Sunday Stats
August 24, 2008
photo credit to MiamiAmia, via StockExchange
Click here to link back to last week’s stats or click here to see the entire series.
This week’s chart is below. As always, red indicates the value moved in the ‘wrong’ direction (away from a balanced market), while green means the value moved towards a balanced market.
It’s interesting to note that most of the red in the “Months of Inventory” column is in the ZIPs that lay closest to the central Phoenix business corridors, while most of the green in this column is in the outlying ZIPs farther from center city.
I’ve always felt that central Phoenix is due for a renaissance as homeowners realize that a large, new McMansion far from the city isn’t such a great deal if you spend several hours a day in the car commuting to work in the downtown corridors.
I’ve even heard some homeowners state this idea out loud: “Sure my house is 40 years old and it’s got a few issues like any old house would, but I’m only 10 or 15 minutes from work, so that tradeoff works for me. More time with my family trumps a bigger house.”
This week’s chart doesn’t support that theory at all. Of course, looking at weekly stats kind of gives one a “can’t view the forest for the trees” perspective, so I’ll hang on to my theory for now and just keep watching the numbers.
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Chris Butterworth says Rising Gas Prices Won’t Kill the Suburbs
August 24, 2008 at 11:13 am
One of the reasons the central Phoenix zip codes are doing worse then some of the zip codes further out is that the median price in Central Phoenix is much higher. Currently the starter home segment up to $240,000 is doing best and carrying the market while the move up and luxury markets are lower in sales numbers. Plus were are moving into the end of summer when sales usually wind down a bit.