Arizona Real Estate Notebook

3 responses so far ↓

• 1 Cbass // Oct 20, 2006 at 8:11 pm

  John,

  Well all I can say is wow! It looks like we are up to 9 months of inventory roughly and sales generally go down even further in the last couple months of the year no? We could potentially hit 12 months if things continue the way they have been.

  One question, don’t listings generally slow down in the winter months as well? You seem ready to call this the top of the inventory spike but I am not so sure.

  For a couple reasons really:

  1) There are a lot of FSBOs out there right now who are going to eventually give up and list with an agent in this difficult environment.

  2)While driving around town I still see the houses sitting empty with fresh paint and new landscaping with a for rent sign staked in the ground. After the realization that this market is not going to rebound this spring they will list the house for sale with you perhaps?

  3) I still see many homes with the huge dumpsters in front and small crews of contractors working on this and that. I smell flipper when I see that.

  4) The home builders have not really slowed down much as evidence by the unemploymnet numbers out. In fact housing actually added 1700 jobs! They gotta be building something to collect a paycheck.

  http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=77014

• 2 John L. Wake // Oct 20, 2006 at 11:32 pm

  “We could potentially hit 12 months if things continue the way they have been.”

  Yep… in December (with closings in January) when sales are slow but they’ll bounce back the next month.

  I’m thinking this evening that inventory will peak soon… any month now.

  “While driving around town I still see the houses sitting empty with fresh paint and new landscaping with a for rent sign staked in the ground. After the realization that this market is not going to rebound this spring they will list the house for sale with you perhaps?”

  I hope it’s with me but it would be better for them (depending on their mortgage) if they got renters into it. Unfortunately, a lot of people would be several hundred dollars a month under water even if it’s rented. Tough choices there.

  There aren’t many investors out there anymore. The ones still active are mainly the old pros. Investors can find some real bargains right now but it takes some work.

  “… housing actually added 1700 jobs!”

  Yep. Lots of commercial construction going on and public projects like the light rail and ASU downtown.

  Thanks for the link.

• 3 Cbass // Oct 22, 2006 at 8:51 am

  Nice article on the cover of AZ Central. The usual B.S. about “soft landings,” “correction,” and “this is great for housing.”

  http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1022homeprices1022.html

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