October Resales -Are up better than I reported according to AZ Republic

you may recall that I was doing a comparative analysis with someone else's calculations used by the AZ Republic as their official number, and that they may come out higher than I reported for October. That report is in, and you can find the details at this article in the AZ Republic. Basically, they did show up better than mine, and although the Republic downplayed the increase as minor, it was 18% higher than September Sales. From about 3090 sales to 3600+ sales. This is important, as the market seemed to ripe to regress. Therefore, it was an especially nice increase from September. The fact that prices were down a bit is actually okay; it shows there are buyers when prices are realisitic. The article makes a big deal out of this, but in all the trends that could happen, home values retrenching a bit is not the worst one. A lot of people inflated the value of their home, and they probably shouldn't expect to "get" their inflated asking price. I know their are people who simply in their home for too much money, and my heart goes out to them, as they can't sell it, but as an overall trend, a slight turndown in pricing is not the end of the world. We need the market to be affordable to first time homebuyers, because withou them, the market will not recover.

Here are a few bits of news from last week.

1. Mortgage applications were up 5.5% last week. Applications mean more people are intending to buy, or at least refinance, which can also be a positive, as it shows someone who may not be putting their home on the market if they can refinance.

2. As lousy a month as November and December typically are, we seem to be on a fairly decent pace for sales in the next 30 days. New contract numbers are showing to be just as strong if not stronger than September and October, and assuming those numbers hold up, November won't be the disastrous month many thought it might be. The numbers look very similar to October, and that would be a victory at this point. I will have more on this when I do my weekly update.

Mortgage rates can be found as low as 6.19%. That is close to historic lows, and people can buy with advantageous financing, if they are qualified. Jumbo loans and subprime may still be difficult; I don't work in that industry, so I don't know for sure, but I have been told that the run of the mill mortgage is still easily obtainable for qualified parties.

I will check in tomorrow with the past week sales performance.