Phoenix Housing Stats...

I received the following info from my broker, Jim Sexton and wanted to pass it along to you...

This is all POSITIVE REAL ESTATE INFORMATION. I know you're not used to reading anything positive, but there are good things happening!

ARMLS recently posted January numbers.

- The number of sales per year has ranged from 54,800(2007) to 104,705 (2005).
- January has always shown a significant drop in the number of sales from December - the drop has ranged from 10% for January 2002 to 20% twice 2003 and 2006. It makes January 2009’s 14% decline look good. January 2009 was the 8th month in a row of Year over Year (Y over Y) increase-following 32 months in a row of Y over Y decreases (10/05-6/08).
- February is tracking to be the 9th month in a row for the increase. And with 9000+ properties in Pending status, it appears the trend will continue for at least the short term.
- January also gives an indication of what the year may hold. The month has accounted for between 5% to 8% of a given year’s total. If we used a 7% indicator, that would give us 68,000 sales. It would be a 13% increase over 2008’s numbers, which were 10% above 2007 figures.
- The number of sales has also increased by more than 50% (Year over Year) in 4 of the last 5 months. And November had a 33% improvement, which was the smallest increase.

January’s Y over Y numbers show:
- Sales increased from 2912 to 4742-a 63% GAIN;
- The average price dropped from $313,000 to $180,000 a 42% decrease;
- The median price dropped from $220,000 to $130,000-a 41% decline.

It seems that some folks are waiting for both the number of sales and the sales prices to turn around before reporting on any positive trends. I think it’s time to talk about the increases...you know 8 months and counting.