By Mike Bodeen · 24 May 2021
The number of residential listings in the Phoenix Metro residential real estate market are increasing. It’s been 8 consecutive weeks that the inventory for available homes has risen.
But, like is oft said, statistics can be misleading. Another way of saying it is there are statistics, and then there’s the truth. In the desire to write an interesting article, I’ve undoubtedly stretched a few stats to make my point from time to time.
Let’s take a look. First of all, as of May 22nd, there were a total of 4,768 homes for sale, including single family detached (SFD), condo/townhomes, manufactured/mobile, etc, in all price ranges. This compares to 12,729 one year ago and 17,419 4 years ago. 4,159 was our lowest point which occurred back in March – two months ago.
“Most of the comparable homes in the $200,000 – $300,000 range back in October are now in the $300,000 to $400,000 price range.”
Now, let’s dial down a little. Of course, about 80% of buyers are looking for an SFD residence. How many of those SFD homes are currently available? There’s 3,649 SFD homes for sale, compared with 9,107 one year ago. For historical reference, compare that to May of 2007 when we had over 54,000 homes for sale, which was near the peak of that horrific market era.
Digging Deeper, of those 3,649 SFD homes for sale, what price range are they in? Let’s see:
· $0-$200,000: 368
· $200,000-$300,000: 522 (Super Affordable)
· $300,000-$400,000: 945 (This is the Current Median price range)
· $400,000-$500,000: 683
· $600,000-$800,000: 603
· $800,000-$1,000,000: 301
· $1,000,000-$2,000,000: 452
· $2,000,000-$3,000,000: 183
· $3,000,000+: 267
Now, this is where statistics can be a little murky. If we were to look at the Super Affordable price range of $200,000 to $300,000, we would note a total of 522 homes for sale. Interestingly, this price range number of homes for sale has not been increasing, but consistently dropping, going against the grain since October of last year. Most of the comparable homes that were priced in the $200,000 – $300,000 range back in October are now in the $300,000 to $400,000 price range.
In the top price range of $3,000,000 plus, listings dropped 13% from October to December of last year, but since then, the number of listings has remained fairly stable.
So, what’s normal? Most consider 20,000 homes for sale at one time to be normal. That last happened four years ago! May it not take 4 years to get back to normality.