Mix 60% road race and 40% Joseph’s Technicolor Dream Coat (minus Donny Osmond) and what do you get?

The Color Run!

This weekend, just a hop and a skip from downtown phoenix,  the annual Color Run 5k will be happening in Tempe.

Don’t worry non-runners, the 5k is a fun run for all levels of athleticism. Runners will receive custom Color Run race shirts, a bag of Color, race number, “Color Runner” finisher sweat band, donation to local charity, and Sponsor Goodies. There’s only one rule, wear white. Why? Oh because you get covered in paint along the way! Each kilometer of the event has a designated color.   As the runners/walkers hit the KILOMETER COLOR ZONE, they will be dusted with COLOR.

Don’t worry, it’s for a good cause. All the proceeds from the 5k go to Cardon Children’s Medical Center in Mesa. After you cross the finish line you be invited to a post-5k party with bands, food, and more. Non-runners can join too, but be warned, there’s a good chance of walking away covered in paint dust.

The annual Color Run is going down at Tempe Beach Park in Tempe, Arizona on Saturday, 28 January 2012.

Insert “woe is me moment”: I’m soooo bummed I can’t run this. I’m still nursing an injury from my Grand Canyon run in November!

For those of you who feel that you need a little more inspiration and international intrigue in your lives, or those of you  Pakistani history buffs, we’ve got great news!

Emerge Arizona will be hosting a screening of Bhutto this weekend at Film Bar. Who’s Bhutto? Benazir Bhutto was a two time prime minister of Pakistan as well as the first female Prime Minister for the country, and a great figure in political history. If that isn’t enough of a reason, the director, Duane Baughman will be  at the event for a meet and greet.

And the Best Part? The screening with be at our local favorite, FilmBar! Local Bar/independent theater has a great selection of films and drinks to keep your night going strong. The screening will be at 2pm this Saturday.

Good News for home owners in distress!

And by “Good News” I don’t mean some shady scheme to short sell your house to an off-shore corporation in the Caymen Islands.

Fannie Mae is introducing an Unemployment Forbearance program which provides assistance to borrowers dealing with unemployment.

These loans will allow the borrower to receive a reduction or suspension of their monthly mortgage payment for a specific period of time and will prohibit services from foreclosing on your property.

A mortgage loan is eligible for an Unemployment Forbearance if all the following criteria are met:

• The property cannot be vacant, condemned, or abandoned.
• The mortgage loan cannot be an FHA, VA, or Rural Housing mortgage loan.
• The property must be a principal residence. Second homes and investment properties are not eligible.
• The borrower may be either delinquent or default is reasonably foreseeable.
• The borrower must have a financial hardship due to unemployment.

The Forbearance will be canceled if:

• Any of the eligibility criteria and terms stated above are no longer met.
• The borrower advises the servicer that he or she has become employed or is no longer actively seeking employment.

If you need more information contact Jeannie Bolger with Nova Home loans.

For those of you unable to attend last nights sustainability event downtown, you missed out on a panel of exceptional experts, conversation, and ideas to benefit our city.

The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center was filled with almost 400 community members. The forum was filled with heated debate but after all was said an done, the panelists encourages more community and individual involvement to reach solutions.

So What can you do? Well here are a few ideas:

• Install Solar panels – A great way to take advantage of the Arizona Sun and cut down on energy usage. This can be a pricey investment, but with incentive programs and leasing options, it is worth it in the end and may add value to your home.
• Green Remodeling and Demolition – looking to fix that fixer upper? A local green demo and remodeling service for residential homes can be a great way to make a green friendly decision.
• Green Landscaping – You don’t need to be a botanist to know your lawn needs water to survive in Arizona. Choose plants that thrive in our climate or find an ecofriendly landscaper to find them for you.
• Use a Paperless system at your business – If every U.S. home received and paid its bills online, annual greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 2.1 tons. Seriously
• Unplug electronics, battery chargers and other equipment when not in use – Taken together, these small items can use as much power as your refrigerator.
• Bring reusable bags to do your grocery shopping. – Or bring your old plastic bags to the store, they’re not helping anyone under your sink. Some stores even give you 10 cents off your groceries for every bag you bring.

So get started today! And check out the Environmental Sustainability Programs Phoenix had developed to help us become one of the country’s leaders in sustainability!

Derek Slife at the Downtown Public Market

So, I’ve been a member of a food co-op for about 4 years now. Great idea, you know. You skip the grocery store and just pick up an order of fruits and veggies.

Interestingly enough, the biggest drawback was also the biggest opportunity. Each order consists of just what the co-op organizers happen to get in bulk that week. That’s a pain if you don’t know what to do with 50 Russian Babushka Radishes. But I found that getting an order of food that was unfamiliar pushed me to cook with things that I thought I would never use.

As a result, I’m a master chef….. just ask my dog.

But another drawback I’ve noticed is that the food I get with Bountiful Baskets is not grown locally. Although, you can order organic options, much of food comes from California.

Enter Chow Locally, stage left.

Founders Christopher Wharton and Derek Slife believe that we do just as much for our country by sourcing food locally, reducing carbon emissions and keeping money in our community.

To that end, they have a business model that is really quite unique. Using their website you can choose what you want during the week and pick it up on Saturday or Sunday from any one of several farmers’ markets. Check out this link to see how it works.

Warton and Slife actually won the Arizona’s Next Great Business award by National Bank of Arizona for this model. Ordering ahead of time certainly does solve the problem of getting little food surprises in your order, like Scandanavian Dwarf Bananas.

Each box comes with useful recipes, etc.

Now, if you are worried about cost, I would not be. I compared both food co-ops. While Chow Locally is a couple dollars ($19) more than Bountiful Baskets ($16.50) and you get only about 80% of what comes in a Bountiful Baskets order, it is still much more than you could buy at Safeway for the same amount of money. Either way, you still get enough food to last for two weeks.

I enjoyed trying this and I enjoy having the excuse to visit the public market every other Saturday (twist my arm).

Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Many people recognize this upcoming Monday, as a day off from work. But really its a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., a man who did great things for our country.

If you want to celebrate the right way, HandsOn can help. HandsOn Greater Phoenix is a great NonProfit in Downtown Phoenix that serves the community at large. Every month, HandsOn offers more than 60  diverse, high-impact, one-time community service projects. Martin Luther King Day is a large-scale special days of service for them.

This Monday at 2 p.m. you can head to Fair Trade Cafe & Gallery at Civic Space Park for Eat, Dream, Share. There will be music, poems, songs, laughter, ideas, food and to share personal expressions of how Martin Luther King Jr. impacted your life. And it’s like a pot luck. Participants are asked to bring a dessert to share. If you’re bringing the kids (who have the day off too!) There’s an  spoken word and musical performances by Queen of Queen’s Band Project, Miouo Nance the poet & The Positive Vibes from 6:30 PM-9:30 PM at the A.E. England Building Civic Space Park.

If you’d like to get a jump start on your weekend, HandsOn with also be hosting a 16+ Mural Revitalization this Saturday from 8-12 updating a 1998 mural on 16th Street.

Spots fill quickly, so contact them today and celebrate.

In celebration of our great state, groups across Arizona are working to commemorate 100 years of growth. One of those fine groups is the  The City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture who is opening The Gallery @ City Hall. The gallery will premier “Desert View: A Centennial of Art in Phoenix,” featuring paintings, prints, and photographs that highlight the landscape-inspired visions of artists working in the West.

In collaboration with the Phoenix Community Alliance, this new space will be “devoted to rotating exhibitions drawn from the city’s historic collection of 1,000 artworks, and be supported exclusively with private contributions.”

Phoenix’s Art scene has been the heart of the cities economic growth for years. Supporting the community is a vital part of our future. If you want to be one of those supporter, you can a send check made out to Phoenix Community Alliance at 234 N. Central Avenue, Suite M1100, Phoenix, AZ 8500 or visit the website and make a PayPal donation.

The Gallery will be opening  Mid-February. A meeting will be held downtown at the end of this week to finalize their official opening dates, so check with them  or watch our facebook Page for more information.

Good news for you Downtown Phoenix home renovators out there.

In an effort to continue stabilizing home values and improve conditions in communities experiencing high foreclosure activity, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)  has extended the FHA 90 day flip rule temporary waiver of the anti-flipping regulations. The extension will permit buyers to use FHA-insured financing to purchase HUD-owned properties, bank-owned properties, or properties resold through private sales. The extension  will continue through December 31, 2012, unless otherwise extended or withdrawn by FHA.

The waiver contains strict conditions and guidelines to prevent the predatory practice of property flipping, in which properties are quickly resold at inflated prices to unsuspecting borrowers. (We like responsible renovations here. Flipping can be a little nasty, you know.)

All other terms of the existing waiver remain the same, and these transactions continue to be limited to sales meeting the following conditions:

• All transactions must be arms-length, which means buyer and seller are acting in their own interest in the sales transaction.
• In cases in which the sales price of the property is 20% or more above the seller’s acquisition cost, the waiver will only apply if the lender meets specific conditions and documents, like a lender review of property inspection report, the justification for the increase in value.
• The waiver is limited to forward mortgages, and does not apply to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) for purchase program.
• No pattern or history of flipping can have occurred in the previous 12 months.. One investor can’t flip to another investor and then flip to an FHA buyer.

You can read the full FHA 90 day flip guidelines details here.

So whats the big deal? Well, homes that are purchased at a low price and re-sold at a much higher price in such a short time period with little repairs/renovations are sometimes fraudulent.  Lenders are afraid of lending on homes that may be inflated or acquired under duress. With the 90 day flip waiver, and extension until December 31, 2012, investors can now accept offers from FHA buyers in the first 90 days.

Nova Home Loans has an investor for these types of loans.  Please call J Please call Jeannie Bolger, Sr. Loan Officer –for more information.

Market trends are upon us again! Try to contain your excitement.

Our Friend Cynthia Lujan from Old Republic Title was nice enough to send us new stats on the current market.

Between November and December supply was is once again on a downward trend for all price ranges. The strongest decline in supply is for homes under $100,000. Sales rates look better between$200,000 and $400,000 while above $400,000 demand is still a problem.  Demand from owner occupiers remains subdued due to strict underwriting standards for “jumbo” loans, but cash buyers including landlords and other investors are quickly snapping up a large part of whatever comes onto the market.

The supply from foreclosures continues to fall with more pending foreclosures getting resolved by short sales. Lenders are receiving fewer homes into REO inventory as a higher percentage of trustee sales result in a sale to a third party. Despite public perception to the contrary, price per sq. ft. has gone up  in the past year. (Do we hear that on the national news? Noooo!)

The strongest recent movement is for the price range below $100,000, where price per sq. ft. hit bottom in February and is now up nearly 7% over the last 12 months. With supply on a downward trend again we anticipate that the peak spring season will find most buyers frustrated by a lack of choice and fierce competition from other buyers.

So what does this mean for you? Buy now!

The inventory of houses between $100,000- 200,000 are down 46.6% and sales prices are now 6.9% higher than last year. Homes from 200,000-400,000 numbers aren’t as dramatic, with supply down 26% and prices up .3%. As all we all learned in our 10th Grade Economics class, as supply grows more limited, demand will drive prices up.

Need help finding a home? Call me today at 602-456-9388

Another year of great downtown growth and CenPho Memories will all come together in grand celebrations this weekend.

So if you’re hopping downtown for the evening there are great events going on all night.

You know, a great standard is The Clarendon Hotel. The rooftop is always a great place to ring in the new year. I may be there. Not certain yet.

CityScape’s skate rink is still open! It’s only $10 from 3pm- 1am for unlimited skating and portion of the night’s proceeds benefit Phoenix Parks Foundation. There of course will be a midnight fireworks show and complimentary champagne toast for the 21+ crowd.

Of course, there’s always the fiesta Bowl Block Party, where several thousand of you find yourselves ever year. Tickets to the block party are $20.00 and can be purchased at the entrance gates to the Fiesta Bowl Block Party.

George & Dragon, that wily British pub in Midtown (4240 N. Central Ave.), will be doubling up their new years; celebrating the New Year once at 5 p.m. (12am in the UK)  and then again at midnight here in AZ! It’s a free party, and a bloody good time.

If you’re trying to keep it classy, The Paisley Violin on Grand will be serving a delicious four-course dinner and smooth Jazz the entire evening.

And the best part is, you don’t need to be behind the wheel for any of it. The Light Rail will be offering a safe way to get to and from all your favorite New Years destinations. So ring in the New Year right and stay safe this weekend!