Maybe not. BusinessWeek has the Phoenix/Mesa metropolitan area as the seventh healthiest real estate market in the country — but since their analysis is based on year-over-year appreciation, that news is not nearly a momentous as it portends to be. Using our own numbers, yearover-year through July we’re up 0.57% — essentially nothing. That number may go negative for August. The good news is that the homes listed by loosely-motivated sellers seem to be coming off the market. The new home builders will have cleared their surplus inventory within a few months, so we may settle down to something fairly normal relatively soon.
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Todd Tarson says:
My market basically follows yours within a few months, so I hope your numbers are right.
I’ve yet to see the not so motivated listing come off the market as of yet, but it is the one thing I’d really love to see.
Plenty of price reductions again at our MLS meeting this morning reported. So at least we are seeing who the real motivated sellers are.
August 23, 2006 — 9:36 am
Greg Swann says:
> My market basically follows yours within a few months, so I hope your numbers are right.
This is why I read the Las Vegas Review-Journal every day, because their market tends to lead ours by about six months.
Inlookers: Mohave County, where Todd works, is looking at a boom over the next ten years or so. As work proceeds on the new bridge over the Colorado River, rerouting US 93 away from the Hoover Dam, vast tracts of Mohave County are bing bought up and built up to be bedroom communities for Las Vegas. Right now, there are something like 125,000 new homes in various stages of planning. This will be an amazing thing to watch as it unfolds.
August 23, 2006 — 11:26 am
Todd Tarson says:
Wow, excellent review. Of course there are still some battles to be won (water resources and other politics, visit my blog for an update, Greg pardon me for self promotion).
But otherwise, yes it is an exciting time up here in MOCO. We won’t ever be a metro area like Phoenix or Vegas but I don’t mind being nestled in between those two great cities. If everything was to work out that is in the planning stage for communities and for commercial opportunities, Kingman could become the 3rd largest city in Arizona in the not too distant future.
As far as today goes, I’d just be extremely happy if the positive signs you may be seeing come to fruition in your market. Which is why I’ll continue to check back often.
August 23, 2006 — 11:54 am
Greg Swann says:
> Greg pardon me for self promotion
Promote away. I think Mohave County is an excellent locale for experienced investors — land, commercial and residential. I’m sure there will be growing pains, but as soon as the newcomers outnumber the old-timers, things will change like dreams. Land that can be owned and developed is in short supply throughout the Southwest — which is why Las Vegas is growing into Arizona. Mohave County is one of the last places where big parcels can be assembled without too much grief.
August 23, 2006 — 12:05 pm
Dave Barnes says:
So, I am confused.
This
http://housingwatch.com/regionview.aspx?city=Phoenix&pct=50&g=m
shows prices off by 10.8% over the last year.
August 23, 2006 — 3:21 pm
Greg Swann says:
> prices off by 10.8% over the last year.
Where are their numbers coming from? The numbers I cited above are from a subset of ARMLS listings we track every month. Year-over-year for ARMLS as a whole looks like this:
July 2005 $311,739 average sales price
July 2006 $333,496 average sales price
A net of about 7% appreciation year-over-year.
There are lot of different ways of measuring things. For example, most new home sales would not be reflected in ARMLS, and none of the FSBOs or direct sales. But certainly ARMLS represents a huge share of the sales in the Valley of the Sun. I have no idea how the housingwatch people could account for a swing of almost 18%. You might ask them.
August 23, 2006 — 3:40 pm