APS, Lockheed Martin Corp and Starwood Energy join to build 2nd APS Solar Plant

Awesome news in my eyes. I know there are many out there that still don't believe the release of Carbon into our atmosphere is damaging the planet. It is time to wake up!
Right on to APS. This new plant, Starwood Solar I, will be up and running by 2013. The plant will boost the amount of renewable sources for energy that APS has dramatically. When it is up and running, they will beat the Arizona regulation of 4.5% of renewable energy. They will actually double the required amount to 9%.
We are the valley of the SUN. The country needs more energy. We should be the leaders with innovation, design and manufacturing of Solar energy. Why aren't we? It is simple. The fluctuations in the cost of oil make it difficult. If oil was $150 per barrel and going up, then investors would support Solar with much greater investment. Or if the government would create regulation that supports this investment and takes away the risk created by oil prices bouncing all over, then investors would jump in. Remember, through regulation and government subsidies we pump about $17 billion into the US oil industry every year. Let's move that money to Solar, Wind, Geo Thermo and others and kick our addiction to oil. Thus slow down the funding to terrorists!
I urge you ALL to support legislators that "get it". Ones that will get us some Federal monies to team up with ASU and private enterprise. Increasing the research and development of these ideas, adding jobs and getting it done before another country does. We want them to buy from us, not us buy from them!
Just my opinion...Jeff Cameron

HOME PRICES DROP 18% ACROSS THE VALLEY, SCOTTSDALE DROP IS 10%

Here are the numbers from ASU and prices are down. Well anyone out there knows this. Those who don't know are the sellers with over priced homes. I would suggest 25 to 30% of the homes listed for sell are listed so far above the market they will not sell. They can't sell, the lenders won't allow a home to sell today without recent comparable sales in the last 60 days.

If these sellers were to take their home off the market tomorrow, it would change our market and stop the decline in prices.

If you don't want to sell at today's price, take your home off the market. Let those feeling pain, short sellers and foreclosures run their course. Once we get better supply and demand balance, prices will stop dropping. Believe me, I am working with banks in both situations. They want market value, not below. They just understand market forces and know with supply and demand where it is prices will continue to decline.

Demand is so high in some local markets, priced properly, they are experiencing multiple offers. Prices are rebounding in those areas.

One other thing we would need is mortgage reform from congress, increasing FHA to $700,000. These 2 actions could change our market practically overnight.


ASU-RSI: Phoenix Home Prices Plummet in AprilPublished: July 15, 2008 in Knowledge@W.P. Carey

The overall price decline for the Phoenix metro housing market took a dramatic, 18 percent leap downward in April, which was unsettling since March numbers were already very weak.
Part of the problem has been a wave of foreclosures hitting the market; this tends to dramatically impact average housing prices, says Karl Guntermann, the Fred E. Taylor professor of real estate at the W. P. Carey School of Business. Guntermann and research associate Alex Horenstein compile the Arizona State University-Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI).
The April ASU-RSI report, which compares April 2008 home sales against the same month the year before, shows significantly sharper rates of decline from one year ago than was reported this past April. For the overall Phoenix metro area, home price declines hit double digits for the first time ever in March when they fell 13 percent from prices in March 2007. April then roared in with a troubling 18 percent off-the-cliff drop in home prices compared to April a year ago.
Read full article: http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1639