Arizona

When it's pushing 115 degrees outside, this is the last thing you want to see…

That would be one of the two air conditioning units that were destroyed by thieves at one of our listings in Wittmann a few days ago. Rising copper prices have lead many of the dregs of society to smash apart $3000 - $5000 A/C units to get at the copper coils, which they then sell for about $50 bucks in order to finance their next fix.

The problem has reached epidemic proportions in many parts of the country. In an effort to fight this in Arizona, the Governor signed HB2314 into law on May 8, 2007. This bill:

imposes new requirements on scrap metal dealers in an attempt to combat widespread metal thefts from construction sites, commercial buildings and other locations.

The restrictions are intended to make it harder for thieves, motivated by high prices for scrap, to anonymously sell stolen wire, air conditioner parts and other material.

State law now requires scrap metal dealers to keep a record of each transaction exceeding $25, logging a description of the metal, the dollar amount paid and identifying information about the seller and the seller's vehicle. Sales of used drink containers are exempt. (source)

These new requirements didn't seem to slow down the bozos responsible for this mess… 

Copper theft isn't just happening in Arizona. Here are 629 current news articles about copper theft.

Rick at Cool Blew A/C Repair suggests considering building a wrought-iron "cage" around AC units, with a door/gate that can be padlocked for access. In remote areas like Wittmann, particularly in a vacant home, this may be a worthwhile investment. 

The price of scrap stainless-steel is also rising, leading to an increase in the theft of beer kegs. Beer companies are realizing, "an industry wide loss of up to $50 million a year", said Jeff Becker, president of the Beer Institute. (note to self, apply for Mr. Becker's job….) This cost is no doubt passed on to consumers, a economic fact I personally find disturbing.

Sheriff Joe's boys were called out to investigate. Hopefully they'll catch these idiots and they can spend some quality time in Tent City, where they'll be wishing they had functional AC…

Wittmann Property 

Technorati Tags: stolen copper, beer kegs, copper theft

It happens every summer (here’s the 2005 post)…  some “parent” FORGETS THEIR KID IS IN THE CAR and leaves them there to roast.

On Thursday, it was 108 degrees when Kyle Brown forgot his THREE MONTH OLD daughter and left her in his SUV for ALMOST TWO HOURS.

Do you know how hot it gets in a car when it’s 108 outside? Imagine being strapped in a car seat, parked in the sun, windows rolled up, for almost two hours. Hell, I dare anyone in this city to sit in an enclosed car for 15 minutes, much less an hour and 45 minutes. Go ahead, give it a try tomorrow. Park your car in the sun, and at 3:00 in the afternoon, climb on in. Be sure to roll up the windows. Oh, and no water — the baby didn’t have any. See how long you can stand it.

Little Amberlee Elizabeth Brown didn’t have a chance. Her core temperature was 109 when firefighters arrived on the scene. She fought all night, but died Friday morning.

And here come the usual “prevention ideas” from the media — women, put your PURSE in the backseat with the kid. I guess you can’t forget your purse, so when you reach for it, hopefully you are reminded to get your baby too. Put a note on the dashboard — I guess to remind yourself that you are a parent? Clip the garage door opener to the baby seat…

Dear God, do people really need a REMINDER to get their child out of the car???

This is going to sound harsh to some and I’m sure I’ll get emails about it. But this is murder. Call it “negligent homicide” if it makes you feel better. Whatever. I know, I know, the parents are grieving, it’s a tragedy, nothing can ever replace Amberlee. That’s all true. It is a horrific tragedy. But it was entirely preventable and someone needs to go to prison.

Forgetting you have a three month old baby and leaving them in a car in the Phoenix summer is inexcusable. Period.

We list a lot of land, particularly in the West Valley areas in and around Whispering Ranch, Wittmann and Tonopah. I love it out there. It's gorgeous high Sonoran desert terrain, with majestic mountain views, and lots of critters.

Today we went out to put up a sign on a newly listed parcel near Tonopah (just try finding a sign installer that is willing to go off road and locate a parcel via satellite imagery..) The picture above is a view from the parcel of Saddle Mountain. You can't get much more of a wild western name than "Saddle Mountain"! (and if you saw it from the other side, you'd understand why they call it that)

Whenever we are out that direction, we always check on our other signs as we've had some damaged or destroyed by vehicles, gun fire and theft (why would someone feel compelled to steal a real estate sign?) and now, the elements.

We arrived at one such listing today to be greeted with this:

Apparently it got just a tad bit windy out there. The name rider was blown off and twisted up too. We repaired and replaced as necessary. Who knows what the next desert drive will uncover…

Technorati Tags: Desert real estate, Whispering Ranch, Wittmann, Tonopah

Here's a couple of Arizona real estate blogs you may not be aware of….

Shailesh Ghimire is the Arizona Mortgage Guru. Shailesh and his wife Aimee are lenders in Mesa, Arizona — and they are darn good ones. They are in fact, the lenders we've teamed up with to bring you the woefully underutilized "Ask The Lenders" feature on our main site, mentioned here, and linked to in our sidebar (note to self, move that directly to the blog, throw up an image, do something to see if it we can more people to take advantage of the Ghimire's knowledge and willingness to help).

Shailesh has been blogging for quite some time, but in January of this year, the blogging bug bit hard, and since then he's been a very prolific blogger. Shailesh blogs about local, national and even worldwide mortgage/financial news, throws in some humor, and even gives us insight that he lies awake at night thinking about blogging (welcome to blog geekdom!). He also recently began contributing to the excellent Blog Arizona. (note to Shailesh - send us a guest post and we'll put it up here!) He's got great insight to the mortgage world. Highly recommended!

Kelley Koehler down south a bit in Tucson has just this month fired up The Housechick Blog. She's running WordPress on a very slick theme (try dragging the sidebar modules!). Looks like she's already working on getting lender contributors herself, and there is some great local content to be had. (Local to Tucson also sometimes works for local to Phoenix — as in her blog on swap coolers.) She doesn't know this, but I first came across Kelley over a year ago when I thought I had a referral for a Tucson agent. Her real estate website was easy to find, and very well done — as you'd expect from someone with a Systems Engineering degree with a specialty in software systems. Granted it's from U of A, but we'll try not to hold that against her. If Kelley keeps it up, she'll soon have a strong presence in the Arizona real estate blogiverse. 

Check these two out, add them to your feed reader and enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Arizona Mortgage Guru, The Housechick, Shailesh Ghimire, Kelley Koehler, Arizona Real Estate Blogs