The latest news about the fate of 44 Monroe, the luxury high-rise development in downtown Phoenix, has been released. The next dwellers at 44 Monroe won’t be signing a deed of trust, they’ll be penning their name to a lease agreement.

The owners of 44 Monroe have decided not to offer the 180+ condos to the sales market. Instead they will be offered for lease. Truth be told, I think this is a brilliant move. They probably arrived at the same conclusion many of us who work and study the downtown real estate market on a daily basis… there are too many units at too high a price point compounded by expensive HOA’s to work at this time.

There are a lot of condos.lofts and townhouses for sale in the downtown region.  One Lexington still has 56 units for sale, Chateau on Central just opened with 21 homes, 3rd Avenue Palms has already sold 18 units, yet has a tad over 50 waiting to find owners and an additional 120+ condos are on the resale market in the downtown and uptown Phoenix region. This adds up to a lot of competition and most with better price points and lower HOA’s.

The announcement of 44 Monroe becoming luxury rentals is a surprise to many, yet conforms to what we wrote about 44 Monroe last July. We expressed our doubts that condos at 44 Monroe would be offered for sale at any time in the near future. To be honest, we were very surprised when Edmunds announced units would be on the market in the Fall of 2010. It simply did not make sense. In retrospect I guess it didn’t to them either.

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

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