A client who’s also a friend emailed me through LinkedIn the other day. He said,
David: How’s the market going for you? Do you see residential real estate coming back anytime soon?
Thought our readers might be interested in my answer.
Heather: Sadly, no, I don’t see it coming back anytime soon. Earlier this year I was hopeful that we’d be back on the road to normal by Fall 2010 or Spring 2011, but I’m less hopeful now. It seems like the economic news is mostly bad, more and more people expect a double dip recession and the politicians are on hold for the summer, getting ready for a Battle Royale in November.
To top it off, Phoenix-area residential real estate often seems to be a leading indicator, and we’ve seen a big slowdown in the volume of residential resale homes getting sold in July. For most of 2009, about 5,500 or 6,000 resale homes sold Valleywide. March through June 2010 we averaged about 6,500 or 7,000 homes sold Valley-wide. July 2010 sales volumes were only 5,200 and August sales volumes are looking like they’ll come in at about 5,000 homes sold. But the volume of new bank owned homes hitting the market hasn’t slowed at the same rate. Same supply, less demand, simple Econ 101 says prices drop.
I’m battening down the hatches and prepping for another 3 years of sluggish creeping along the bottom, price-wise in Phoenix-area real estate.
I could be totally wrong. I hope I am. But I’m battening down the hatches all the same. My new mantra is simplify, small-ify, use hand-me-downs, reduce, re-use, recycle… lather, rinse, repeat.
Heather Barr is a Realtor. She's a chow hound, a gym rat, and a political junkie and a happy workaholic.
Tagged as:
Economics,
Politics
Another installment of the Sunday Stats, on Monday this week. Since it’s the Labor Day holiday – which we ironically celebrate by taking a holiday – today feels like Sunday, tomorrow Tuesday will feel like Monday for most of us, and when Friday arrives in 4 days instead of 5 it’ll be a great treat.
Inventory levels continue to drop. First timers are keeping The Phoenix Agents hopping lately, and we hear the same from most of our colleagues. The federal $8,000 first time home buyers’ tax credit isn’t (and shouldn’t be) the reason many rookies are home shopping but you can’t shake a stick at it either.
(click pics to enlarge, back to return)
There’s also quite a lot of investor activity going on. We’ve been helping first time buyers shop lately in both Queen Creek and Surprise. We had the bright idea of looking for non-bank owned properties, since foreclosures are so hard to get a contract accepted on. Almost every single one of the non-bank owned homes was a fix and flip! Investors are buying homes at the foreclosure auctions, installing new paint, carpet, appliances and lighting fixtures, then selling them at a (small) profit. Talk about shades of the boom-boom era.
Note: These charts include data from the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) and include single-family detached homes, patio homes, town homes, condos, multifamily housing, and loft housing. The charts exclude commercial properties, raw land, mobile & manufactured homes. All data believed accurate but – since it is based on data in the ARMLS – author is unable to guarantee.
Heather Barr is a Realtor. She's a chow hound, a gym rat, and a political junkie and a happy workaholic.
Tagged as:
Sunday Stats
I could be totally wrong. I hope I am. But I’m battening down the hatches all the same. My new mantra is simplify, small-ify, use hand-me-downs, reduce, re-use, recycle… lather, rinse, repeat.
