America: Too Big to Fail? - A thorough article that delves into the past to figure out why our nation’s economy is like this today. Will Fannie and Freddie survive? What’s in store for the nation in the last two quarters of 2008?

Many Share the Blame for the Housing Crisis - Everybody’s responsible. The buyer and the seller. The agent and the brokerage. The mortgage company and the investors. It took all of us to tango into this mess.

AZ Opinion: Why Homes Around the University Will Always Rise - The area’s east and west of the University will be recession proof because our University is heavily invested into research and the enrollment is increasing every year. The Sam Hughes area is always highly sought out for a reason.

The press says that the monsoon season this year in Tucson will be a short one, even still, the opportunity to save money and do your part in helping out ecology is still out there. So what you can do is capture and save the rain water; you can either purchase a water silo at your nursery or dig ditches to irrigate the rainwater for you.

With a month and a half left in monsoon season, saving rainwater and using it to water your property for one week will save you 25% of your water bill. The more water saved, the more dollars saved. Everyone’s a winner in this situation.

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Despite the questionable future of spring training and its $31 million economic impact, a resolute Pima County Sports and Tourism Authority said it has no intention of letting baseball leave and it’s even trying to steal a team or two from Florida.

That was the message Wednesday during a community forum luncheon at a Tucson hotel, where authority members laid out plans to seek funding to improve Hi Corbett Field, Tucson Electric Park and possibly add another facility.

“It’s not about baseball. … It’s about the Tucson economy,” said Dan Schneider, the sports authority’s executive director. “We need to turn the momentum around.”

The authority was created earlier this year to find a long-term revenue source to retain teams and expand spring training in Tucson.

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Just came across this article that talks about Scottsdale, AZ, but if you read through it, it can be applied to Arizona real estate in general. So what we have here is that the economy is moving slowly, but the retirees and seniors have money to buy homes in retirement communities that redefine them; they’re creating new properties right now that wouldn’t fly for the single family market. I’m real interested and curious to find if these retirement communities will fare as well as expected even in the recession.

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Local builder Sierra Pacific Homes, now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is preparing to possibly sell off its roughly $20 million worth of land, according to court filings. The builder owns property in several local developments including Sonoita Ranch, Mountain Manor View, Vista Montana Estates, Countryside Manor, Andrada Ranch, Desert Point Estates and Valencia Alvernon Commerce Center, according to court documents.

Court filings say the builder is seeking to hire Chapman Lindsey Commercial Real Estate Services brokers James Marian and Dan Feig to market the landholdings. Scott Gan, an attorney with Mesch Clark & Rothschild representing the builder, said Sierra Pacific is planning to recover from bankruptcy and that it is hiring real estate brokers merely to “test the market.”

“They’re interested in trying to figure out whether it’s best to hold it, or if there’s a better opportunity to try to sell it,” Gan said.

The builder filed for reorganization bankruptcy on June 27 after defaulting on a loan owed to First National Bank of Arizona on most of Sierra Pacific’s land, Gan said. First National Bank, which is suffering financial troubles of its own related to the housing market, initiated foreclosure against the builder, he said.

The builder’s sales tumbled about 65 percent from 2006 to 2007 as the housing market slowed down, according to court documents. Revenue was about $43.5 million in 2006 and $15.4 million in 2007, the filings said.

Sierra Pacific is owned mostly by Torrance, Calif.-based Elite Homes, which has a 75 percent stake in the company, according to court documents. Locally, it is managed by Tri-Star Development Inc., which has a 25 percent stake. Tri-Star President John Agresti did not return a call for comment.

Sierra Pacific has built more than 500 homes in Tucson since 1993, according to its Web site.

Credit: AzStar.net