Maricopa Arizona Homes for Sale
Happy Fourth of July everyone! The market for Maricopa subdivision homes for sale experienced some notable changes this past week. Although inventory of active listings remained relatively stable, the number of pending sales dropped quite a bit. The housing market tends to be extremely volatile during the summer months and this year should be no exception. Here are a few of the latest key indicators along with my thoughts:
ACTIVE LISTINGS: 331, up from 324 After a steady decline, this number has remained relatively stable for the past month and a half. It has been fueled by a consistent flow of new listings onto the marketplace along with relatively steady buyer activity. That being said, the large decrease in Pending listings may be a signal that inventory will begin to rise.
NEW LISTINGS: 38, up from 33 The number of new listings has remained stable with 35-40 being activated each week. The majority of these listings are investor owned or traditional sales. Values still remain at or near the highest point in years so many homeowners are taking advantage. Whether or not demand will keep up during the summer months remains to be seen.
PENDING SALES: 218, down from 249 This is a level that we have not experienced since the beginning of the year, before the seasonal buying picked up in force. Although Wizards of Waz Real Estate has remained pretty busy, most agents, and real estate related vendors, are reporting a sharp decline in buyer interest. To some point this is to be expected this time of year but it is interesting to note that the current level of pending sales represents a decline of 16% over the same period last year.
CLOSINGS: 53, up from 38 The increase, once again, is a result of "end of the month" rush to close by title companies and lenders. Because there is a direct relation between closed sales and pending sales, I would expect this number to decrease substantially over the next 30 - 45 days unless there is a sudden increase in buyer activity.
JUNE CLOSINGS: 174 versus 221 from JUNE 2012 This represents a 21% decline from same period last year. Of course, we need to keep in mind that values were just beginning their upward march at that time. Now that values, in my opinion, have "topped out" for awhile, there is definitely some buyer resistance at the current pricing levels. This is substantiated by the fact that most closings are occurring at a discounted price form the original list price of the active listings.
As I have mentioned before, I do not take one week's worth of data too seriously as the numbers tend to fluctuate. That being said, I still expect inventory to rise dramatically over the next 4-6 months at least. As a result (due to the law of supply and demand), values should begin to recede at least until the seasonal buyers return in force after the first of the year. There is still a window of opportunity for Sellers but I believe that potential profits from any sale will be on the decline as the months go by. Obviously this will be good news for buyers that may have been sitting on the fence!
View the full spreadsheet Maricopa AZ Housing Market Data
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