Featured Articles

Sweet Home Deals in FQ Story Historic Phoenix

I can’t really explain it but there are a lot of homes for sale in FQ Story these days. When I searched for homes in FQ Story today for a client I found 14 homes on the market.That compares with only 4 homes for sale in Encanto Palmcroft. Pretty strange but good news if you’ve been thinking about buying in FQ Story.

For those who don’t know too much about FQ Stroy, we have an article posted on our original Urban Team site that has a bit of history.  Here is a link to the article:

Information and History About The FQ Story Historic District In Downtown Phoenix, AZ

If you would like to see what is currently for sale in FQ Story, our famous downtown home search tool is here for you. We created a niche search that show just the historic homes for sale in FQ Story. If you want to see what other homes, condos, lofts are for sale in the downtown Phoenix area, go to our hone search page… there is a link in the navigation bar on top.

Home Currently for Sale in FQ Story… ckick the link

If you would like to take a look at one of these FQ Story homes, let us know. We’d love to connect you to the perfect space. Its our mission in life.

Gene Urban and Ron Urban
The Urban Connection Team
602-234-5777

connecting people to the perfect space

Short Sales and Bank Owned Homes Offer Sweet Downtown Historic Deals

Have you thought about buying a historic home in downtown Phoenix. In years past the prices made this impossible for many. Now, however, short sales and bank owned historic homes have made ownership possible for many more people.

I just ran a search of homes in the downtown region built prior to 1945 and a number of short sale or bank owned homes were among the offerings. FQ Story has a couple homes in the $150,000 range and there was one in Palmcroft for $295,000 or about the same price it sold for in 2003.

There are positives and negatives to buying short sales and bank owned homes. Probably the most significant is these homes are generally sold in AS-IS condition. As Is, in most cases, means the owner of the home will not be making any repairs to the home prior to the buyer taking possession. This is not the case when buying from a traditional home seller who often expects to make some repairs. We have a page on this site that takes a more in depth look at what AS IS means and you may want to take a look at the post and accompanying YouTube video on buying a home in as is condition.

Lender owned homes, most of the time, do not have many other complications outside of the AS IS issue. That can not be said for short sales though. Short sales can be so complex we actually created a web site devoted to the subject of short sales. For information about buying a short sale in downtown Phoenix please visit www.short-sale-phoenix.com.

That’s probably enough for this post. If you want to search for historic homes currently on the market in the downtown Phoenix area, we have a killer home search tool on the site. Here is a link to the search for downtown homes page.

Best to you,

Gene Urban and Ron Urban
The Urban Connection Realty Team
602-234-5777

connecting people to the perfect space

Information About HAFA and Short Sales in Phoenix

Short sales are big news in the real estate industry these days. With a large number of people owning more on their home/condo than its worth, folks are pondering a short sale as one of their options. This is evident in the downtown region with about 1/4th of all active listings being short sales.

The US Government, for better or worse, has adopted a program called HAFA (Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative) to help streamline the short sale process. Some of our readers have emailed asking: What is the HAFA program?  We are here today to answer that question.

In case you don’t know. the Urban Connection team launched a site dedicated to information about short sales last Fall. We have well over 100 pages of short sale articles, short sale news, an FAQ section and much more. We just added a page describing the HAFA program and its guidelines. Below is a link to that piece so you can be an expert on the HAFA program and impress your friends and coworkers with your in depth knowledge on the subject.

What is the HAFA Program for short sales in AZ?

If you know someone who needs more information about short sales, please know we are there for them. Short sales are not for everyone and there are legal and tax issues that need to be explored before moving forward with this option. We would be delighted to help navigate the short sale waters.

Gene Urban & Ron Urban
The Urban Connection Team
602-234-5777
Gene@UrbanTeamAZ.com

connecting people to the perfect space

Lenders Use Deception to Get Promissory Note Signed

Many of our readers know we are very involved with people trying to sell their home by short sale. We have a dedicated short sale site, Short-Sale-Phoenix.com and have written dozens of articles on the subject including our newest about how some lenders and PMI companies use lies, mistruths and threats to intimidate homeowners into signing promissory notes. I know you are shocked a bank would do such a thing… Not.

Anyway, we just posted a real world example of the email one of our clients received from their lender. Our clients are ideal short sale candidates… they both lost their jobs, the husband’s new job pay 40% less and is 30 miles from their house, they can no longer afford their house payments, they had just one loan and they did not refinance and take money out.

We listed their home last January and  a well qualified buyer was brought in by an agent. The short sale package was professionally put together by a law firm who handled the conversations between the lender and the homeowner. Five months later we finally get conditional short sale approval from the lender.

Check out what the bank had to offer after 5 months of lender red tape on our sister site, UrbanLIfe Blog.com.

Lenders and PMI Companies Use Mistruths and Intimidation

Yaple Park Historic District Information

A BIT OF YAPLE PARK’S HISTORY:

Yaple Park Historic district is a history lesson of 20th century Phoenix told through houses and buildings. 

Yaple Park roots date back to 1899 when James & Sue Yaple purchased about 30 acres of land below the Grand Canal between what is now 7th and 3rd Avenue. The Yaple’s were grain and citrus growers who utilized the canal system for irrigation.

Mr. Yaple passed on in 1911 leaving the operation to his wife. Sue carried on the farm until 1929 when she swung a deal with the Coggins Title Company to subdivide and develop the property. Today, we know 1929 was a very bad time to start a new project. Despite great effort, only 10 homes were built and the project laid dormant while the nation recovered from the Great Depression.

Floyd Medlock (of Medlock Historic District fame) took over the reigns in the late 30’s and was the driving force behind much of the development with 60 homes built between 1937 and 1941. The Federal Housing Authority had strong influence over the development, mandating homes that were “safe, sturdy and efficient.” It is no wonder we see so many transitional ranch style homes in the area (68%) as these conformed to the FHA lending standards many new homeowners used to finance their purchase. It is humorous today to hear that Mr. Medlock enticed buyers with promises of low taxes (Yaple Park with outside the city limits) and country living.

THE YAPLE PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT:

Today, Yaple Park is considered an excellent example of FHA influenced housing. Only one home, located at 615 W. Miinezona, stands from the days of the original Yaple farm. The 107 single family homes are generally modest in nature with gracious front yards and lush vegetation made possible by flood irrigation used in the area. 

In addition to the dozens of transitional ranch homes, visitors to Yaple park are treated to many other styles including: Spanish Colonial Revival, French Provincial Revival, English Cottage, Monterrey Revival, Cape Cod, Pueblo Revival and fun Art Moderne.

The streets in Yaple Park are fairly wide. Large trees and rich vegetation give the neighborhood a cozy well lived feeling. It’s location, adjacent to the Grand Canal, make canal jaunts by foot or  bike a popular neighborhood activity. Proximity to the light rail gives resident’s easy access to the downtown region with its art, shopping, sporting events, restaurants and more.

We give Yaple a high thumbs up for location, upkeep of the neighborhood, maturity of vegetation, historical significance and general affordability.  Naturally, you won’t find the glorious revival style homes of the 20’s here, yet you will be treated to a feeling of neighborhood and history.

Below you’ll find a virtual slide-show tour of Yaple Park as well as up-to-date information about homes for sale in the area. If you want to view one of the available properties, just let us know and we’ll arrange an appointment.

 

Click to See What Homes Are Currently For Sale
In Yaple Park Historic District

Gene Urban & Ron Urban
The Urban Connection Real Estate Team
602-234-5777

connecting people to the perfect space

44 Monroe Future Still Unknown

44 Monroe, the exclusive condo tower in downtown Phoenix did go to trustee sale and the documents were recorded on June 1, 2010. Many wonder when 44 Monroe condo units will be available for purchase and at what price.

To be honest, no one currently knows. 186 of the 201 units were purchased by Corus Construction Venture, LLC for twenty million dollars. The remaining 15 units are privately owned. If you do the math, CCV picked up the available condos for about $107,500 each plus acquisition costs.

Many speculate Corus Construction Ventures, a subsidiary of Starwood Capital Group, will release the units soon. Personally, we believe it will be some time off. This isn’t a pessimistic belief, rather a realistic look at the facts.

• The new owner will have to file the Disclosure Report application with the Arizona Department of Real Estate prior to offering the units for sale.
• A sales brokerage will need to be selected and staffed for the project. Starwood may elect to form their own real estate brokerage or hire an existing one.
• Starwood will conduct a full market analysis to determine the potential of their investment.
• Starwood/Corus will need to find a mortgage lender willing to finance potential condo sales. As it stands, the units do not qualify for FHA or conventional financing and a partner willing to take a risk has to be found. Perhaps MetLife Home Loans will step up to the plate like they have at One Lexington.
• Perhaps the biggest question lies with Starwood’s head honcho, Barry Stenlicht. Stenlicht, in a recent New York Times interview made an interesting statement that could indicate his intentions for 44 Monroe.

Mr. Sternlicht hopes to foreclose on many of Corus’s errant borrowers, restyle their buildings and sell units for a significant profit once the real estate market recovers. He says he and his investors can afford to wait until then because the F.D.I.C. has provided them with $1.4 billion in zero-coupon financing and an additional $1 billion in low-cost loans that can be used to complete unfinished projects.

The Urban Connection team is in a wait and see on when units will be released for sale. No doubt there will be a lot of press as we expect them to hire a top advertising agency to put together a strong marketing campaign. In addition, we don’t expect super low prices; Barry Stenlicht likes to make big profits and he has deep enough assets to wait until the time is right.

Gene Urban & Ron Urban
The Urban Connection Team at Realty Executives
602-234-5777

Vanishing Phoenix and Downtown’s Fox Theater

Robert Melikian, owner of the San Carlos Hotel, offered a presentation yesterday of his new book Vanishing Phoenix. The talk, hosted by the City of Phoenix, gathered a standing room only crowd as Melikian took us on a tour of great buildings and homes lost over the years.

Rob’s talk was an amazing history lesson and it was very sad. Many epic places are gone forever and some of what replaced them is anomic.

For me, the most awful loss is the Fox Theater once located on the SE corner of Washington and 2nd Street in downtown Phoenix. The Fox Theater was built in the early 1930’s and featured an Art Deco design by famed theater architect S. Charles Lee.

Most experts suggest the Fox Theater Phoenix was Lee’s most outstanding work… no small statement when you look at the breadth of his achievements. Below is an excerpt from Cinema Treasures that describes some of the interior:

A special feature in its lobby was the row of streetlights alongside the staircase, topped with glass disks and spun in silver globes on the end of 15-foot uprights, outlined by the delicate filigree of the metal railing.
In the auditorium, a metallic sunburst spread across the ceiling from the radiating acoustic frames of the proscenium arch. The organ grills were silver leafed with gold highlights. 0n the side wall an archer takes aim at a gazelle, while birds fly overhead.

If you talk to some long-term-Phoenix native you’ll hear many stories about an evening out at the Fox Theater. It was the first building to have air-conditioning and they would let people put their groceries in the refrigerators while they watched a film.

Alas, the economic downturn of the downtown Phoenix region and competition from new theaters like the Cine Capri cast a large shadow on the Fox Theater economically. In its later years it was home to a variety of retail shops and home to Dr. Please, a well known dentist.

The Fox Theater met its demise in 1975 when the City purchased the building and land to make room for a city bus terminal. Is that sad or what? To add insult to injury, the bus terminal didn’t survive as the property that once housed one of America’s great theaters is now a parking lot.

We are working on obtaining rights to show more pictures of the Fox Theater and will post these when and if that comes about.

In the meantime, we highly recommend you pick up a copy of Vanishing Phoenix. You can buy an autographed copy at the San Carlos Hotel or at booksellers around the valley and online. You find lots more information about the Fox Theater as well as numerous other grand buildings and homes that have vanished from downtown Phoenix.

Gene Urban and Ron Urban
The Urban Connection Team
602-234-5777
connecting people to the perfect space

Search For Homes, Condos, Rentals

We like to think our downtown Phoenix home search tool is second to none. It offers map based searches and allows you to search based on a variety of features and benefits including “walk score.”  We have set up the search engine to provide several niche searches for your convenience.

The information is real-time and provided by ARMLS, the MLS system used by Realtors in the Greater Phoenix Area.  If you have questions about a property, call or toss us an email and we’ll do our best to get you answers.

NOTES ABOUT SEARCHING:

When you click on one of the links a map will be displayed. At the top is a zoom button. Click to zoom in and you will see a number of green icons show up. These are the listings for your particular search. If you move your mouse over the green icon it will show you basic info about the property. If you click on the icon a detail page will open with lots of info, pictures and other data.

You can customize the search as much as you want. Just change the search criteria such as price, number of bedrooms and size. We also have a help guide that will give you instructions on how to utilize the additional features this property search tool offers.

Search For Single Family Homes In Downtown, Midtown and Central Phoenix

Search for Condos and Lofts in the Downtown, Midtown and Central Phoenix

Search for Rental Properties in Downtown, Midtown and Central Phoenix

Search for Historic Homes in Downtown, Midtown and Central Phoenix

Search for Commercial Properties in Downtown, Midtown and Central Phoenix

Search for all types of properties throughout Greater Phoenix

Fairview Place Affordable Historic Living

Fairview Place is one of the more affordable historic home districts in the downtown Phoenix areas in the downtown Phoenix area. There are trade offs in that it resides to the west of Encanto/Palmcroft and not easy walking distance to light rail and many downtown venues. Grand Ave is close by, as is Encanto Park and many 7th Ave businesses. Below is an overview of Fairview Place with a some history and our current take on the area.

Fairview Place… a brief history

Fariview Place is a historic neighborhood with roots back to the early 1900’s. Like most of the housing in the downtown Phoenix area, growth was sustained by the 1911 completion of the Roosevelt dam and subsequent stable water supply to the area.

Fairview Place was platted in 1916, an aggressive move considering how “rural” the public considered the area back then. Today it is hard to imagine the district, bounded by McDowell, Encanto, 15th Ave and 17th Ave as rural. However, in the early 1900’s anything west of 7th Ave was out of the city limits, trolley car lines and decent roads. In addition, the Cave Creek wash was uncontrolled and often flooded the area. The result was that original project developer, Star Realty, built nary a home.

The roaring twenties brought people and success to Fairview Place. The Cave Creek dam was built, cars were more prevalent lessening the need for mass transit and the growing cotton and citrus industries created jobs and housing demands.  The construction in the 20’s was dominated by revival style architecture termed Americanized Dutch by Fairview’s new developer, FW Mathiesen. Today we’d call these styles Southwest, Tudor and Spanish Colonial revival.

A second growth spurt began in the late 1930’s and demonstrated the huge influence the newly created FHA had on home building and architectural styles. FHA brought buyers through new and innovative mortgage options. In addition, they encouraged a more “mass-production” approach to home building with smaller homes and simpler designs. It is no wonder we see so many bungalows, and transitional ranch homes in the area as well as the use of locally manufactured red brick from the Phoenix Brickyard Company.

If you are planning to live in Fairview Place you will join the ranks of many notables including:

• Wesley Bolin – Former Governor of Arizona
• Tom Chauncey – Media Magnet and Arabian Horse legend
• Gladys Bagley – Rare woman editor at the Arizona Republic

FAIRVIEW PLACE IN OUR TIME

Fairview Place offers good value for those seeking the historic home lifestyle in downtown Phoenix. Its inclusion into the National Historic Registry in 1994, relatively large size (342 homes) and variety of architectural styles (14 noted in the historic records) makes it important and valuable. Its location in the western downtown region and smaller house/lot sizes has, most likely, kept the homes more affordable than nearby Willo and Encanto/Palmcroft.

Those seeking historic living and have had trouble finding an affordable place, Fairview Place may be your ticket.

A FEW THOUGHTS FROM THE URBAN TEAM:

We feel Fairview Place offers more reasonably priced historic homes than many of the other downtown historic districts. The district has many fine homes and its proximity to downtown’s offerings is an obvious plus. What it seems to lack is competitive marketing of the neighborhood. It needs an identifying quality and, for lack of a better word, brand. Willo is noted for the annual historic tour,  Encanto/Palmcroft has its elegance, Coronado has 1st Friday and a lot of community businesses. It is hard to put an identifier on Fairview.

We’d encourage the neighborhood to consider rezoning the homes facing 15th Avenue for light commercial development while keeping the homes intact. Road activity and noise diminish the residential value of the homes whereas boutique businesses like a small professional practice, neighborhood eateries and such would add value, excitement and more work-near-living opportunities. (We’d love to read some comments on this.)

Below you will find a virtual tour of the Fairview Place neighborhood as well as a complete listing of homes currently on the market in Fairview Place. If you would like more information on a specific home or the area, we are happy to help.

The Urban Connection Team
602-234-5777

WHAT IS CURRENTLY FOR SALE IN FAIRVIEW PLACE?  HERE IS A LOOK:

1930 Spanish Home in Willo For Sale

Broadmore in the Willo Historic Disctrict is home to many fine homes and this is one of them. It was built in 1930 so it reflects more of the roaring twenties style than later FHA influences.

We really like the early homes as they tend to have more charm and character. This home has both. You will enjoy the neighborhood from your multi-arched front porch with fine tile accents. The living room features a barrel celing and cozy fireplace with earthtone faux painted walls. The kitchens, baths and master have been carefully remodeled offering exceptional ammenities while maintaining historic dignity.

The french doors in the master open to a back yard and 500 sq.ft guest house with bath… a great space for a home office outside the home.

If you would like to view this property,  just let us know and we’ll take care of setting up an appointment. Simply use the form below.

Click  to view other historic properties currently for sale
in Downtown Phoenix

Use this form if you have any questions or would like to take a look at a home.

Listing is Courtesy of Realty Executives

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