For our friends north of the border debating a purchase here in the states, particularly in the Phoenix real estate market, here are three useful websites that may help you in your decision:

• Canadian Residents Going Down South – The Canadian Revenue Agency’s guide for Canadian residents looking to buy property in the United States.
• Canadian Snowbird Association – A non-profit group charged with “defending and improving the rights and privileges of traveling Canadians.”(Considering my first girlfriend was the daughter of traveling Canadians - Saskatchewan residents, if memory serves, I would like to proffer my formal apology to both her parents and the CSA. I also would like to let them know that their apartment across the street from Golfland/Sunsplash went condo a few years back.)
• Voyage – A government sponsored site for Canadians who are debating going ex-pat in their retirement.
• PhoenixCoyotes.Com - A guide to desperately mediocre hockey in the desert.

Got questions? Drop us a line and we’ll be happy to assist.

(Hat tip to Stacey Macioszek’s Bluffton SC Real Estate Guide for the first three links.)

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… have posted at the Bloodhound Blog.

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Right now, my half-dozen Canadian readers just spit out their back bacon. But in terms of real estate investing, Calgary has become the new California - a city with higher-priced housing where the locals are looking hard at the southwest as either a winter destination or an investment possibility.

What has caused the increased interest? Bernanke. Cutting the fed funds rate has left the dollar weaker against the Canadian dollar for the first time since around 1874 (give or take several decades). And because of this, Canadians now are enjoying a considerable increase in their buying power in the States as a result.

We were one of the first locally to notice the trend if only because we spend a lot of our time working in the Northwest Valley’s retirement communities - Westbrook Village, Ventana Lakes, Corte Bella and the Sun Cities. But we’re certainly not alone anymore. If you read any other Phoenix-area real estate blogs (and shame on you if you do!) it’s hard to miss the posts urging Canadians to come on down and buy American.

But as the Californians before you discovered, there are no instant riches to be had here in the Valley. Those days were brief and mercifully behind us. Prices have been falling to flat, depending on the area in which you’re looking, and long-term investment is the only real way to succeed.

Investing in real estate still involves much more than calling an agent and writing an offer. There’s due diligence to be conducted in regards to the different areas in the Phoenix real estate market, to the different financing options, to the logistics of owning property more than 1,000 miles away.

In short, purchasing Phoenix real estate isn’t for everyone. That’s a lesson that was lost during the boom of 2005 when everyone and their uncle attended some get-rich-quick seminar … many of those same folks are in foreclosure now.

If you call an agent and they tell you “this is a great time to buy,” hang up and call another. (And frankly, you shouldn’t be calling anyone but me anyway but that’s another story.)

If they tell you that there might be an opportunity for long-term profit and then ask more about your circumstances, chances are you found the right agent.

Learn from California’s mistakes, my Albertan friends. I now return you to your lunch.

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… has posted at RE Revealed, with the lovely and talented Lani Anglin as host the day after her birthday.

For the record, though, Morgan’s an unofficial mascot of Dalton’s Arizona Homes … but the drop kicking crossed my mind when I saw the remnants of my phone last week.

The official mascot, Tobey, is recovering from ACL surgery number two. Not that any of you, my loyal readers, really care … but he enjoys sympathy right now.

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