Phoenix Median Single-Family House Price UP $9,000 from 1 Month Ago But DOWN $46,000 from 1 Year Ago
I think May will be the peak month for prices this year like it was last year.
The number of single-family houses that went under contract to buyers last week was down 18% from 4 weeks earlier, and during the summer we have a lot fewer buyers of expensive, luxury houses.
The high season is over. Sales will go down, for sure. The question is, “What happens to supply?”.
The number of homes for sale will start increasing again any week now, but will it increase fast or slow? We should know in a month.
Twitter
This Tweet of mine from a week ago kinda went viral and got 140K views.
And this Tweet of mine from last week also kinda went viral with 170K views!
The Cromford Report
The Cromford Report pointed out something about the Case-Shiller data that I hadn't noticed.
All Case-Shiller cities and USA prices increased from February to March.
Phoenix was up the least, 0.5%
USA was up 1.3%
San Francisco was up the most, 3.0%!
Suggests the Phoenix real estate market isn’t as strong as those other markets.
Also, The Cromford Report pointed this out.
"The new home sales count was up 10.7% from May 2022 and up 25.7% from April 2023."
I bet we have a LOT of new houses in the pipeline. That should add to the supply of houses for sale for several months. I wonder when the pipeline of new houses will peak. Next autumn? Next winter?
FHA Proposes a Zero-Interest Mortgage!
"The Payment Supplement Partial Claim allows homeowners experiencing a hardship who are unable to obtain a significant payment reduction with other loss mitigation options to keep their existing interest rate and reduce their monthly payment temporarily using funds from the FHA Partial Claim, which is a subordinate zero interest lien. The homeowners then pay FHA back when they sell their home or refinance." – HUD
Another way this isn’t like last time.
Did you know Maricopa County had over 50,000 trustee deed sales of homes in 2010? That will never happen again.
Scammers Forge Purchase Documents then Resell Your House!
"With the new system, homeowners can opt to receive alerts whenever a document is recorded that mentions their name" – Arizona Republic
Maricopa County will battle an increase in fraud schemes in which homes are sold out from under owners.
What a nightmare that must be for the real owners and, especially for the buyers the scammers sell the house to.
More…
Click on the graphs to go to the full-size, interactive version.
Notice how very small changes in New Listings and Solds eventually cause HUGE changes in the number of houses For Sale and house Prices (see graph above).
This information can vary a lot in different parts of metro Phoenix. Your real estate agent can find the data for your specific city or zip code at The Cromford Report.
The wildest components in home sales markets remain employment and short term rentals. If we see construction decline, employment will fall sharply. If immigration increases, employment weakens. And if a recession hurts tourism, the monstrous bubble in vacation rentals will explode.
Or . . . Everything floats along and we worried too much.
some more data for you (and I) to ponder. One Way Truck Rentals to and from Scottsdale are red hot high for those leaving Scottsdale and really cheap for those coming to Scottsdale. I haven't been watching the data long enough to understand how it's trending. But that always means only one thing. Rental companies are fighting the cost of sending a driver to deadhead a truck back to Scottsdale for the next person who moves out. The imbalance ranges from 2:1 to 5:1 depending on the lane. Only S. CA is balanced among the 20 lanes I'm watching. Next Stat: Scottsdale Sales Tax Revenue has gone flat. Within that data grocery store revenue has declined sharply. Again, an indicator that there are fewer mouths to feed, since Scottsdale people love their AJ's and wouldn't be caught dead in WalMart. (Source - Scottsdale City Treasurer Report and a friendly City Council member who leads a semi-monthly chat with S/Dale Bigwigs - which I'm not - but they let me in any way.) Next Stat: airdna.co now ranks Scottsdale at 40 on a scale of 1:100. Revenue per unit per night dropped 14.4% year over year, average rates dropped 11% year over year. And the number of units listed went totally flat. Next Stat: Read the L.A. Times article re: the absolute collapse of the Palm Springs housing market. Palm Springs is to CA as Scottsdale is to AZ. Historically the housing markets have moved nearly in sync with each other. Last Note - Anecdotal in Part/Statistic In Part: High end homes in Scottsdale are still a hot commodity. Those seeking to buy and realtors trying to find product all report that it's not a bidding war, but it's still a tight market with shorter than normal Days On Market. 3-4 BR homes 1,800' to 2,400' are readily available, reflecting the inability of an owner to Lease, Rent, STR or Sell. Those who financed the deal looking for the "quick flip" in late 2022 thru 2023 are now considering how big a loss they're willing to absorb. Will the Scottsdale Balloon Pop? Again? Or am I totally full of shit? Both could be possible. Maybe the balloon won't pop. But it's definitely starting to leak a bit. The damage won't cover the massive North/South land mass that's Scottsdale. The biggest issue is centered from Indian Bend South. With another pocket of weakness in the Grayhawk area and the homes west of the airpark. (The STR centers).