This is one of the our most commonly asked questions. In some of the previous emails and newsletters, I have discussed my general suspicions that the market is headed up based on a lack of supply and very strong demand. Here are some statistics to back it up from the Cromford Report.
- Active Listings (excluding AWC which likely a short sale with a pending contract which has not been approved by the bank) as of October 1st-19,327 which is up slightly from September 1st but down almost 50% from last October.
- Active Listings (including AWC) 26,869-again up slightly from September but down more than 40% from a year ago.
- Sales per month-Up 17% from a year ago.
- Days Inventory (the number of days is would take to sell all of the homes if no new listings were added ) 99 the same as September but down from 179 days inventory a year ago.
- Sales price as a percentage of list price-96.7% up from 95.43% a year ago.
- Trustees Sales-There were 2689 trustees sales in Maricopa County in September compared to 4808 a year ago. In addition, of those trustees sales, only 1280 actually reverted to the banks themselves.
- Foreclosure filings-There were 4335 residential filings which is 39% lower than September 2010
Remember as I have said in the past, that media coverage generally lags the actual trends in the market. All of these trends are indicators that the price pressure on the market is either upward or neutral based on basic supply and demand. However, we are still showing a small decrease in pricing overall for the year of approximately 3%. I attribute this again to the lag in statistics and this does not bear out when compared to the everyday experience of having to write 10 to 15 offer at or above full list price before an offer is accepted by the seller.
As long as there are no significant additional guidelines added (such as the proposed FHA enegy costs being included in FHA ratios), the market should begin to show signs of recovery in actual price increases in the near future. These may be very slow growing and the market may sputter at times but the downward pricing eventually has to succumb to the economic factors above.
