Scottsdale Real Estate Blog - Judy Orr

My First Impressions of Arizona

My parents had been living in Mesa, Az. for many years (10-15) before I finally visited them. When my boyfriend Jimmy (now my husband) heard I had never been there he insisted on taking me. My parents were very excited to finally be able to show me their home and their new state of residence. This would have been around 1999-2000.

I was finally excited to be going. As I've mentioned in a previous post, Arizona was not calling my name.

After departing the airplane I noticed that the Phoenix Airport seemed small and more congested than our two Illinois airports. Not impressed yet.

Driving from the airport to my parent’s house didn’t instill much excitement in me, either. I did notice that things seemed cleaner from my highway view. I enjoyed…

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Scottsdale Condo Sales Remain Strong

I read an interesting article in an e-mail I received from one of my many real estate magazines. Sales of single-family Scottsdale homes dropped off 2.9% compared to October of 2004. However, the Scottsdale condo market has remained strong. Condo sales were up 10.2% from October 2004.

I don’t remember Scottsdale condo sales outpacing single-family homes. I certainly could have missed some past statistics but this surprised me. I guess with the huge price increases we’ve seen in the past 2 to 3 years, many first-time buyers are simply being priced out of single-family homes. Or, maybe it’s that baby boomers are downsizing. Could be a bit of both.

The median home price for Scottsdale real estate in October went from $184,000 in ’04 to $209,900 this…

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Scottsdale Arizona Housing Outlook

If you ask someone what their opinion is on Scottsdale real estate in 2006 with interest rates inching up, you'll get many different answers. Here are some of them:

Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial in Chicago was interviewed. Diane feels the real estate market will be slower but not a collapse. I agree with Diane that although Arizona certainly felt the real estate boom of the past 5 years, we were not on the highest end of that frenzy. So our softer market won't be as drastic as other markets.

Lawrence Yun of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) was also interviewed. I will sum up his interview. Mr. Yun feels that rising interest rates are certainly not going to be good, yet at a prediction of 6.7 percent, they are still historically…

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My Parents Left Us

OK, so I was 32. But I was the one with the grandchildren. One of my brothers was already living in California. My 18-year-old brother was now left with a decision of moving with my parents (unless they chose a retirement area for 55 and older), staying in IL (I don’t think he had a decent job at the time), or moving in with my brother in California. He chose the latter. In fact, he’s been there ever since and is married to a California girl and they have 2 children and live in the garlic capital of the world, Gilroy.

My other younger brother, who had lived in CA for some time, moved back to IL for 3 years to work for Motorola. After that stint, he went back to CA and has lived in San Jose with his wife and kids ever since. They also have a second…

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Hello From Scottsdale Arizona

If you see the date, this was the first post on my Scottsdale real estate blog that was made in 2005. It is now 2022 and I've had several different web designs. You are viewing the latest, even if it's past 2022. Whatever you're seeing now is the most recent look of our blog.

This website has brought me many clients and in my best year, which was 2007, around 80%+ of my real estate sales came from this website!  Our home search has been upgraded over the years and I hope you find it easy to use and will help you with your next Scottsdale real estate purchase and/or sale. Below is our original post.

Welcome to Judy Orr's Phoenix area real estate blog that will introduce you to Carefree, Cave Creek, North Phoenix, North Scottsdale listings…

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