The Credit Goes to . . .

March recorded the highest number of closed transactions in the last 40 years in the US. In April, Tucson saw more closed transactions than any month since June of 2007 (Yes, during the frenzy) The market has picked up as a number of buyers wanting and needing homes are buying them.

But the media gives the credit to a Tax Credit that only about 10% of buyers actually qualify to use. So where does the credit go?

The Loud Kid That Always took credit for everything

Yeah, there is always one that would take credit for anything good that happens. They are never to blame but always the reason behind good things happening.

Well the darling of the media on housing has been the tax credit. NAR hasn’t helped any either, they keep stressing it as the “savior” of housing. But does anyone really for an instant believe that first time home buyers are buying up the inventory?

Lets take a segment of April closed transactions. We can’t find out how many were first time home buyer or extended credits transactions since this information isn’t tracked in any local MLS. But we can see that almost half of the total for April sold for more than $160,000. Honestly, I don’t know too many banks today willing to loan $150,000 to a first time home buyer. Even more, I don’t know very many first time home buyers willing to take on $150,000 in debt in this economy. So who’s buying all these homes? Some are investor bought. (Yep, the real investors are back in the market). Some are people that already have owned and need to move. They have built equity and are moving up, or making a geographic move.

Still others are buying a second home. They sat out the roller coaster and weren’t ready to buy during the bubble. Now they are ready to buy and prices look pretty good to them. We have been helping quite a few of these the past year. We don’t have the data to give exact figures.

However, we do have the ability to use something called “Logic”. It doesn’t get used much these days. Logic has become the ancient scroll of reason that have been buried in pop culture. I hope someday it’s star will shine again.

But I’m not counting on it.