Real Estate Market Statistics - February 2009

Some good news! Months of inventory of homes (includes single family homes, town homes, and condos) in the Greater Phoenix area has dropped from 17.3 in February 2008 to 9.6 in February 2009. Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Phoenix, and Queen Creek all had significant decreases from the year before. Tempe has about the same number of months of inventory as last February. Scottsdale did have an increase in the months of inventory. When a real estate market has an average of about six months of inventory it is considered to be "normal".

Months of Inventory: 2009, 2008
ARMLS: 9.6, 17.3
Chandler: 11.0, 14.6
Gilbert: 8.4, 13.3
Mesa: 9.4, 13.9
Phoenix: 8.0, 21.7
Queen Creek: 5.8, 14.5
Scottsdale: 21.6, 19.0
Tempe: 14.0, 14.0

This data is supplied by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. ARMLS, West USA, and Pat & Amy Monahan do not guarantee the accuracy of the data.

When Will The Real Estate Market Hit Bottom?

Here's a take from Andrew Waite of Personal Real Estate Investor Magazine - he sees an increase in title insurance policies ordered this year as a sign that the market is scrapping along the bottom. Read more - Great News More Market Bottom Evidence

We think the First Time Home Buyers Tax Credit will bring more buyers back into the market. We probably won't start seeing the affects of that until April and later months sales are posted. Buyers are just now hearing about the tax credit and will need time to find a house and purchase it.

Just Published

I just published an article at ezarticles.com.

Foreclosure Real Estate Purchase Contract - What to Expect

January Market Statistics

First the good news - total active listings, properties for sale, in ARMLS are lower than they have been in 20 months and the number of sold properties was 65% higher in January of 2009 than in January last year.

Total January ARMLS inventory represents about 11.5 months of inventory. When a real estate market has an average of about six months of inventory it is considered to be "normal". Listed below is the months of inventory by city. You can see that there is a fairly wide variation by city. The same can be true of neighborhoods within cities.

Months of Inventory
Chandler - 11.3
Gilbert - 9.5
Mesa - 11.8
Phoenix - 9.7
Queen Creek - 7.1
Scottsdale - 23.4
Tempe - 16.7

December Market Statistics

November Market Statistics

This data is supplied by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. ARMLS, West USA, and Pat & Amy Monahan do not guarantee the accuracy of the data.

Before you buy a newly built home

Before you buy a newly built home, check on the financial health of the builder. You want to make sure they will be able to complete the community in a timely manner. This applies whether you purchase directly from the builder or from a current owner of a property in that community. If the builder is having financial difficulties it is likely that the HOA for that community is as well. How do you check? Click on the link to the AZ Department of Real Estate listing below. There is also a current article from the AZ Republic with a listing for Chandler. You may still decide to buy in one of these communities but you should make sure you have done your homework before you do.

Also, for those of you that don't live in this area, please realize that most of the Phoenix area cities are very large and with the expection of outlying areas new build communities represent a very small portion of the cities housing. The Phoenix area is a great place to live with lots of great communities.

Unfinished Subdivisions Create Problems - AZ Republic

AZDRE List of Home Builders in Financial Trouble

Is the Sun Peaking Out Behind the Clouds?

Kenneth Harney wrote an article for Realty Times about the possible changes that could come about in the real estate market depending upon what actions the new administration and Congress take in the near future. He indicates that if foreclosures are greatly reduced then the real estate market is likely to start returning to normal. The article is pretty interesting and you can read it by clicking on the link below.

Real Estate Outlook: Change Anticipated

By the way - those of you who are looking for the market bottom should know that we are starting to see multiple offers on some well priced properties. We called for a client to get information regarding a short sale property and learned that they already had 10 offers. Remember, we will only when the market bottom is until we have passed it.

December 08 Real Estate Statistics

Above are graphs of local real estate statistics for the Phoenix area. Some of the East Valley cities seem to be doing better than the greater market area. Both Chandler and Gilbert saw significant reductions in the number of listings available for sale. Chandler went from 2714 in December of 07 to 2140 in December of 08. Gilbert went from 2712 in December of 2007 to 2260 in December of 08. Queen Creek has gone from about 16 months of inventory in January of 2008 to approximately 6 months of inventory in December of 2008. This was partially due to the large number of homes sold in Queen Creek in December 2008 - 346 versus 159 sold in the 12/07.

This data is supplied by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. ARMLS, West USA, and Pat & Amy Monahan do not guarantee the accuracy of the data.

November Market Statistics

Above are the statistics for the number of current listings in November plus the number of sold listings. Chandler had the most significant decrease in active listings ending November with a 9.5 month supply of listings. For the total Arizona Regional MLS there was a 12.8 month supply. Sales were 4435 units in November 2008 up 34% from November of 2007.

This data is supplied by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. ARMLS, West USA, and Pat & Amy Monahan do not guarantee the accuracy of the data.

Mortgage Applications Up

An article in Realty Times, Real Estate Outlook: Mortgage Applications Rise by Kenneth R. Harney, indicates that a national survey indicated an increase of 37% in applications for loans to buy houses. What is driving the increase? A combination of lower interest rates and affordable home prices. It looks like many people have decided that this is the time to buy a home and the market may be starting the change.

Beginning of Housing Recovery?

There was an article in today's AZ Republic regarding signs that the local housing market may be starting on the road to recovery. Click on the link below to read it.

Steps Made in Housing Recovery

October Residential Sales Up Over Last Year

Some good news in October, total ARMLS (Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service) residential sales were up by 56% over the previous year with a total of 5,370 sales. Months of inventory was sitting at about 10.5 months compared to last October when it was over 17.5 months. Chandler and Gilbert have made the most progress in reducing inventory of active listings.

This data is supplied by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. ARMLS, West USA, and Pat & Amy Monahan do not guarantee the accuracy of the data.

A Global and Historic Perspective on the Economy

I read an interesting article at the W.P. Carey School of Business (ASU) website. The media tend to dwell so much on all the negative things happening in today's economy. There is not question that there are some difficult things happening and almost everyone is affected in one way or another. So, it can be refreshing to take a step back and look at how far the United States and the world have come and the positive role that the United States has played and will continue to play in world economic growth. Click on the link below to read the article or listen to the podcast.

Podcast: America's Six Unstoppable Trends

September Home Sales Are Up!

First the good news! Buyers are starting to respond to the good prices and sales were up considerably in September. Total ARMLS sales for September 2008 were 6,150 compared with 3,377 in September of last year.

Above is a slide show of graphs for each city showing the number of active listings, the number of new listings, and the number of solds by month for the last 12 months. It is encouraging to see that in some cities the number of active listings has decreased in the past few months. However, with the number of new listings being added each month it will be a while before the market comes back into balance. Foreclosures have become a big factor in the market. No one can predict how many more foreclosure properties will be added to the active listings in coming months.

This data is supplied by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. ARMLS, West USA, and Pat & Amy Monahan do not guarantee the accuracy of the data.

AZ Foreclosure Data

The AZ Republic had an interesting article about local foreclosures in today's paper - Data show how foreclosures pull down Valley home values. We have certainly been seeing and selling homes that have been foreclosed upon. While these can be good deals for buyers, depending upon the condition of the property, they are probably contributing to the decrease in home values (as the article indicates). These bank owned properties on average are selling for less than those owned by sellers. In some cases these bank owned properties are not in as good of condition as the seller owned properties which is a contributing factor to the lower price. Additionally, the majority of banks will only sell the proprety "as is" and will not do any repairs to the property. The number of foreclosures and sales of foreclosures varies widely by zip code. The AZ Republic site has a link - Bank Owned Sales Prices by Zip - where you can input a zip code and get sales data. An example of the data provided for zip code 85226 in Chandler and zip code 85206 in Mesa follows.


ZIP code - 85226 (Chandler)
Resale median - $259,000
Traditional resale median -$260,000
Foreclosure resale median - $230,000
Resales - 259
Traditional resales - 232
Foreclosure resales - 27

ZIP code - 85206 (Mesa)
Resale median - $202,500
Traditional resale median - $205,500
Foreclosure resale median - $185,000
Resales - 274
Traditional resales - 246
Foreclosure resales - 28

History Repeating Itself?

I was glancing through the May issue of REALTOR magazine which had an article and a timeline regarding Home ownership in America. Here are a few items I noticed on the time line, does any of this look familiar?

1997 - 1979 The Energy Crisis
1980 With inflation running at 13 percent and unemployment near 8 percent, single-family home sales plunge 22 percent from a year earlier.
1981 By September, mortgage rates surpass 18 percent and end the year around 17 percent.
1987 A 32 percent decline stock values between Oct. 13 and Oct. 19 exceeds the magnitude of the 1929 stock market crash.
1989 The failure of nearly 1,000 savings and loan associations lead to passage of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recover and Enforcement Act and creation of the Resolution Trust Corp.
1991 Mortgage interest rates dip below 10 percent for the first time in 12 years.
1995 President Bill Clinton unveils a National Home ownership Strategy with a goal of raising the nation's home ownership rate to 67.5 percent by 2000. This goal is reached.
2000 Stocks begin a downward plunge in March, marking the end of the dot-com boom.
2003 Residential mortgage rates dip below 6 percent in January.

Source - May 2008 Issue REALTOR Magazine

NAR Information on the Bailout

There are lots of articles out there on the proposed bailout of Wall Street, so I know you have a lot of potential reading. However, I thought some of you might be interested in the following.

9/22 NAR Economists Commentary - $700 for What?

9/23 - NAR Letter to Senator Dodd

Real Estate Market Outlook

Here is the National Associations of REALTORS® President's podcast. It is directed towards REALTORS® but has good information for the public as well.

Federal Take Over of Fannie Mae & Freddic Mac

The federal government has taken over conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is believed that this will lead to more stability for these companies and the financial markets and economy in general. It may lead to low interest rates for mortgages. There is a lot of information available about this and I've provided links to some articles below for those of you who would like to be more informed.



Mortgage Industry Welcomes Federal Fix - Sept. 9 - AZ Republic



A Primer on Fannie and Freddie: What the Bailout Means - Sept. 8 - U.S. News & World Report



Fannie and Freddie: What You Should Know - Sept. 8 - U.S. News & World Report

Market Statistics for August 2008

With the new flexmls system we are able to pull data much sooner. Above is a graph which compares the number of months of inventory for the East Valley cities, Phoenix, and Scottsdale with the full MLS for the area. Below is a slide show of graphs for each city showing the number of active listings, the number of new listings, and the number of solds by month for the last 24 months. It is encouraging to see that in a number of cities the number of active listings has decreased in the past few months.

This data is supplied by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. ARMLS, West USA, and Pat & Amy Monahan do not guarantee the accuracy of the data.

R.L. Brown Housing Report

If you are curious about the R.L. Brown Housing Report, this month they are offering a free on-line copy of their report. Normally to get the reports, you need to pay a subscription fee. It would normally cost you $65 to get this single report. This report is widely used by the local real estate community and often referred to by the press. To access the free report, just click on the R.L. Brown Housing Report link and scroll down almost to the bottom of the page. Right click on the "Housing Market Reports" box and open in a new window. The report discusses new home builders, the resale market, and the impact of bank owned foreclosure properties on the market.