Market Improving - Anecdotal Evidence
April 13, 2008
I haven’t written much lately. It’s because I’m working 13 hour days with buyers and sellers crawling out of the woodwork it seems. So, a short post about the anecdotal evidence I’ve got that says the metro Phoenix real estate market is improving.
- I’ve got 4 new listings in 2 weeks, all priced aggressively to move within 30 days
- I’ve also got 3 new buyers, money in hand, FICO score safely in the mid- to high-700’s, ready to buy this month
- My A/C guy is busier than he can keep up with, with new work based on home inspection findings
- His friend who does truss work for area builders, says he’s busy again after a 1-1/2 year lull
- A friend of mine who works for Pulte says their sales office is slammed; she’s working Saturdays again
- We have 55,598 active listings in the Arizona Regional MLS which is higher than I’ve seen since I started tracking in Oct 2007 (this is all property type, Active only, not AWC)
- 6,626 properties are ”pending” today, which is 11.84% of the Active inventory (up from 10.00% on March 12, and a meager 6.06% on January 6)
- 4,589 properties have sold in the past 30 days, which means we’ve got 12.19 months of inventory on the market (down from 15.48 on March 12 and a dismal 19.30 last November)
So what does it all mean? It seems we’re getting our usual spring inventory increase. With an already bloated market full of too many under-improved and over-priced houses, this should be bad. But the good news it we seem to be selling it. Nobody would claim a 12 months’ supply of housing for sale is a good market, but it’s a definite improvement over where we’ve been.
Have we turned the corner? My gut says yes, but I want another month or two of watching the “months supply” number drop before I’ll change my market call from Hold to Buy.
April 14, 2008 at 2:01 am
Heather, I’m with you. My schedule is full, and it seems that while buyers tend to be nervous about future property values, more and more are feeling like they need to purchase now, because the interest rates have been so good.
April 14, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Heather,
This is great news. I know its anecdotal, but that doesn’t make it less true. It’s the accumulation of these anecdotal experiences that will create the trend. I personally think the market will start to normalize very soon and that we’re already in the up swing. Only time can tell… Thanks for sharing this great news, I was encourages.
April 14, 2008 at 5:31 pm
My gut says yes too. I haven’t had time to post on my blog either. I have been working with buyers and have been non stop. Yes, I think we have turned a corner!
May 13, 2008 at 7:09 pm
[...] biggest gem though comes from North Phoenix Agent (Heather Barr) who in the middle of April posted anecdotal evidence asking if the market was improving, some of [...]