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​If a real estate company promises to rent your house to some out-of-towners for the upcoming MLB All-Star Game at a "too good to be true" price, the offer's probably bogus.

The Department of Real Estate announced this afternoon that one such profiteering company, Your Stay Accommodations, is getting investigated for swindling customers out of thousands of dollars. Not to mention its lack of an Arizona real estate license.

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The Chateaux on Central have sold for $7 million -- total.

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Kudos to this week's Phoenix Business Journal, which finally provides the information we've all been waiting for, namely, just what exactly is going to happen to those faux chateaux on Central Avenue?

We've long been obsessed with the 21-townhouse project at Central and Palm, as we acknowledged in a column last fall. For one thing, the fanciful design always struck as an odd fit with the mid-century modern look so prevalent here. For another, the developers planned to market the homes for as much as $4.5 million per unit.

Who the heck, we wondered, would pay that? For a home without a yard? For a home in, yes, downtown Phoenix?

As the Journal's now reporting, the answer is no one -- but some nice Wisconsinites might well pay $7 million for all 21 units.

That averages out to just $333,000 per unit.
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​State Senate bill 1271 -- which would have drastically changed Arizona's foreclosure law -- was reversed when Governor Jan Brewer signed the majority of the budget.

 

The law would have made it more difficult to qualify for protections that often prevent homeowners from going bankrupt in the event of foreclosures.

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Terry Goddard

​Terry Goddard is one of 10 attorney generals across the country to take part in a task force with federal authorities against mortgage fraud.

Rob McKenna, Washington's AG, is co-chair with Iowa's AG, Tom Miller, in the "unprecedented partnership" of federal and state authorities to target fraudsters in an industry that helped bring the country's economy to its knees. The task force, according to a news release from McKenna's office, will enforce "both fair practices and civil rights," and "take on equity skimmers, foreclosure rescuer schemers, straw purchasers and unethical lenders who deceive or discriminate."

Goddard announced in July his office was participating in "Operation Loan Lies," which draws on federal and state enforcement resources targeting scammers who prey on people struggling to keep their houses.

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The number of homes sold in Phoenix continues to smash records made during the peak of the housing boom in 2005. The numbers look quite impressive on a chart made by a local real estate sales blog, click2az.com:


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