Dr. Jay Butler of Realty Studies at ASU came out with his Phoenix area residential real estate sales and median price numbers for June 2009. Realty Studies is associated with the Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness at Arizona State University’s Polytechnic campus.
Greater Phoenix - Median Home Price
(Excludes repossessions but includes sales by banks after they repossess. ASU calls these “Traditional Sales”)
June 2009: $134,000
June 2008: $218,000
From June 2008 to June 2009 the median home price fell $84,000.
From April 2009 to June 2009 the median home price INCREASED $9,000. From May to June, the median home price increased in 10 of the 14 cities detailed by ASU. Some cities had significant increases. For example, the median home price from May to June increased over $20,000 in Chandler, Tempe and Glendale. WOW!
It could be the prices of more expensive homes have finally fallen enough to be attractive to buyers and the mix of homes sold is skewing more expensive.
Let’s see if those 3 cities can maintain those gains in July and August. It will be key to see what the MLS and Case-Shiller numbers show when they come out.
Greater Phoenix - Number of Homes Sold
(Excludes repossessions but includes sales by banks after they repossess. ASU calls these “Traditional Sales”)
June 2009: 7,760
June 2008: 4,565
The number of homes sold in the Phoenix area in June INCREASED 70% over June 2008.
More suprising to me, the number of homes sold in June was 12% higher than May. Typically, home sales start to fade in June except in very strong years like 2005. To have June sales go against the seasonal trend and actually increase significantly over May is an extremely bullish (non-bearish?) sign to me.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Richard Stabile New Homes 07.10.09 at 8:23 pm
Wow! I here Las Vegas is also moving. That is great! Lets hope it keeps up. along as we can get decent mortgage we have a chance.
Whizzer 07.11.09 at 12:24 pm
(Increased) Activity is good. Strong evidence of a more rational and
functioning market.
azrob 07.13.09 at 7:13 pm
Nope it won’t… the number of notice of trustee sales is still off the charts, we have a shot at SMASHING the monthly record this month, and with about 8500 last month, nearly as many as the great sales number, the price drops have only been temporarily delayed.
In fact, 2500 more homes intered foreclosure last month than came out, either by cancelling or being foreclosed. And, in total this year, the number of homes in foreclosure has increased by about 13,000 so far. As 2 to 1 are foreclosing to each one that cancels, to even get the foreclosure backlog back down to the terrible numbers we had in january, we would need an EXTRA 8000 or so foreclosures dumped on the market… Good luck with that not crushing the market once again!