Phoenix Foreclosures are Big News in Big Apple; New York Times Reports on Scorched Real Estate Landscape

"Blood" in the streets. Scorched landscapes of foreclosed homes. Snarky bidding wars among investors. This is the Phoenix metro area readers of the New York Times knew over the weekend. In case you missed it, "Amid Rubble of Housing Bust, One City Bigins a New Frenzy," is a breezy but fun romp...

By Ray Stern

May 26, 2009

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"Blood" in the streets. Scorched landscapes of foreclosed homes. Snarky bidding wars among investors. This is the Phoenix metro area readers of the New York Times knew over the weekend.

In case you missed it, "Amid Rubble of Housing Bust, One City Bigins a New Frenzy," is a breezy but fun romp through the Valley's current real estate situation. Fun, that is, as long as you didn't have much money invested here during the peak of the housing boom. If you did buy at the peak, tales of 50-to-60-percent losses may reawaken your nightmares.

The article contains an interesting ethical side-note: Walk away from that dog as soon as possible. The Times dutifully reports that local bargain hunter Lou Jarvis apparently admits he teaches his kid to flee a mortgage after a heavy loss.

Call it a commitment problem.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.