***Inventory falls into 17K's***
***Single Family Inventory falls into 13K's***
Inventory Dropping Sharply; new listings for January under 10K
Buying Activity Rising as Pendings top 11K for 1st time in 2012
Prices rise in Phoenix, even according to Case-Schiller
Pending Sfam: 9,563 ( +221 from last week)
AWC: 7,249 ( +93 from last week)
AWC Sfam: 6,271 ( +88 from last week)
Active: 17,778 ( -442 from last week)
Active Sfam: 13,888 ( -406 from last week)
Closed 1/23-1/29/12 1,549 ( +270 from last week)
Closed Sfam: 1,319 ( +260 from last week)
Median Price: $120,000
New listings in January: 9,393 (-25% from last January)
Housing data in Phoenix continues to impress, as most statistics continue to show recovery -oriented results. Inventory has now fallen into the 17,000's a far cry from the nearly 60,000 homes that were on the market at one point. Single family listings are now in the 13,000's as well. This shows tremendous improvement, even over last year. Even in the middle of last February, we still had 34,000+ listings available; we are going to go into March with no such buffer this year. This is being exacerbated by the relatively few listings coming on the market in January; normally the biggest month of the year for home listings. It is likely we will end up with less than 10,000 new listings; that is 2500 less than last January. We are not building inventory in January this year; inventory continues to be pressured.
It is not just inventory that is improving; we also see that home prices are making a move forward, as so far in January, prices have moved ahead of December by $3000. That may not sound like a lot, but the first half of last year, we were mired in a $110K range; now we are breaking out of that range pretty solidly, and I do expect that to go even higher as we get to the strong selling season. Median pricing is without a doubt getting stronger. Even the notoriously dour Case-Schiller index is showing price retracement everywhere- except for Phoenix.
There is more good news. Pending sales are coming back very well, showing some resiliency despite January being a typically slow month. We crossed over into the 11,000's, which is an indicator of relatively strong demand. Expect that number to grow into the latter part of February as well. I don't think this will be a huge year for sales; there simply is not the inventory levels to accommodate the kind of sales we saw last year, but I would expect sales to be very solid, and at higher prices as I already discussed. Demand seems to be quite solid heading into the traditional buying season in Phoenix.
Still, there is more good news: Ryness' New home sales report is showing a sharp uptick in its data as well. I would love to show you the graph, but its copyrighted. What I can tell you is that the index is streaking above the last 4 years through statistics like a Traffic to sales ratio that this past week improved from 25-1 in 2011 to 10-1 this same week this year. Raw sales went from 22 last year to 52 in the same week. The percentage of canceled new sales was cut in half. This is just a snapshot example of a relative short period, but there is a marked increase in builder activity which is a result no doubt of the difficulty people are having finding resales.
Compared to normal times, prices are so low that yes, this is still a buyer's market. But from an operating point of view; it is not. Buyers who don't wish to over bid on homes are not having an easy time finding property. There are very few listings available at this time, and its not going to get any better. This is benefiting builders, who may have some inventory, but are also not being victimized as much by low prices as they were. With prices moving up in resales, builder prices tend to come back into line, and this makes selling easier for them. We are reaching that point and I am sure the builders are ecstatic. It doesn't help with the hollowed out inventory of the inner part of the metro area, but you are going to see a lot of sales that are going to happen in the suburb ring around phoenix. It is a step toward a healthy market for the builders.
My advice to someone looking for a home is to look now; the prices are not going to be the same again in Phoenix. I think despite Case Schiller, that housing is moving in the right direction across the country as a whole, but probably no place more so than in Phoenix, which is breaking the curve even now. Two months from now, we will have some intense competition for available homes, and this could very well lead to a housing shortage that will make homebuilders think about building some more specs, in turn hiring more tradesman. This is going to happen. If you are looking for a condo or a home, don't dawdle on it; you could save yourself 10% by doing it now instead of waiting until June.
No comments:
Post a Comment