Tucson Real Estate is HOT!
August 3, 2009
Post Tags: Tucson-Real-Estate-Trends
Looking Up on a HOT Afternoon
I don’t mean just the fact that today is the 45th day of 100 degree plus days. (It will only be 106 today).
I won’t be doing the monthly stats till later this week. But I’m tracking the last entries for July as they continue to come in. We passed the July 08 mark of 959 on Friday last week. Now we have passed June of 09 which was 1139 closed transactions.
It was just a little past noon today when the number went to 1140 and a couple more were added to bring the total to 1142 as everyone cleared out for the lunch hour.
I doubt we make it to 1200 for the month, but we only need 17 more to hit 200 more closed sales for July 09 than we had in July 08.
While I won’t have the numbers to back this up till after Wednesday I think we will see inventories hold steady at 5.8 months or drop even a little more. This is a very unusual summer for Tucson. When it gets this hot the Tucson real estate market often takes a break. Most people don’t want to get in and out of a car and see vacant homes where there is no cooling in the middle of a Tucson summer.
But this year it is different, the bargains are disappearing. Homes in the lower price points are rapidly being bought up. And there is little new construction to replace the inventory of available homes. Foreclosure and short sales continue to be about 12% of all closings and comprise about 16% of the inventory. But with Short sales taking 6 to 9 months to close they aren’t really available for anyone needing or wanting to move.
With Banks taking so much time to process short sales sellers themselves become short with the banks and as one seller said in the Arizona Daily Star they become tempted to start selling off the landscaping and anything they can sell or remove. This seller said they weren’t that kind of person. They are the exception not the rule. All you have to do is visit a few REO homes that were first attempts at short sales to see many not what you would call “move in ready” and when they say “as is” they mean “as is”.
What does all this add up to? A possible increase in sale prices as the laws of supply and demand kick in. Possibly more frustrated sellers as
