The Tucson Association of Realtors has released it’s figures for the month of May- and the results are mixed.
Sales were down 14% year-over-year, falling from 1526 is May 2006 to 1313 in May 2007. This is the slowest May since 2002, when 1299 homes were sold. Pending sales are down 41% year-over-year as well, which doesn’t bode well for future summer sales:
Surprisingly, listings have dropped 6.4% from April. Last month was the second month that listings exceeded 10,000, with 10,387 homes listed. This month however, listings dropped well below that level to 9721. This is not a typical pattern for this time of year- generally the number of listings is more likely to decline in the winter months. Listings do remain high however, 15% higher than last year’s 8,423.
Judy Lowe, President of the Tucson Association of Realtors (TAR) said of home prices:
Regardless of what is being reported by the media for other regions nationally, the average sales price in Tucson continues to rise, reaching $280,589 in May 2007. The median sales price for May ’07 was $223,500, compared to the $221,500 of May ’06.
This median price rise was only 1% year-over-year, less than the rate of inflation. The median can also be affected by the mix of homes sold and incentives offered by sellers. Consequently in real terms, Tucson home prices are not appreciating. With listings high and sales low, it is expected that there will be continued downward pressure on prices.
In addition, kudos to the TAR for the following announcement:
The Tucson Association of REALTORS® Multiple Listing Service Board of Directors voted to modify 2007 monthly closed residential statistics to more accurately reflect the true Tucson real estate market as it occurs within the Tucson market area, according to the boundaries of the MLS map. The out of county, out of state, and out of country (Mexico) properties will no longer be included. This will make only a slight difference when comparing 2007 to prior years.
The TAR is undoubtedly correct in saying that eliminating sales from outside the Tucson area will only have a minimal impact on the sales numbers they report. We applaud their action– it is always nice to see efforts on the part of realtor’s associations to make their reporting be as accurate as possible.
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Been reading the site since last winter. Enjoy it.
Tried listing my house in az yesterday; realtor discouraged it. Not based on slow market, high inventories, etc. It was a very weird conversation.
KC-
Any more details for us?
Sales in my neighborhood (Marana) are just plain terrible. Several homes on my street have been for sale ever since (possibly longer!) I moved in back in Nov ’06. I have yet to see a single house sell on my street. Glad we’re renting!
I find Ms. Lowe’s statistics to be a bit contradictory when I compare them to the latest updates from housing-watch. According to their statistics, Tucson median prices have dropped 3% since May and 5.1% since April. It would seem, at least at this point, that the long slow drop in prices and reversion to the mean is finally getting underway.
http://housing-watch.com/regionview.aspx?city=Tucson
Lantzern-
Anyone looking at the real world of Tucson house prices know that prices have come down- some areas more than others.
The problem with the median is that it doesn’t really reflect “same house” appreciation. If you have the first-time buyers drop out [Which we see happening in Tucson] and the majority of sales are upper end properties, the median moves up.
What we’re seeing now is the median pretty much treading water, but the TAR is trying to show this in the best possible light.
How will excluding out of county, out of state, and out of country sales more accurately reflect the Tucson market?
A sale in Tucson is a sale in Tucson, no matter where the buyer is.
NVMike-
They are talking about sales outside of Tucson. Let’s say I have a condo I’m selling in Rocky Point, Mexico. If I figure that Tucson is a likely market, I can list it on the Tucson MLS. Prior to this, when I sold my condo and the listing was changed to “sold,” it would count in the sales figures for Tucson, even though the property was located out of the country. With the new rules, these sorts of sales would end up padding Tucson sales.
There aren’t a lot of these sorts of listings, so it shouldn’t have a huge impact on the numbers. As I said though, I’m all for anything they do to increase accuracy in reporting.
The Tucson Association might rethink their decision as or at least think….?
Those only help balance numbers no one knows.
Arizona is a popular place how many MLSs out of state, and out of country (Mexico especially) list and sell Tucson and other Arizona properties thru their systems that Tucson or any Arizona MLSs never get to see………?
I’m sure more than we sell out of state and out of country…!
The number of listing in Phoenix MLS also stabilized recently. There have been an unusually number of cancellations and expired listings. Last week the number again began creeping up. In fact, the number of available single family homes is just under 45,000. Over the weekend I researched and looked at homes in Rio Verde, an area east of Scottsdale. There are approximately 180 units on the market. Sales are averaging 6 per month. Everything is vastly expensive and FOR SALE signs are EVERYWHERE.