Real Estate Market Update
January 2012

The market is changing!

Reviewing what happened across central AZ in 2011 starts to paint the picture:

  Sales were the second highest ever with 101,436 houses sold, just short of the 104,725 sold in 2005

The number of listings for sale fell to 121,041 which is the lowest number since 2002.

The number of pending foreclosures is falling fast from a high at the end of 2009 of 50,568 to 19,979 at the end of 2011

The percentage of distressed sellers, that would be lender owned or short sales has fallen to below 60% from 70% at the start of the year, and for the first time short sales out number lender owned sales.

Finally sales prices ended the year up just a bit from a median of $110K at the beginning of the year to $117K at the of the year.

Unemployment dropped across Arizona, and Arizona ranked in the top 10 as far as job growth.

The final thing to look at is population growth, which combined with the slow rate of new construction should add put additional pressure on inventory and contribute to a recovery in 2012.