Arizona Real Estate Notebook

Dr. Jay Butler of Realty Studies at Arizona State University came out with his Phoenix area residential real estate sales and median home price numbers for September 2010.

Greater Phoenix – Median Home Price

(Single-family resale homes. Excludes repossessions but includes sales by banks after they repossess. ASU calls these “Traditional Sales”)

September 2010: $135,000
September 2009: $140,000

The median price was stable in September ($135,000), the same as in August ($135,000), after tanking since June ($143,000).

I’m guessing we’ve seen most of the price declines we’ll see from the $8,000 first-time tax credit.

The median home price in Maricopa County bottomed out in April 2009 at $125,000 and rose 15% to peak at $144,000 in April and May 2010. The median home price is now down 6% from the peak.

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”)

September 2010: 4,895
September 2009: 6,135

On the other hand, you can see that single family home sales were way down this September, down 20%, compared to September 2009. That can’t be good for the future median home price.

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. Case-Shiller data, however, directly measures home price appreciation and depreciation. Dr. Guntermann at ASU uses the same technique as Case-Shiller but Dr. Guntermann breaks down the data further to look at appreciation in the major cities within metro Phoenix as well as metro Phoenix as a whole. 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.

Related

• Foreclosures accounted for 46 percent of all existing single-family house transactions in the Phoenix area in September.