Many canadian investors are heading to Arizona!!! There are obviously many bargains with the dollar near parity but most importantly with foreclosures still high, many past owners are looking for the same style of housing to rent similar to the homes they lost to foreclosure. Many 3-4 bedroom homes are in demand for rent!
A significant number of Canadians are looking at this as an opportunity to invest due to the strong canadian dollar but also the demand by tenants looking for rental properties. I currently have a team of real estate and property manager professionals in the Phoenix and Las Vegas areas to service your needs. Contact me and I can start you in the right direction to invest in Phoenix or Las Vegas!! Below is an article written by Marty Hope of “The Calgary Herald” about this specific topic.

PHOENIX FORECLOSURES ATTRACT CANADIANS
It was the end of the month — and as in every city anywhere in North America, people were on the move.

From Scottsdale to Queen Creek, streets throughout greater Phoenix, Ariz., were dotted with half-ton trucks and rented vans moving families from one home to another.

In this desert state, relocation is always a big deal come month-end.

Some people are taking advantage of foreclosures to move around in the marketplace while others, unfortunately, are packing up because they’ve lost their homes.

Still others are getting into rental digs — a proposition that is becoming challenging, says the Cromford Report, which tracks the current status of the Phoenix area resale market on a daily basis. Earlier this month, the analyst who publishes the report says demand for single-family home rentals is outrunning supply and causing an unprecedented fall in the inventory of available rentals.

I know there are several Calgarians who have become landlords in the Phoenix area, having scooped up firesale-priced homes as income-producing properties.

And as the Canadian dollar fights for parity with the U.S. greenback, there will, doubtless, be another wave of investors from here heading there.

An article in the Arizona Republic says that since last September, the number of available rental homes in metro Phoenix has dropped by 40 per cent.

If you’re looking for family-sized homes in some of the more desirable neighbourhoods, the decline is even more severe, says the article.

The sharp drop, the newspaper article suggests, is another ripple effect of the foreclosure crisis that is playing havoc with real estate across Arizona, but particularly in the Sonoran Valley metropolitan area.

My, how the rental market has turned.

In the early days of the foreclosure fiasco, foreclosures increased the number of houses in the rental market.

People who lost homes, or who just walked away from mortgages that were higher than the value of their home, found they could rent similar-sized houses, often in the same neighbourhood, for less than their mortgage payments.

This was occurring all over, including many of the newer neighbourhoods on the west side where the foreclosure total was huge. Even tenants with bad credit could negotiate lower rents and how long they wanted to stay.

I recall talking with realtor Mike Orr down there and asking why the west side was hit so badly with foreclosures.

“We had a circumstance down here among first-time buyers who would drive until they qualified — and that happened mostly on the west side,” he said.

But back to the rental situation. In the past few months, as more of those former owners became renters, demand for those three-to four-bedroom rental homes climbed.

As lenders foreclosed on more homes, but were slow to resell them, the number of available houses dropped.

When houses do come onto the rental market, rents are rising and landlords of family-size homes are receiving multiple offers and filling houses in days, said the Arizona Republic article. Orr said that while the detached home rental situation is worsening and rental agencies managing properties have waiting lists, many Phoenixarea apartment complexes still are having a tough time attracting tenants.

If you’re the least bit

handy or have the money to hire someone to do some improvements, there are some great foreclosure opportunities at, or just under, $100,000 US in the Phoenix area.

Many of the homes, with posted notices of foreclosure taped to the front doors, are in desperate need of a good cleaning, new paint, flooring and wall repairs — and in some of the more extreme cases, new walls to fix those damaged by frustrated or angry owners prior to leaving the property