I take a peak from time to time at the homes on the market in the greater Phoenix area. Is appears to me as if the feeding frenzy is over and many of the listings are staying on the market longer. I also see a drop in asking prices. (I'm looking at lower middle class homes.)

Is anyone else seeing the same thing?

I live in the NW corner of the state. We get Phoenix TV but I really don't watch the RE there much anymore. We did a couple of flips there around 2009. I don't even like driving through. Van Buren Av is more dangerous now than Chicago on a holiday weekend! Not to mention the weather. Where I live it's hot but at least we have spectacular scenery. Phoenix just has 118 degree smog.

Anyway, Phoenix, and AZ in general has mostly returned to boom values and seems to be slowing. Our NW area always lags. We are still slightly below boom levels but new construction is doing well. Not exploding like before (we were the fastest growing county in AZ) but steady.

I was in Scottsdale overnight (the fancy part of Phoenix) a couple months ago and have driven through Phoenix about six times since last summer. There's some construction, and out in Surprise out toward Wickenberg, but I didn't see the tracts going up everywhere on the outskirts like you see in Vegas. There's little to nothing going up in the south that I've seen from the freeway.

Same as you go north. Sedona is nice as always but virtually no construction. Flagstaff is stagnant as ever but values are at boom levels or beyond. However values never really fell up there, one reason we didn't buy a cabin in the bust, they were still 350k.

I DO see potential in Tucson though. I haven't spent enough time there, and the time I did spend was mostly spent in the hospital... but I saw areas where there might be flip potential, though prices seemed high but I'm sure there are deals. Lot of trendy areas and gentrification. There's some really "cool" houses there.

Here in GA we have a server shortage of rental homes. The sales north of Atlanta has slackened somewhat on existing homes but new homes (the shear number) is helping lower the existing older home resale market sales. Here on the south side, where we had thousands of foreclosures and purchases by investors-- some of those are being listed for sale but not many.

Our last listing was posted Monday on Craig's and zillow. 3/2 with 1 car garage CH&A. 975. Rent and 900 dep. We had 25 emails in 10 hrs and 16 phone calls-- we showed to 3 persons while we were there Monday and one couple submitted their app-- They have been approved. Home was taken off the market yesterday after receiving another 20+ calls and 20+ email inquiry's.

Bottom line-- we didn't ask enough-- that won't happen again on upcoming vacancy.

Observation: NY, NY,MA, IL, MI OH, keep up the good work running off your tax base we love it here as thousands are running from their beloved homes up north.

I've seen some small price drops around here, but we have 6 inches of snow standing on the ground, and that tends to slow down house sales.

The price drops seem to be on houses that were optimistically over-priced. I still don't see much that is listed for over a couple of weeks.

As for phoenix, water has got to become a limiting factor at some point.

Houses here are still overpriced but maybe slowing a little.

>>>Classic example: my home in GA is valued at about 300K I pay 700.00 in property tax cause I'm over 65. Pay no school tax since we have no kids in school. My sister lives in NY on LI same value home she is paying 17,000 in taxes and has no school in her town. (She is 70).<<<

R/E taxes in the northeast are bad. I got a bit of a relief moving from NJ to PA. It's not uncommon for some folks to be looking at bills in excess of 20K; it's like a mortgage you can never pay off.

I was MIA out of MCO on a RCI cruise-- Oasis of the seas. Cruise number 85 but who's counting?? Come May we are heading to HI for a 13 day cruise-- 7 around the islands and then 5 sea days to Vancouver. I'm making all those toilets I cleaned since 86-- pay me back.

myob, what is CH&A and how do you negotiate your deposit up?

Central heat and air.

Me to tenant: we've run your report and we can take you but we need to make an adjustment to the deposit. As I told you when you applied we don't like to turn anyone down but with your "rental history" if we take you I have to make some kind of adjustment. So we changed the dep from 900 to 1800.00. I know that's a lot but your asking me to stick my neck out by taking you and you'll have to stick your's out too. The deposit is fully refundable at the end of the lease.

After all these years it just rolls off your tongue.....

6X remember they made their own bad credit not us. We have a solution-- not a turn down--- as they have been hearing on every app they've made.

LTD, if you want the fancy part of PHX you've got to see Paradise Valley. I love it here in Scottsdale, though. Beats CA all hollow.

There is tract housing going up here, far to the northeast. Some people we know just moved into a 1400 home gated community in Rio Verde. Keep in mind much of the land in these parts is owned by the federal government and some of the rest are Indian reservations.

I don't know about lower middle class homes but the 700K and up market is doing just fine, partly because of CA expats like me. With every scary news story out of CA, more people decide to pack up and leave.