Phoenix can take comfort, I guess, that the foreclosures in some other markets are worse:
More than 4,000 notice of trustees sales, the first step in the home foreclosure process, were recorded in Maricopa County in March, but the area is not facing a crisis, according to Default Research.
The Mt. Pleasant, Pa., firm also reported Wednesday that 2 percent of Maricopa County households and 1 percent of Pima County homes were involved in some stage of the foreclosure process. That’s up 35 percent from February and 200 percent from the previous year.
"Home inventories are continuing to rise and prices are declining, so there is still some more time before the Phoenix area market bottoms out," said Serdar Bankaci, founder of Default Research. "Compared to other areas we cover, the Phoenix foreclosure situation is not at a crisis level because, in some of those areas, foreclosure figures are in the double digits."
ARMLS has not officially reported March home sales yet, but based on an early preview, it is likely that sales will be in the 4,400 range, so foreclosures are running near the level of sales.
The state of Arizona and local municipalities are struggling with lower revenues and layoffs as the market continues to cool. Unemployment has risen and retailers have been affected. The foreclosure situation might not yet constitute a crisis, but a potential crisis is too close for comfort.
What constitutes a crisis? Please, any definitions?
2-4 Plex 33
Agricultural 15
Apartment Building 6
Commercial or Industrial Use 221
Condo or Townhome 613
Mobile or Manufactured Home 86
Other Use 12
Single Family Residence 4436
Vacant Land 232
Total Notices of Trustee Sales Filed for March 08 5654
I’m pretty sure this qualifies as a crisis.
(Kevin Bacon in Animal House) “Remain calm, all is well!”
Agnostic,
I love that scene. 6 degrees anyone?
I disagree. I have many Borrowers that are completely qualified to purchase a home and when we go out and put offers in, we are getting such a run around from the Banks on the Short Sale Situation. They “Renig” on the initial agreement, they refuse to negotiate on the 2nd lien, or once an accepted offer, they expect you to close in 48 hours, or they sit on 6 offers for a month or so to see if one will come in higher, thus holding up qualified Buyers on removing inventory from this Market. It is really jacked up right now. People are wanting to buy, but now we are getting jacked around by the Investors and Banks. The shouldn’t be allowed to list a home if they have no intention on selling it right away. They are no contributing to the slow down. I have Borrowers rthat will wait 60 days to find out the Bank has pulled it off theMarket with no explanation.
dirk -
The word is “renege.”
Yikes.
Wait, what? You mean it’s not a good time to buy a house in Phoenix?
sorry, there is no spell check on here grammar police.
I would say yes, it is a great time to buy in Phoenix, if your Buyers understand the process of the waiting game and the RENEGING process, because you can pick something up extremely cheap. Our pipelines are full and gaining…..people are finding out the real truths of how to get qualified……LO’s and Realtors are starting to finally educate themselves on FHA….finally. Things are loosening up, activity is far better today opposed to Oct of 2007. if you are willing to play the banks game, you will make out in the long run. Scoop the property for 100K under lien totals, have your closing costs paid for and your down payment paid for…….seeing Realtors actually have to work is also a delight.
Dirk,
i bought in Oct 07′ or is it Okt? lol, these flks on this site like to have some fun don’t take it personal. I as well am seeing alot of trafic and offers and in fact the new build homes I work with are finally selling! Everyone here likes to throw the RE agent under the bus but I believe it is mostly the banks and Wall Street to blame for this mess. I have noticed a considerable drop (almost 20%!!!!)in value since I bought my house in Okt 07′. I love the house either way and the loan program I used and abused is gone now. So is the equity from the house I sold if I would have waited to sell. The house I sold for 216k is now valued at 177k since Feb 08′! The house I bought in 10/07 for 360k is now worth 425k vs 495k and still going down. I would not be surprised to see it worth 350k shortly. The homes are still renting though for $2200 a month. So if I wanted I could cash flow it and move on (but I don’t)… Weather here in Phx is very nice right now. How about in TX Twist?
Our medean house price in Bozeman, Montana, according to realtor.com is 429K. Our medean income is 38K. We are “insulated from national trends and never experienced the bubble.” We are also “too small a market to suffer from a recession.” 35% of our working population is construction. 20% is retail. “Millionares from CA are moving here to ski” is the line we have been fed. I know a guy from Billings had a thread but bagged it in Jan ‘07. Anyone have any current info on Mt or are we lumped into the “forget it” catagory? I know our State Dept. of Labor has not posted any real trends publicly for some time. They like the good numbers from 2006.
Twist,
Here are the sales numbers for March 2008, taken directly from MLS:
Total sold - 4,291
Total sold that were listed as distressed - 1,162
That means roughly 27% of all home sales in the Metro Phoenix area were either: a.) court approval required, b.)lender/corp approval required, or c.)lender owned property. For more details related to individual cities go to:
http://www.foreclosureexpert.info/2008/04/march-foreclosu.html
Aaaaudio-
The weather has been fabulous here, although occasionally water just falls from the sky. That does take some getting used to. I do get homesick sometimes, but there are definitely some advantages to living in Austin.
The house sits on a hill, with a creek down below. I can see green rolling hills for miles from the deck- which beats my Gilbert view of the cinder-block wall in my backyard. The listing for the Gilbert property did say “mountain views”- and if you leaned out my son’s window and looked in the distance, you could just see the San Tans. It wasn’t a feature we ever bragged about. : )
Phoenix and cinder block homes…. ahhh… memories of growing up in those homes, bare cinderblock interior walls, cement floors without carpet (because the floor was cooler, I guess).
Don’t get me wrong… as a local material, it makes more sense than fake stucco over wood… that is, if the cinderblock is insulated on the outside and inside.
And the San tan hills… well, I spent many happy hours there.
On the other hand, where I live in Oregon is 300 yards from the Willamette river, 2 miles from a large interesting power generating waterfalls, and an hour from skiing.. if I skiied.
On the whole, ‘I’d rather be in Philadelphia’…. as for buying a home in Phoenix? Well, most of my family still lives there, and I inherited property around downtown. … but I wouldn’t buy a home there unless you pointed a loaded Luger at my forehead.
Sorry some of you guys didn’t get my sarcasm.
Buy in Phoenix now, and prepare for bankruptcy, later. Prices will fall for years.
“you can pick something up extremely cheap.”
Cheap by late 2005/early 2006 standards? Yep.
Cheap by historical price trends, even at 30% below the 2005 peak? Nope.
I have seen a few asking prices below the 2002 price average for some models. As those sell and establish even lower comps and foreclosures rack up even more, late 1990s prices are on their way.
Note to Senator McCain: You can not compete with Democrats on housing-related giveaway programs. Do not try.
This is an interesting thread, I just got out of England and am looking to settle in a drier climate with a decent amount of sunshine. I have been checking up on Gilbert, Queens Creek and surrounding aras as the New Build house prices are so much cheaper than I am used to in England. Trouble is I have been reading about Sub-divisions with only a few percent of homes occupied and after reading posts 12 and 13 from Twist and Yossarian I wonder am I looking at the wrong area for settling down. Last year I had wanted to settle in Vegas but in about 10 years time, now for medical reasons retrement has been forced on me a little earlier and Vegas may prove a bit out of reach for my pocket.
Can anyone help with a few do’s and dont’s with regards to buying a home in Gilbert/Queens Creek area or are there better places to buy at similar prices elsewhere in the States bearing in mind I am trying to escape the cold and wet weather due to arthritis and a few motorcycle accidents from years ago.
Thanks for your help
Pete
Outtatheuk-
I moved to Austin, TX from Gilbert back in December for family reasons- but I still consider Gilbert my home town. The housing market is awful, but I still consider Gilbert a great place to live. It does happen to be a great place to be a renter- which might give you the opportunity to see how well you like it before you make a permanent commitment.
When the report came out from the National Association of Realtors a couple of days ago, they gave Austin as an example of a market that was still performing well. Being on the ground here, I can tell you that the market is dismal here at the moment. While there are undoubtedly individual properties that might be a good deal at the moment, the credit crunch has affected virtually all markets.
Anyone buying a home now should be buying with the realization that there is a downside risk to prices now. Good luck with your search, and let us know how it goes!
Sorry if this post does go off the topic here quite a bit guys but hope it doesn’t bore you too much, I haven’t had the chance to discuss the housing market in the US until now.
Thanks Twist for your views, it’s good to read them as you have lived in both areas. I think that reports from Realtors are sometimes like reading through rose-tinted spectacles as they can highlight good points on some part of the market and leave out or minimise some bad points, at least that’s what happens in the UK. I sold my property in the UK almost at the top of the price range and was lucky to do so because the bad news was just starting to roll out and there were still buyers in the market because of a shortage of properties there. Prices have dropped by about 5% or 6% at the most so far but I do think there is another 10% or a little more to drop by end of 2009 in the UK. Our house prices were 30% or more overvalued but with the shortage of homes and the unemployment rate so far being stable they should not drop that much. Unfortunately these price crashes always hurt most in areas where the the highest growth was, hurting people who bought their homes as the prices were hitting the top. On top of this the US also had the problems caused by ARM mortgages being mis-sold to people without full explanation about the effect that higher interest rates would have. Just out of interest what were your ARM rates when you had a 1% bank rate. A few companies over here were selling investment homes in Florida then and were giving buyers the choice of arranging Finance through UK Banks or making a 25% deposit with a US Lender without too many checks being made on Credit ratings. I know some of these people fom UK and they are losing heavily on their investment homes.
One or two further questions I need a little help with please and I welcome all views on these.
1. How are Gilbert and surrounding areas like for crime rates, I am 50 now and hope for a peaceful life after having lived in a bad part of England for 12 years getting little sleep at night and having my car broken into 3 times in the last year we lived there.
2. Although we would like a peaceful life, we still would like to have things to keep us busy, whether it be daytime activities or restaurants and live music/entertainment in the evenings.
We will travel into this area in September and take a look but as a first timer in town, you don’t get to see the whole picture, I agree that renting initially will be a good idea but it is good to gain a little knowledge about a town before we get there,
Thanks again Twist for your help and any other tips would be welcome.