-rise developers may build condos as high as 250 feet in one of the oldest pockets of Phoenix, just south of the heart of downtown. Phoenix officials last week rezoned about six blocks out of the city’s Warehouse District into the Downtown Core district.  More…

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Statute slows $300 mil downtown Chandler project
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:09 am

< ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Chandler officials have put the brakes on Niels Kreipke’s proposed $300 million downtown redevelopment project after a city attorney discovered a need to allow proposals from other developers. Kreipke had been scheduled to submit formal plans to the city Friday, but he said he received a phone call on Feb. 11 from City Manager Mark Pentz, telling him not to submit anything because a state statute requires the city to request competing proposals for about half of the affected land, which is owned by the city.  More…

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House bill to regulate stores offering payday loans falters
Filed under: General, Business
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:06 am

Vicky Greathouse needed cash when her mother-in-law passed away, but she said her longtime bank turned her away. The Glendale woman found help at a payday loan store. Last week, Greathouse testified at the state Capitol in defense of the much-criticized quick-cash stores, saying they serve a purpose. “People need a choice and a place to go in case something comes up and they need to make it from one payday to the next,” Greathouse said. The stores, allowed to open in Arizona in 2000, have multiplied in seven years. Glendale has about 40 outlets, most in the southern part of the city.  More…

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Affordable housing in Cave Creek
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 11:02 am

Despite the northeast Valley’s rapidly rising price of land, Habitat for Humanity Desert Foothills is breaking ground Saturday on its second affordable-housing project in Cave Creek. With land at $500,000 an acre, the non-profit group is struggling to find sites to build more homes for the estimated 600 families living in what Habitat President Jack Gardner calls “rats and rain buckets” housing.
About the same number, he said, pay far more than the 25 percent of income recommended for housing. 
More…

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Light rail funds request draws vocal opposition
Filed under: General, Business
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 10:56 am

A conservative fiscal watchdog group is opposing a plan to pump another $1.7 billion into the region’s still-under-construction light rail system. The Arizona Free Enterprise Club is against a plan being proposed that would ask the county, state and federal govenrments for as much as $1.7 billion for addtional routes and resouces.  More…

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Westcor set to start on West Valley projects
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 10:53 am

With approval from the Surprise City Council now in hand, development of a major northwest Valley retail project is expected to begin this year.  Prasada is a mixed-use project that covers more than 3,000 acres and is slated to include homes, a regional mall, an auto mall, a Catholic Healthcare West hospital and retail power centers. Westcor will develop an 1,800-acre retail component, between Greenway and Cactus Roads along Loop 303, also to be called Prasada.  More…

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Phoenix celebrates a coup: 800 jobs
Filed under: General, Business
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 10:50 am

What a difference a day makes. The day after losing a bid to snare US Airways’ 600-employee flight operations center, Phoenix learned it would land another major employer offering skilled, high-wage jobs: W.L Gore & Associates.   More…

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Surging assessments worry homeowners
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 10:48 am

Over the past few days, Debbie Cox, a Realtor in Surprise, has received more than a dozen faxes and phone calls from worried clients. It’s that time of year when the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office mails out property valuation notices, and some homeowners were surprised at what they saw for 2008.  More…

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02/22/07
Cronkite School breaks ground in downtown Phoenix
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 7:33 pm

The Walter Cronkite School of Mass Communication at Arizona State University broke ground Wednesday morning on a six-story, 223,000-square-foot complex at Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix. Cronkite, long-time anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and dubbed “the most trusted man on television,” was joined by Arizona State University President Michael Crow, Gov. Janet Napolitano, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, Dean Christopher Callahan and KAET General Manager Greg Giczi for the journalism school’s historic launch.  More…

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Popular dairy yields land to houses
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 7:29 pm

The cow-shaped sign carried a warning to neighbors and house-hunters around Dobson and Germann roads for years: “This dairy is not moving now or in the foreseeable future.” The sign is still up, but its words are no longer true. RC Dairy, a fixture that growing numbers of suburban neighbors saw - and smelled - for three decades is closing. The cows will be out by May, Assistant City Manager Pat McDermott said.  More…

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Home loan demand is lowest this year, despite drop in mortgage rates
Filed under: General, Mortgages
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 7:27 pm

NEW YORK — Mortgage applications dropped more than 5% last week, hitting their lowest level this year, even as interest rates fell, an industry trade group said Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and purchasing loans, for the week ended Feb. 16 fell 5.2% to 606.6. More…

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New Peoria housing projects target those who work in city
Filed under: General, Real Estate
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 7:22 pm

A new local home builder is bringing four infill projects to Peoria’s core to provide more workforce housing for West Valley residents.
CF Homes purchased the parcels last year to build a combination of single-family homes and townhouses. 
More…

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City’s latest top job ranking recognizes biotech impact
Filed under: General, Business
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 7:11 pm

It’s not just real estate that makes the Phoenix area one of the nation’s hottest job markets. This month’s Forbes list of the Best U.S. Cities for Jobs also recognizes efforts in attracting technology firms — biotech in particular — in ranking the region No. 2 for the second straight year.  More…

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