July 2014 housing highlights:
• Unit Sales of 1,176 homes were 9.3% lower than June (1,297 homes)
Year-over-year: 6.9% lower than July 2013 (1,263 sales)
• Total Sales Volume of $241.4 million was 12% less than June ($274.4 million)
Year-over-year: 3.2% lower than July 2013 ($249.4 million)
• Medium Sales Price of $170,000 was 0.7% higher than June ($168,815)
Year-over-year: 6.3% higher than July 2013 ($159,900)
• Average Sales Price of $205,259 was 3% lower than June ($211,600)
Year-over-year: 4% higher than July 2013 ($197,444)
• Active Listings of 5,149 were 2.55% lower than June (5,284)
Year-over-year: 30.9% higher than July 2013 (3,933 units)
• Conventional Loan Sales were 40%; cash sales were 26%
A report from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, shows that Phoenix-area housing market is officially in a slump. Though the median single-family home price went up 11 percent from last June, the forward price movement has dramatically slowed down from last year. Activity in the market remains sluggish, with single-family home sales down 11 percent from last June. A few slightly encouraging signs were for builders, who saw an uptick in new-home sales in June and their highest monthly total of new single-family construction permits in more than two years.
According to the report, Phoenix-area home prices shot up from September 2011 to last summer, before slowing down and then even dropping a little earlier this year. Then, this June – after three months of almost stagnant prices – the median single-family-home price finally rose to $211,000. That’s up 11 percent from $190,000 last June. Realtors will note the average price per square foot went up about 10 percent. However, the report’s author says we’re not likely to see much more forward movement for a while.
“We’re in an 11-month slump in demand; sales were very low in the spring,” says Mike Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at the W. P. Carey School of Business. “There are a few positive signs that demand may gradually start to recover during the second half of this year, but we are unlikely to see much help for pricing until 2015 because there is always a long delay – typically nine to 15 months — between any change in the market and the resulting change in pricing. Meantime, we may see a little downward correction, not a bubble bursting, as some have predicted.”