PHOENIX REAL ESTATE MARKET WATCH

Here are a few statistics regarding the Phoenix

housing market.  According to RS Media, “-Phoenix was 2009’s most popular city in the country for online home hunters, according to the volume of the total number of home searches on www.ZipRealty.com throughout the year.”  Yes, there are still a lot of distressed properties, but at least we are clearing our inventory.

In addition, there were 6,551 homes sold in December, 2009 as compared to 4,920 sold in December, 2008.  The price range is up to $399k (houses over $400k sold were 393).  Of those 6,551, 43% were REO sales, 23% short sales and 34% regular sales.  We had 36% regular sales in December 2008 and the REO sales percentages have gone down while short sales have gone up. (Thank you, Tom Newell, First American Title).

I think we’ll continue to see these distressed properties for some time to come.  Another short sale statistic might interest you.  Your home will sell for more $$ via short sale than if it goes into foreclosure.  So, you’d think that the banks would be all over this one.  Unfortunately, we are still dealing with people, at the lending institutions, who are slow to respond and don’t care about any situation.

I’d love to hear from you with questions and/or comments on the short sale or REO process.