DAVID SANDERS / ARIZONA DAILY STAR 2007

Other articles by Josh Brodesky:

Payout near for some 1st Magnus ex-workersPlanned Coronado sale questionedNew home building drops off noticeablyLandlords to pay $150K to settle suitJosh Brodesky: Out in suburbs, pair finds solitude amid vacant lotsTucson retailers jockey for profitable holidaysNew store at El Con to hire 60-70 workersBurlington hiring for new Tucson storeJosh Brodesky: New pitch to home buyers: job-loss mortgage insuranceMedian home-sales price here at '04 level

Health Care
BENSON HOSPITAL
RESPIRATORY THERAPIST Sales and Marketing
Ever-Ready Glass
Glass Sales Health Care
RLM Services, Inc.
Orthopedic Assistant-CMA

There are plenty of good reasons to retire to Southern Arizona, but the subprime crisis isn't one that usually comes to mind.

Or at least it didn't until Forbes.com named Pima County one of its "Best Places to Grow Old" in part because of the housing crisis.

"Most of the population surrounds the city of Tucson, where the subprime mortgage crisis has resulted in thousands of suddenly affordable homes," the new ranking says.

Thanks?

Funny, but I don't see this becoming the new marketing campaign for the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau or the Chamber of Commerce. Come to Tucson! Land of foreclosures.

Got subprime?

It's really all about wording.

Certainly housing has become much more affordable in the Old Pueblo over the last three years. The median home price in April 2006 was $220,000 and last month it was $164,000, according to the Tucson Association of Realtors.

But that affordability is happening across the country as values have fallen with the downturn in nearly all markets. Or put another way, Tucson hasn't been hit especially hard by subprime borrowing, certainly not in the same way cities like Phoenix, San Diego and Las Vegas have been hit.

Numbers from RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosure filings, show that one out of every 238 homes in Pima County received some kind of foreclosure filing in April. Up the road in Maricopa County that number was one out of every 136 homes, and in Pinal County it was one out of every 92 homes.

At any rate, even if Tucson did have an inordinate number of foreclosures (compared with other markets, not history) it probably wouldn't apply so much to potential retirees who simply aren't doing a lot of foreclosure shopping.

"The kind of housing that a retiree would choose to live in ... many of those houses are owned free and clear, so there is no problem with foreclosures," said Marshall Vest, an economist with the University of Arizona. "As a result the prices of those houses have not declined nearly like the declines you've seen in the 'more-affordable, farther-out starter homes.'"

But, of course, this was a "Best places" list, and those only get published once a day by numerous magazines and Web sites. So I thought I'd ask Jack Camper, president and CEO of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, if this is a marketing point he would like to embrace.

"That's pathetic as hell is what it is," he said after I read him the ranking. "There are thousands of homes on the market, and there are thousands of homes that are in foreclosure and short sales. But that is all over the country, not just in Tucson. They are all over Florida, California."

Then Camper listed all of the reasons a person could retire in Tucson: arts and culture, beautiful outdoors, a strong university, continuing education opportunities, golf and, of course, plenty of sunshine.

"This is a place that I would want to be in my older years because of all of those amenities," he said. "If you are just looking for an affordable house, you can find them all over the United States."