Trees that are sick or decayed can be tricky to remove, so finding a Phoenix tree removal professional is critical to keeping your family, pets and home safe. How can you decide if your tree needs to come down or if it just needs trimming?

Look carefully at your tree for these signs. Are the leaves wilted or discolored? Are there any cracks in the truck or limbs? Are funguses or mushrooms growing near the trunk and along the roots at the base of the tree? Can you see ants or sawdust at the base of the tree indicating insect infestation? Is the tree lopsided from human damage? These are signs the tree is severely damaged and probably dying which process is irreversible.

A Phoenix tree trimming company can try to save the tree and will if it is possible. Crown trimming is needed when the tree has too many limbs and leaves to allow the light into the tree. Not only does this cause decay it blocks wind so when the monsoons come, the rain-heavy tree blocks the wind and falls.

Crown raising involves removing branches that are too low to the ground preventing people walking under or blocking the line of vision to your home.

Crown reduction refers to the trimming of the tops of the trees. This is especially necessary so utility lines are free from potential damage.

Besides trimming, the most important thing you can do to have healthy trees is to mulch. Use hardwood grinding, bark chips or pine straw, 2-4 inches deep under the drip line of your tree (wherever the sun would shine if there was no tree) but staying 5 inches away from the trunk. Mulch will keep moisture in the ground, condition the soil and protect the tree’s roots from damage.

Have more questions? Be sure to contact Tree Doctors Inc for help.

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My good friend Jennifer Furrier is organizing a seminar in January on being organized. Sometimes the only thing standing in the way between resolutions and results is a plan. It looks like Jennifer’s seminar could go a long ways towards helping develop a solid plan. In this seminar she says she “will provide simple and effective solutions to become better organized and more efficient with time management.”

Here is a little introduction she sent me about the upcoming seminar:

Do you plan on working another 365 days of your life? What’s that you say? Oh, more than that! Then WHY continue putting up with the stress and angst that comes with disorganization? How about working those upcoming years being more organized, efficient, productive and effective than ever before? These days, maximizing the way you spend your time is more important than ever! Take your business to the next level by attending a one-of-a-kind, info-packed seminar that guarantees you’ll walk away with tools you can immediately implement to start 2009 off on the right foot.

She’s offering a $30 discount if you register before January 1st. Otherwise its $79 for this one day event. Download the PDF for details and registration information. Her website is EssentialOrganizing.Com if you’d like to learn more about her company.

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As promised here is a link to the Powerpoint presentation from yesterday. Additionally, I have posted the video of a class I did on setting up a WordPress blog at the Arizona RE Bloggers Network meeting last month.

Arizona Real Estate Bloggers Network Meeting – May 2008 from phoenixrealestatelive on Vimeo.

I do mortgages on the side to support my blogging habit, so please feel free to refer any clients who may be in the market and need a good quality lender! If you browse through this blog you’ll realize that Aimee and I certainly know what we’re doing and we have a history of providing 100% customer satisfaction!

Just a friendly reminder

Post Updated Monday June 16th. Here is the powerpoint slide from my presentation via SlideShare:

| View | Upload your own

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If you’re wondering about Homewerx – its owned by Scott Hubbard and Shannon Hubbard. They’re both very prolific bloggers! Also, we would be interested in any future opportunities, so if you’re making a commercial and need some good actors, well you know who to call!

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The really major change is regarding declining markets. As you may or may not be aware the term declining markets entered our lexicon late last year. In fact I even wrote a post suggesting that while “subprime” may have been the word of the year for 2007, “declining markets” has a good chance of being the word of the year for 2008. The reason being that because Fannie and Freddie (along with mortgage insurance companies) announced that they would be automatically cutting 5% off the the maximum loan to value on any property determined to be in a declining market. Now Arizona has been deemed a declining market, so it affects all loans in this great state of ours.

What does this mean to you? Well all Fannie and Freddie loans cap out at 95% which means the borrower needs to put 5% down from his/her own funds. This maximum loan amount was cut back to 90% in declining markets. Which meant the borrower no had to put 10% down for the same loan.

Recently Fannie and Freddie have made some changes stating that they would allow 95% loans again. The problem is finding mortgage insurance companies willing to insure mortgages up to that high of a loan to value. We have developed a relationship with such a mortgage insurance company. Hence, moving forward we are able to do loans upto 95% under the following conditions:

• Fixed rate programs only (fully amortizing)
• $417K max loan size
• Primary residence only
• Purchase or rate and term refinance (no cash out refinances allowed)
• 680 minimum credit score

This is only part of the full set of guidelines, therefore it is important to review this completely with your lender. So I will forewarn you that not all will qualify for this new higher loan to value. Additionally this is a lender specific policy, different lenders have different risk tolerance and relationships with different mortgage insurance providers. Do not take this as an industry wide guideline.

The other changes announced are regarding loan to value for investment properties and cash out transactions. But due to the fact that the Phoenix market is designated a declining market, the changes do not really affect anything for loans here. Meaning our terms are already more strict and we are required to follow the more stringent guidelines when making an underwriting decision.

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For Phoenix Metro (a bit hard to read, but if you go to GasBuddy.Com you can view a larger much readable map):

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend everyone!

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Now, what I just said is just a paraphrase of what is being reported across newspapers and T.V. news. But in a Web 2.0 world, I’m also interested in what local real estate bloggers have to say with the same numbers. This is because most of the time local area agents have a better understanding of the market and can shed better light on these numbers than the so called “experts”. Below is a sampling of what I found in some prominent local real estate blogs discussing the good news.

The Phoenix Real Estate Guy (Jay Thompson) says:

Beginning of a recovery? One time blip? Who knows. One YOY data point does not a trend make. But sales seem to be picking up steam, foreclosures are creating affordability, and absorption rates are falling. All of this seems to indicate we may be bottoming.

AllPhoenixRealEstate.Com (Jonathan Dalton):

Lower prices can be expected since it is the bank owned home sector fueling the current real estate market. And as I’ve said at least a half-dozen times, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The biggest gem though comes from North Phoenix Agent (Heather Barr) who in the middle of April posted anecdotal evidence asking if the market was improving, some of her nuggets (which is being validated through improved numbers):

• I’ve also got 3 new buyers, money in hand, FICO score safely in the mid- to high-700’s, ready to buy this month
• My A/C guy is busier than he can keep up with, with new work based on home inspection findings
• His friend who does truss work for area builders, says he’s busy again after a 1-1/2 year lull
• A friend of mine who works for Pulte says their sales office is slammed; she’s working Saturdays again

So what does it all mean? It seems we’re getting our usual spring inventory increase. With an already bloated market full of too many under-improved and over-priced houses, this should be bad. But the good news it we seem to be selling it.

Way to go Heather. You nailed this one a month in advance.

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Well, now it looks like she’s taken the plunge. Last week she e-mailed and and told me she’s set up a blog on professional organizing and I was elated to hear that. Her blog is called “Overcome the Overwhelm” and already has some really good nuggets on getting organized, improving productivity and living a stress-less life. I already know this is going to be an awesome blog, and that is because I know that Jen is an awesome professional organizer!

The only thing I can say at this point is “watch out”, to the other bloggers who focus on professional organizing. You guys now have some pretty tough competition coming your way. However, as a blogger I know it’s not all about competition, but also about building community and interaction and relationships. So, on that front Jennifer is going to make a great addition to the already mushrooming professional organizing blogosphere.

Head on over to Jennifer’s blog and leave a note!

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This is not good news. However, is this a reason to walk away from your home, like so many are doing? In my opinion – NO! In order to put things in perspective I ran a hypothetical scenario to see how long it would take to recoup the equity. If you bought in 2006 with no down on a mortgage of $200,000 and experienced a 25% decline since. Then your home would be valued at $150,000 today. Now at the historically average appreciate rate of 6%, it would take you five years (from today) to be back at 2006 home price levels. (Side note: I sincerely believe we’ve hit bottom.)

Certainly not something you may have hoped for, but it’s not as dire as you may think. Five years isn’t too long of a time, it goes by pretty fast. Even if you purchased on a five year ARM – you’re almost covered. Also, remember ARM’s can reset lower too – if the index is falling. Even if rates go up when it adjusts, I’ve run situations for clients where the saving they received against a 30-year mortgage pretty much covers the increased payment for about a year or so (assuming its a five year ARM of course). More importantly you have five years to figure something out -maybe you make extra payment so increase your equity? Maybe you save some more. What ever the case you have five years to make a plan. The situation is completely different of course if you are in any kind of negative equity loan program.

Now, that I may have assured you a bit, let me share the rest of the bad news. Phoenix is cited in Zillow’s report as one of the hardest hit markets. I share with you some of the charts they have for Phoenix. To read the full report head on over to the ZillowBlog.

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