04/29/07
Metropolitan Phoenix is poised to become an inland port for cargo ships landing on the West Coast. Once again, the Valley’s inexpensive land and industrial space and proximity to Interstate 10 could bring the area more distribution centers and jobs. More…
Filed under:
General,
Business
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 11:10 am
New Inc. magazine rankings have economic leaders in Yuma and Prescott bragging about their cities’ ability to handle rapid population growth while still meeting the urgent needs of fledgling and established companies. The two cities nabbed the No. 2 and 3 spots, respectively, on the monthly business magazine’s 2007 list of the top 393 U.S. metropolitan areas in which to start a business. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 11:06 am
As many homeowners are lamenting flat or falling home prices, Phoenix-area apartment renters are watching monthly rents rise. The rent for the average Valley apartment recently topped $800 for the first time. A first-quarter report just released from RealFacts put the monthly payment on a typical apartment at $805. The real estate data firm reports Valley rents climbed 4.4 percent during the past year. More…
Filed under:
General
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 11:04 am
A plan for spending $6 billion on Arizona highway projects during the next five years was presented Friday by the Arizona Department of Transportation. The tentative 2008-12 budget, which includes $3.64 billion for Maricopa County projects, was given to the State Transportation Board for future approval during a public hearing and board meeting. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate,
Mortgages
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 11:00 am
They offer struggling homeowners kind words and, most of all, help. The calls come quickly, sometimes less than an hour after foreclosure proceedings are filed. Fliers and handwritten letters promising assistance fill homeowners’ mailboxes. For those on the verge of losing their home, foreclosure-rescue groups seem like their only hope. But many so-called rescuers aren’t helping at all. More…
04/28/07
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:57 pm
In the Phoenix area, the nearest comparison to the national new home sales firgures is the monthly building permit count taken by RL Brown of Home Builders Marketing. Brown’s latest figures are for February; the March numbers are due out in the next few days. He reported that permits in Maricopa and Pinal counties were down 2.86 percent between February and the same month a year ago. That’s a mild decline but Brown pointed out that more than 18 percent of the total of new permits came from condos. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:55 pm
Sale is completed of planned Camelback 303 Business Center Grubb & Ellis|BRE Commercial LLC has completed the sale of the planned Camelback 303 Business Center to Liberty Property Trust. The 119-acre project is at the southwestern corner of Camelback Road and Cotton Lane in Goodyear. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:53 pm
The ongoing saga of Arizona vs. Zillow.com will not end. When the state Board of Appraisal recently revealed that it had sent cease-and-desist letters to the Seattle Web-based real estate start-up in July and November, it failed to disclose that it had language pending in the Arizona Legislature that would have conclusively outlawed Zillow.com and other consumer-oriented Automated Valuation Methods. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:47 pm
The company developing an urban village project complementing Goodyear’s planned spring training baseball stadium could get as much as $5 million in incentives from the city. The City Council this week approved a notice of intent to provide tax rebates to Rose Properties Southwest. The Goodyear-based firm has been tapped to develop Ballpark Village, a pedestrian-friendly retail, office, residential and hotel complex alongside the proposed 10,000-seat stadium. The Cleveland Indians are moving their spring training home from Florida to Goodyear next year. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:44 pm
The location and the demographics are the key reasons for the development of CityNorth in the Desert Ridge area of northeast Phoenix. Where else in town can a developer find a large parcel of land served by a freeway and two interchanges, smack in the middle of one of Phoenix’s wealthiest neighborhoods? More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:42 pm
The proposed height of the $450 million luxury residential resort on the northwestern corner of 44th Street and Camelback Road is irritating some residents who say the building could be obtrusive. The proposal includes 300,000 square feet of retail, commercial and residential buildings ranging up to 98 feet. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:34 pm
Tempe is poised to take a big bite out of the Valley’s luxury-hotel industry. The city currently holds a fraction of the Valley’s 55,000 hotel rooms; it has 5,369 rooms among 44 hotels. But now there are plans for nine new hotels and the expansion of an existing one, adding a total of 1,750 rooms. Five of those hotels would be upscale properties, with better-than-average amenities like restaurants, bars and spas. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:31 pm
By one measure, the Desert Ridge area of northeast Phoenix is almost finished. More than 90 percent of the available land has been sold to developers, much of it at record-breaking prices. But in some ways, the master-planned community has barely gotten started, even though the first land transactions in the area took place 14 years ago. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:29 pm
Developers showed up, some with checks in hand, but none bid Tuesday on 125 acres of prime state trust land in the Scottsdale Airpark area. The Arizona State Land Department was seeking a minimum bid of $549,000 per acre, or $68.5 million, for a 99-yearlease of the land northeast of Bell Road and Loop 101. More…
Filed under:
General
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 5:21 pm
It stopped traffic. It turned heads. It worked. Crawling down Washington Street like an overgrown toddler, a Metro light-rail vehicle made its maiden voyage under its own power on Tuesday. The train crept down a mile of track at a top speed of 3 mph with a team of engineers strutting alongside like proud parents. More…
04/21/07
Filed under:
General
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 4:52 pm
Pack your bags, Relocate-America.com has released it’s list of America’s Top 100 Places to Live for 2007 and Phoenix is not on the list. Four Arizona cities made the cut, but the only hot spot in the metro area is Surprise. Kingman, Lake Havasu City and Sierra Vista also made the list. More…
Filed under:
General,
Mortgages
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 4:44 pm
WASHINGTON - The heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said Tuesday the mortgage finance giants are developing new types of loans to help distressed borrowers with high-risk mortgages keep their homes at a time of rising foreclosures. A key federal regulator also urged lenders to step in now and extend flexible terms to struggling homeowners. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 4:42 pm
A Boston developer paid $46 million for land at Seventh Street and Deer Valley Road to build a master-planned business park that includes a hotel and office condominiums. The Vazza Co. plans to develop the 81-acre site as North Valley Corporate Center, with mixed-use office, flex space, retail, a hotel and single-story office condominiums, according to Colliers International, which brokered the deal with seller Deer Namwest LLC of Phoenix. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 3:46 pm
Biltmore shoppers can soon feel protected from oncoming traffic while crossing Camelback Road. Construction for the pedestrian underpass that cuts through busy Camelback Road from the Camelback Esplanade to Biltmore Fashion Park is nearly complete. A grand opening ceremony is May 5. More…
Filed under:
General,
Real Estate
Posted by:
Lillian Wong @ 3:45 pm
Not much of the Desert Ridge area is left for developers. But for now, plenty of open space remains for the 3,000 homeowners who began moving to the master-planned development in north Phoenix in the late 1990s. Tuesday’s record-breaking sale of 269 acres means a little more of that open space will be covered - in this case with 3,700 homes. More…