7,000
6,613
ANNIVERSARY
Law Office of Angel A. Raymond 4 4400 W. Honeycutt Rd. Ste. 110 Maricopa, AZ 85138 office@aaraymondlaw.com P. 520-208-2274 VOTED MARICOPA'S
SINGLE-FAMILY HOME PERMITS
5,250
3,500
Christian Price
2,535 2,471
The city was in a slump that didn’t start to seriously turn around until 2016-17 when it finally hit double digits again at nearly $10.5 million. Housing permits told a similar story. The city issued 13,447 permits for single- family homes between 2004 and 2007. In 2008, housing permits fell to 913, a 64% drop from the 2,535 issued the previous year. The carnage continued with the market bottoming out in 2011 when just 120 permits were issued. Former Mayor Christian Price said the economic woes had some people looking for the door. Price bought his home in Maricopa in 2005 and then watched it lose 80% of its value in just a few years. In 2011, when Price was considering a bid for mayor, there were doubters. “I remember when I was thinking about it, and I contacted a friend to run my campaign, she told me, ‘The only reservation I have is that everyone wants to leave Maricopa,’” Price recalled. “Everybody wanted to leave this city that I knew. Everybody. They wanted to get out. They thought it was the middle of the recession. They were angry. They had been promised something and I tried to come in with a little bit of optimism and a little bit of belief that, hey, it’s going to be OK.” Morgan remembered one of the hallmarks of the Great Recession was brand-new homes were simply abandoned. For many years, there was very little construction as the city used up the inventory it had on hand. “It took about 15 years for it to fully rebound to where the prices were when I moved down here,” Morgan said. “I never had any doubts it would come back. But for me, the moment that demonstrated things were getting better was when building started again.”
1,844
1,828
1,512
1,750
1,149
987 993
913
789
638
506 347
450 312
400
285
120 186
BEST ATTORNEY AND LAW FIRM 2022 Personal Injury Wrongful Death Criminal Defense Felony Offenses Civil Litigation Estate Planning Wills & Trusts Admitted to practice in Arizona, Washington State, and the United States Federal District Court
0
2004* 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
2018 2019 2020 2021
2022 2023 **
*Permitting through the city of Maricopa began in July 2004 ** Through Sept. 18
Table 1
Category A
2004*
1,828 6,613 2,471 2,535
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
DIGGING OUT
the real estate market for years. People’s credit scores were wrecked, as Maricopa-based Realtor Dayv Morgan explained. “There were so many people who lost their homes to foreclosure,” Morgan said. “They were not able to buy again. If you have a foreclosure on your credit report, banks are not going to give you a loan for another three, four or seven years, depending on the type of loan program.” Morgan wasn’t immune to it, either. “Unfortunately, I had bad credit as well,” Morgan said. “I was in that group that couldn’t buy and had to rent for a little bit.” Foreclosures were a way of life back then. “There were so many homes in foreclosure or short sale in that 2009 period,” Morgan recalled. “About 75% of the closed sales in that time were either short sales or foreclosures, or HUD homes, or auction homes." 913 400 186 120 312 450 285 347 506 789 993 987 1,512 1,844 1,149 638
As a result, Morgan started what was, in effect, a concierge service for investors. “We did everything for them,” Morgan said. “We helped to clean the houses up.” Morgan’s investors bought homes sight unseen. Most of the time, inspections weren’t allowed. There wasn’t any telling what unpleasantry they could uncover in those homes. People might still be living there. Or maybe they left the home but never moved out their belongings.
“A lot of times, you are buying these homes as-is without even seeing the inside. You could drive past them and maybe find out if they’re occupied or vacant. But if the blinds were closed and the doors are locked, you have no idea what the condition of the home is like inside. So, definitely a high-risk adventure for an investor because you could open that door to find everything was missing inside or it was riddled with mold.”
For many years, the driving force behind the real estate market in Maricopa was foreclosures and short sales during and following the Great Recession. Foreclosure begins when
a homeowner falls behind on mortgage payments and the lender initiates the legal process to recover the amount owed. Homeowners are given a 90-day notice to bring their payments current. When the grace period elapses, there’s a trustee sale where the lender sets the minimum bid at the amount to satisfy the loan. If 2023 ** that minimum isn’t met, the bank can take ownership of the property and sell it. A short sale is when a homeowner owes more money on a property than it’s worth
and asks the lender to sell it for less than what’s owed on the mortgage note. A crush of foreclosures and short sales in Maricopa stymied
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