Dr. Jay Butler of Realty Studies at ASU came out with his Phoenix area residential real estate sales and median price numbers for August 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
(Single-family resale homes. Excludes repossessions but includes sales by banks after they repossess. ASU calls these “Traditional Sales”)
August 2009: $138,000
August 2008: $193,550
From August 2008 to August 2009 the median home price in Maricopa County fell $55,550.
The median home price bottomed out in April at $125,000 and has risen 10% since then to $138,000.
The median home price in the City of Phoenix fell from $94,000 in July to $85,000 in August but August is still $21,000 (25%) above the median home price in March.
Greater Phoenix - Number of Homes Sold
(Single-family resale homes. Excludes repossessions but includes sales by banks after they repossess. ASU calls these “Traditional Sales”)
August 2009: 5,995
August 2008: 4,210
The number of homes sold in metro Phoenix in August INCREASED 42% over August 2008.
NOTE: Dr. Butler’s ASU data measures median home price. He doesn’t measure home price appreciation directly although the median price follows appreciation very closely. The Case-Shiller data shown on this website directly measures home price appreciation and depreciation. Dr. Guntermann at ASU uses the same technique Case-Shiller use but he also applies it to major cities within metro Phoenix. Case-Shiller and Guntermann release their numbers 2 months after the end of a month while Butler releases his numbers 2 weeks after the end of a month.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
ken44 09.17.09 at 8:06 am
The banks are still holding thousands of properties which will likely end up on the market early next year. I expect housing to stay roughly flat at best for years to come. Rental income? Forget it. Homes that were renting out at $1050 a year ago are lucky to get $875 today. I can only guess how far rents will fall next year after many more homes are placed on the rental market by investors. The only thing saving grace is people still seem to be moving here:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/30/americans-moving-cities-lifestyle-real-estate-relocating_slide_8.html?thisSpeed=3000
However there are those who say just as many are leaving the Phx metro each year so who really knows what to believe.
John Wake 09.17.09 at 9:20 am
Yeah, there are now over 50,000 homes in that “shadow inventory” - homes that have received a “Notice of Trustee Sale” but haven’t had the “Trustee Sale” (foreclosure auction) yet. That’s more homes than are listed in the MLS now.
I agree, the shadow inventory is by far the biggest down side risk to the market. On the other hand, the number of sales is so high in some zip codes that those markets could quickly clear a lot more homes at current (low) prices. The supply is tight enough that the median price is increasing in some areas. Those areas could handle more supply, although, prices would stop rising.
ken44 09.17.09 at 9:33 am
You begin to wonder is there ANYONE that bought in 04-06 who has not lost or is not in the process of losing their home.
whizzer 09.17.09 at 11:22 am
Insightful, Ken. The ‘04-’06 time frame is a big key. Unique to this cycle, is not only those that bought, but those that got caught up in the refinance frenzy. Forbes stuff is fun but suspect. Written in March and referencing ‘06 & ‘07 data??
Only the ’shadow’ knows.
Jim George 09.17.09 at 12:07 pm
9.17.09:
Home sales rates are being artfully controlled by your bank & Federal Reserve to keep prices from dropping morethan they wish and destroying the values of the banks new stolen (Forclosed upon) assets.
2010 there is going to be the largest year for forclosures ever due to 2005 being (in most of the boom sales) the highest home sold year.
There are so many forclosed homes to come on the market during 2010 to 2012 that if the banks don’t unload them faster than they have it may take forever to get the market stabilized, considering there is still the usual forclosure rate that happens without a boom or a bust. Get ready for bargins. In Indianapolis IN the city of Indy has over 2500 homes they will give away just for the past property taxes due.
Look for lower interest rates from the Fed due to the difficulties they will have in unloading the large amount of stolen property.
How can they have enterest rates lower than 0 percent? Here’s how cash rewards for first time home buyers or CASH FOR CLUNKERS?
Get real.
ken44 09.17.09 at 11:48 pm
—There are so many foreclosed homes to come on the market during 2010 to 2012 that if the banks don’t unload them faster than they have it may take forever to get the market stabilized…—-
No doubt in 2010 and 2011 homes will continue to be dumped onto the market in a similar fashion as we saw this year with investors eating them up. I fully expect the $8000 credit to be continued if not expended upon next year as well. Hopefully the market will stabilize somewhat in 2012 and by 2015 prices beginning to move upward.
Like it or not investors along with government intervention has pretty much slowed down if not stopped the price crash.
“The government’s role in steadying the housing market is huge. Home sales are rising, but more than two-thirds of U.S. mortgages made in the first half of this year were later sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are 80 percent owned by the federal government. Three years ago, Fannie and Freddie’s combined share was 33 percent, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication…
The mortgage industry is particularly worried. It has been pressuring the government to extend an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, fearing a recent increase in homes sales could prove fleeting without the tax break. The White House said Wednesday that it’s considering extending the tax credit, which is scheduled to expire in November…”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32900988/ns/business-reinventing_america
ken44 09.18.09 at 1:40 am
—-Forbes stuff is fun but suspect. Written in March and referencing ‘06 & ‘07 data??—
Maybe but this seems to back up the MSN link provide yesterday:
“…Four metropolitan areas increased their populations by more than 100,000 people between 2007 and 2008: Dallas-Fort Worth (147,000), Houston (130,000), Phoenix (116,000) and Atlanta (115,000). Los Angeles (88,000) ranked fifth.
Four of the five counties with the largest numeric gains were in one of these metro areas: top-gaining Maricopa County, Ariz. (which accounted for 90,000 of the Phoenix metro gain)…”
http://www.marketingcharts.com/topics/top-10-biggest-and-fastest-growing-areas-in-the-us-8458/census-bureau-top-10-fastest-growing-us-msa-march-2009jpg/
whizzer 09.20.09 at 1:21 am
Ken, good job on the additional info. I don’t pretend to actually know. But as you stated in your first post “there are those who say just as many…” Does between ‘07 and ‘08 mean 2007? Data sounds very credible certainly for ‘07. Plus I don’t doubt that there is still in migration, still as you previously said, I’m curious as to out migration.
whizzer 09.20.09 at 1:31 am
Whether they will extend? Always politics to consider. Certainly, though, housing as big a concern as the economy. Maybe they come back with a $5000. credit. Who knows By next year at this time, the “bailout” to states will be halved, so I’m more concerned for 2011.
ken44 09.20.09 at 3:01 am
—-I don’t doubt that there is still in migration, still as you previously said, I’m curious as to out migration.—–
Actually all the information I’ve read suggests the Phx Metro is one of the fastest growing areas in the country. However, there are those who say that more U-haul trucks are leaving than entering thus the population isn’t necessarily growing. However I’ve not read anything which backs this up.
John Wake 09.20.09 at 9:36 am
I don’t have the numbers, although I read something recently on it that just had in-migration, not net migration.
Although, Arizona is probably still the fastest or second fastest growing state on a percentage change basis, growth is much less than earlier. One of the huge errors the housing and macro economists made during the boom was to fail to see how far in-migration would fall in a bust. And, of course, that’s such a key figure, that mis-calculating in-migration made their earlier economic growth estimates wildly off.
ken44 09.20.09 at 10:18 am
“Net migration into the State of Arizona is expected to be only 28,000 in 2009, compared to 164,000 in 2006….”
http://www.maricopa.edu/bwd/pdf/e-w-indicators05-09.pdf
Hopefully 20,000 will be into the Phx Metro.
To be sure the Phx Metro isn’t looking good and 20,000 new residents certainly aren’t going to revive the housing market much. However, they may help keep rents from completely collapsing over the next two years as more homes entire the rental market.
Keith 09.21.09 at 1:01 pm
The fact that median prices have moved up in a number of metro areas is largely a funtion of more and more prime loans on high-priced properties going into foreclosure. If you have a foreclosure on a $1 million property and the bank ends up selling it for $750,000, it goes a long way toward raising the average price. Obviously, this increase in price doesn’t suggest the market is getting healthier; only that the problem has moved beyond subprime and Alt-A.
If you are interested, here is a link to an excellent presentation explaining what happened and what to expect. It’s long but worth the time:
http://www.moremortgagemeltdown.com/download/pdf/T2_Partners_presentation_on_the_mortgage_crisis.pdf