As of today there are 55,632 listings, of those there are 45,556 single family homes for sale in Arizona. Listings are down from last months report where there were 57,797 home for sale, of those there were 47,461 single family homes. As you can see the numbers are looking better. Contrary to what I have been reading in the paper and online, the numbers are getting better here in Phoenix.

For example, Robert Shiller who helped create the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index predicts home prices to fall lower than they did in the Great Depression. I know I am not a Yale University graduate like Mr. Shiller but I believe this man has gone over the deep end. This man may be very smart, however he is not in the trenches everyday like we are on a daily basis. We can tell what the market is doing before anyone else. We find out way before people who run these indexes get last month's numbers and make their predictions.

It is us REALTORS, Mortgage Bankers/Brokers, Inspectors, Appraisers, etc..., who know what the market is doing day to day. Anyone can sit in a fancy office and be a Monday morning armchair quarterback. But it is us who are out in the cold and heat busting our humps who know what is really happening in our markets. The first word of real estate is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. And markets are like rain clouds, it may be raining under one part of the rain cloud or, there may be sun shining through part of it where there is no rain. Unless you are out there in the thick of things there is no real way to know.

For example, my broker mentioned that last month (March) was the best month our company has had since 2006. And I have heard the same from other agents with different brokers. I believe that our market is still bumping along the bottom and we are very near stabilization.

Furthermore, from February 1, 2008 through February 29, 2008 there were 3,434 properties sold in Arizona. From March 1, 2008 through March 31, 2008 there were 4,298 properties sold in Arizona which is almost 1,000 more than February. This is usually the buying and selling season of real estate, and I am predicting that more buyers are going to jump off the fence and find that now is a great time to buy a home.