By Mike Bodeen · 8 June 2020
Our residential sales market is changing at a faster pace than we’ve seen since 2000. It reversed a short and sharp initial pandemic downturn but has since come roaring back in the second half of May.
In the midst of the pandemic, we were thinking listings would dramatically increase, but active listings dropped 15.2% from last month! Therefore, a large chunk of the available supply went under contract during May and very little was replaced by new inventory. Because of this, it’s getting much harder for buyers to find the home they want and when they find it, they are likely to find other buyers trying to buy the same house. Multiple offers, just like pre-covid days, are piling up.
Demand has spiked. The huge recovery in demand is confirmed by the under-contract count which surged over 31% over the month of May and now stands 4.5% higher than this time last year.
Closed sales are a completely different story. May’s closings were down over 33% from 2019 and even lower than last month’s dismal number. We should see a sharp recovery in closings during June as contracts signed in May close escrow.
Here are the ARMLS sales numbers for June 1, 2020 compared with June 1, 2019:
Active Listings: 11,917 vs 16,869 last year – down 29.4% – and down 15.2% vs 14,051 last month
Under Contract Listings: 12,478 versus 11,945 last year – up 4.5% – and up 31.2% from 9,512 last month
Monthly Sales: 7,001 versus 10,524 last year – down 33.5% – and down 2.5% from 7,181 last month
Monthly Average Sales Price per Sq. Ft.: $179.73 versus $172.01 last year – up 4.50% – and down 2.4% from $184.06 last month
Monthly Median Sales Price: $293,000 versus $278,000 last year – up 5.4% – and down 2.3% from $299,999 last month
As you can see, the average $/SF took another hit during May, not because of lower prices, but because of the huge change in the sales mix. Very few luxury homes went under contract in April and so there were very few to close during May. The dominance of low to mid range homes caused the average price, median price and average $/SF to fall, despite the strength of the market.
The Greater Phoenix housing market proved its resilience over the last 3 months and short term trends are again strongly favoring sellers.
Best and Worst Cities in the U.S. to be Quarantined?
A career tracking firm, Zippia, (who?) has ranked 99 U.S. cities to find out which cities are the best to be quarantined in. You can’t make this stuff up, right?
The study ranked cities in four categories which include the average apartment size, park-land per person, percent of residents with broadband, and, (my personal favorite) the number of takeout options.
Scottsdale came in at number one! Chandler came in #6 on this national list. Kudos to both of these towns. Gilbert was an impressive #20 and Phoenix a respectable #30.
Oh, and the worst? Texas had 3 towns in the last 9. But the overall loser Newark, New Jersey scored 99Ath. And Tucson? Hmm, not so good – #94.
Check out all 99 at : https://www.zippia.com/advice/best-cities-quarantined-worst/