After a brief decline the 2nd and 3rd weeks of January, inventory of active homes for sale in Maricopa Arizona continues to hover just below the 500 mark. Althought he sesonal buyers appear to be back in town (as you can tell by all of the out of state/country licnense plates), there appears to be a reluctance by many to "pull the trigger" on a purchase. The Pending sales information apprears to back this up. This is most likley driven by two factors: the higher inventory and higher prices. Although we usually see another influx of buyers now that Spring Training has started, I don't think it will make too much of a difference during the two months of "high season" that we have left. After that, I would expect inventory to increase and values decline until next year.
On the the Seller's side, we are definitely experiencing more "traditional" sales than we have seen since the housing market crash of 2007 - 2007. The increase in values over the past two years has offered mnay homeowners an opportunity to sell their home at a profit. People who have been thinking about upsizing or moving from Maricopa are taking advantage of the value run-up but there time may be very limited.
Short sales and foreclosures continue to plod along and still make up only about 20% of the current inventory. There are still a lot of distressed homeowners "sitting on the fence" in regards to what to do and lenders are still not releasing all of their foreclosure inventory as some hames remain vacant for months after being taken back by the lender. Here are the numbers along with a few more of my thoughts:
ACTIVE: 483, stable from 485 As mentioned in previous postings, this number has remained relatively constant since mid December. It is almost triple the inventory that we had back in June of 2012, a little over 7 months ago!! With the decrease in buying activity from previous years, I expect inventory to increase to near record levels after the seasonal buyers leave by mid-May, if not sooner. There are still plenty of distressed mortgages out there to fuel this increase.
ACTIVE SHORT SALES: 44, stable from 47 This number has settled in the 55 - 45 range for the past months. As stated before, many Maricopa AZ homeowners are still deciding what to do with their distressed mortgages. This is evidenced by the fact that there are currently 18 homeowners that are 30,60 or 90 days late on their mortgage and 72 that have been served their Notice of Trustee Sale and are facing a foreclosure soon.
LENDER OWNED: 35, stable from 33 Nothing much has changed here in the past months as lenders are still reluctant to relase their "shadow" inventory. You would think they would take advantage of our influx of seasonal buyers but, after all, they are lenders!!
HUD HOMES: 12, up from 7 Not a large part of the inventory, the inventory of these government insured foreclosures have remained relatively stable. Over the past two weeks or so it appeared that a few of them were slipping past the "30 days on the market" timeline that allows investors to purchase them, but that does not appear to be a trend.
UCB (mostly short sales with offers on them): 74, stable from 72 Most desrirable short sales are still being "double ended" by the listing agent and there is not a lot of buying opportunity here. We receive many calls from buyers that see the low list prices of these homes but almost all are taken off the market in the first day or so.
PENDING SALES: 258, up from 248 A modest gain but well below expected numbers for this time of year. In past years, the number of Pending sales tends to be close to 300 homes every week. This is a strong indicator that there is resistance from our seasonal buyers to purchase at the highest prices in years when there is so much inventory. Most, I believe, are playing the wait and see game.
CLOSED SALES: 26, down from 43 This number fluctuates week to week but we are on track for below average FEB closings.
RENTALS: 188, down from 209 Since the rental inventory has remained fairly consistant over the past 5 months at the 200 level, this decline may be another indicator that some seasonal buyers have decided to rent this year rather than buy.
View the full spreadsheet Maricopa AZ Housing Market Data
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