Phoenix Area Enjoying Big Love from Canadian Single Family Real Estate Investors

By Alex Girda, Associate Editor

The City of Phoenix is punching its way into real estate market recovery. But all it has landed this week were small jabs. A number of commercial real estate properties were the subject of deals that wouldn’t typically make the cut for a news report.

However, the local government policy was covered in an article by The Arizona Republic this week, regarding the way it has reacted to the current recession in terms of managing the property tax issue. Property tax for the City of Phoenix has been maintained throughout the downturn at the same rate of $1.82 per $100 of assessed value. This means that after four consecutive years of market decline, residents will pay considerably less property tax.

The drop in property tax value that the administration will collect from the average Phoenix resident is around 26 percent. This means the total amount the city will take in from property tax for the 2011-2012 fiscal year will be around $61 million less than during the current year.

Other interesting Phoenix residential news was reported by The Arizona Business Gazette which showed that statistically, every week during the past two years, a Valley home was sold to a Canadian buyer. The transactions, made mostly for homes in Scottsdale, but also Mesa and Queen Creek, usually make the luxury list with individual values ranging between $1.3 million and $3.8 million.

These Canadian transactions make up approximately six percent of all homes sold in Maricopa County for amounts exceeding $1 million since January 1, 2009. Currently, excluding tourism, Canada is Arizona’s largest foreign investor with bilateral trade coming in at a value of about $2.3 billion according to state authorities.  This number is expected to increase says the Canada Arizona Business Council, a non-profit that will bring local and Canadian industrial leaders together in an attempt to increase the trade to a figure of $5 billion by 2012.