Yesterday Jay Butler released his monthly report on the Phoenix housing market, and I must say, Butler and I are not seeing eye-to-eye on this one. This month we’ll have Butler’s analysis in black, and mine in blue. I’ll leave it to Doomers to decide which interpretation makes sense to them:
The local resale housing market appears to be fairly stable, with 4,910 recorded sales in June 2007. The activity of June closely followed May 2007 at 5,220 sales and was not far below last year’s 5,460 transactions. The month of June brought the second quarter activity to a close with 14,990 sales, in contrast to 14,185 sales for the first quarter and last year’s second quarter sales of 18,310.
The local resale housing market continues to deteriorate, with 4.910 recorded sales in June 2007. This is 6% below May 2007 sales of 5,220 and 10% below the 5,460 transactions in June 2006. The month of June brought the second quarter activity to a close with 14,990 sales, in contrast to 14,185 sales for the first quarter. This means the normally busy second quarter was up only 6% from the first quarter, indicating an unusually slow second quarter. According to ARMLS data, the June number would be well below any June in the past six years, with 6164 homes sold in June 2001.
The current level of activity brings much needed sustainability; however, the 2007 year-to-date total of 29,175 homes is well below the 36,290 for 2006 year to date and 58,030 sales for 2005 year to date.
I think the current level of activity brings much needed sustainability means that it’s hard to picture sales getting much worse than this. However, judging by home sale trends in previous years, it is likely the sales will continue to drop from here.
