Maricopa Arizona Housing Market Update – 7FEB
Here is the weekly summary of the activity in the housing market of Maricopa Arizona for the week ending 6FEB. The numbers are for subdivision homes only.
ACTIVE: 688, down from 738. Inventory continues to decline. This represents a 6.7% decline over the past week and 13.6% in the past month. While buyer activity accounts for some of this, there are others factors that are coming into play that will be discussed in the other categories.
SHORT SALES: 284, down from 307. The number of short sale listings available also continues to contribute to the decline. This tells me that their are still hundreds of distressed homeowners out there that have yet to make a decision on what to do (or else are attempting loan modifications or just walking away). With mortgage payments due shortly, I expect to see this number to begin to increase. This will most likely happen over the next couple of months and probably longer. Also, agents and buyers continue to target short sales for offers since the inventory of homes is so low.
LENDER OWNED: 140, down from 153. Obviously, the lenders have still not decided (or are not taking action yet) what to do with all of their backlogged inventory. Since I did not track these trends at the beginning of last year, it is difficult to draw comparisons. Buyer activity is strong and the new supply simply cannot keep pace.
AWC: 194, up from 190. As stated previously, buyers are continuing to target short sales as the reduced inventory levels are making it difficult to find certain homes, single level homes in the better subdivisions in particular.
PENDING: 283, up from 263. I have not seen this many homes pending since mid-May of 2010. The number itself can be a little deceiving as some Realtors place AWC homes in here by mistake. But, since I have been using the same search criteria, the trending is still notable. Seasonal buyers are leading the way and I expect very strong closing numbers for the next few months. Many of our out of state buyers have yet to arrive in Arizona.
CLOSED: 44, down from 58. Though this number decreased from last week, it is a very strong number. Last week’s numbers were from the end of the month and they are always inflated. Very seldom do we see back to back numbers like this. As stated above, I expect this trend to continue and total closings to surpass 200.
AUCTION: 24, up from 17. There were definitely more homes available at auction this past week and it seemed that the lenders “lightened up” on the opening bid numbers more than we have seen recently. Top dollar is still being paid for the better homes.
SUMMARY: I sound like a broken record but it’s more of the same. The decrease in inventory, coupled with the seasonal buying activity, could begin to be problematic. Yes, this situation will keep values “propped up” but there will be less availability of quality homes within the search parameters of buyers. We have already begun to see the return of multiple offers and “highest and best”. To put this in perspective, the inventory was at 972 in mid-SEP of 2010. This is a huge decline.
It remains to be seen what the lenders will be doing with their backlogged. Some have even questioned how much of this still to be released inventory there is. I DON’T. The self imposed moratoriums, coupled with the Holiday moratorium, have to have created a backlog. Also, I have noticed that a number of short sales that I have lost to foreclosure are not being re-marketed as foreclosures in a timely manner. They are out there, when they are coming is ’ guess!
I could go on for quite awhile about the market in general but will wait for some more numbers and dive in a little deeper next week.
View the full spreadsheet Monthly home data
