Research

The troubled Phoenix real estate market has experienced high levels of activity this summer. With the federal tax credit ending soon, first-time home buyers have been scrambling to get into a deal. Meantime, investors anticipating a rise in prices are coming back to the market.

"Attract more customers, retain the ones you have, and expand existing relationships." That is the magic formula for growth, according to Synovate's Chief Loyalty Architect Dr. Larry Crosby.

If you had an asset worth billions of dollars, would you give it away free? No? Would you hand it over if charging for it would clobber farmers with added expense, hobble businesses in similar fashion, boost unemployment and raise the cost of living for just about everyone?

Forecasts by the Greater Phoenix Blue Chip real estate consensus panel show that perceptions of the metro real estate market continued to deteriorate in the third quarter of 2009.

The ASU Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI) continued to decline in June, but the numbers contained positive signals that improvement is the trend in the Phoenix metro real estate market.

Although job losses and unemployment have captured public attention during the current recession, another key indicator of state economic performance — personal income — is the weakest since modern records have been kept.

Climate change — and what to do about it — has been center stage recently.

2009 was a record year for real estate transactions in the Phoenix metro market. In fact there were 2,000 more transactions last year than in the previous record-setting year, which was 2005.

Economy-watchers have marked their calendars for Friday, January 29. That's when the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases Q4 figures for Gross Domestic Product (GDP), along with the first estimate for GDP growth for the year 2009. The updated W. P.

Looking at the responses from the Greater Phoenix Blue Chip Forecast panelists this quarter, consultant and Greater Phoenix co-editor Elliott D. Pollack asks: "Is the glass half full or half empty?" If the glass is half empty, he says, there will be no quick recovery.