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Are you waiting for the news that the Phoenix Real Estate market has hit bottom?
May 6, 2009 by RobClang · Leave a Comment
If you are waiting for the news media to tell you that the phoenix real estate market has hit bottom so that you can purchase a home, then you will be to late. My favorite line that summarizes this is
“I would rather be 15 minutes early than 5 minutes late.”
Real estate prices are low and interest rates are at lows we may never see again. Some numbers for thought that are for all of Maricopa County, We are down to approximately 33,000 listings. we have almost 15,000 homes under contract and we closed almost 7,500 homes in April 2009. Those numbers are huge! The news media will not report on these numbers because all they look at are closings. You can expect them to report on the large number of closings we had maybe in the next few weeks or maybe next month. The number of pendings tell us that the buyers are in the market and putting homes under contract. Banks are receiving multiple offers on their listings. We are down to less than 2 months of inventory for bank owned homes. We currently have 5,798 bank owned homes on the market and in April 4,856 bank owned homes closed. The bad news is that of the 7,460 homes that closed in April only 629 of them were priced above $350,000. The middle and high end market still continues to move at a snails pace.
The martket is hot right now for homes priced below $350,000. The buyers that are purchasing these homes and getting an FHA loan are also postioning themselves with a tremendous exit strategy for when they go to sell their home. FHA loans are assumable if the buyer qualifies. What that means is if you buy a home and have a loan at 4.5% then no matter what the interes rate is 5 years from know you will be better postioned to sell your home because the buyer can assume your loan and have a great rate even if the market 5 years from now has interest rates at 8%.
The only dark clouds we have on the horizon are job growth and how many more people are going to be foreclosed on by the banks.
As far as job growth goes I think here in the valley of the sun we are postioned better than most places in the country. California is taxing their business owners at higher and higher rates and we are starting to see business owners pick up from california and head to arizona where txation is much lower.
People will continue to move to the Phoenix area because of our weather, because of the many amenities that we offer and because its a great place to live. Dont forget all of the baby boomers that will be looking for a warm place to retire and play golf and swim and relax. They are coming soon!
How many more foreclosures? That is the big question. It will take time to see how many people will be helped by the Homeowner Affordability Plan and Stimulous Plan. I will let you know as the numbers come in.
I have been in the Title Insurancve business for over 23 years and have worked in the Scottsdale/Phoenix market for 9 years.
Thanks for reading my post and let me know if you have any questions.
Rob Clang - Security Title