Tucson Real Estate Snapshot April 25, 2009
April 25, 2009
Post Tags: foreclosure sales , Tucson Real Estate , Tucson-MLS
A little of this and that on what’s happening in the Tucson Real Estate Market as we get ready for the last week of April 2009
Tucson Real Estate March Closed Transactions
Madera Canyon Nature Trail
With less than a week to go before we close out the April 2009, lets look back at March and see if there are any additional closed transactions entered in the Tucson MLS. The report that came out on March 3 showed 892 closed transactions vs 930 for March 2008. That number has increased since that report to 922; an increase of 30 sales. Who knows, we might not be done yet. Several of those were entered this past week.
I’ll leave it to you to draw any conclusions.
April 2009 Closed Transactions To Date
Remember this is a snapshot. Just a peek at what is going on. There are as of this writing 606 closed transactions for the month. This is higher than usual for this time of the month. A typical month will see a little more than a third of the transactions for the month entered in the last week. Most closing are scheduled for the end of the month. This is done so the first monthly payment for the new homeowner comes in the following month and they get a little time to focus on getting moved in.
April of 2008 saw 1015 closed transactions. I don’t think we will get that far but I didn’t think we would get close to 930 last month and we did.
The median sale price is $160,000 at the moment it could go either up or down based on the number of foreclosure sales entered into the system. The average sale price is now $191,373. The fact these are coming down each month is a good thing. Why? because it indicates the inventory of bank owned and foreclosed properties is coming down. Statistically a better way to look at the market would be to segment these the same way we do SFR, Town home, Condo, and Manufactured Homes. An overall figure is provided each month, then these segments are broken out to see how each is specifically doing in the market. Breaking out the foreclosures, short sales and REO sales wouldn’t tell much about those segments because they are so diverse in type, but it would give us a better picture of the “Normal” Residential Resale.
One indicator we can watch even the way it is now structured is the increase in each of these areas should indicate those types of properties are being cleared from the inventory.
I mentioned yesterday that some of these numbers create a false impression in the minds of some buyers. Comparing flood cars to normal resale cars or the sale price of broken and non-functional items to those in good working condition is something we normally wouldn’t think of doing. But the way real estate is reported all are put in one big pot and stirred like some kind of real estate stew. The taste of which is rather bitter at the moment.
Interest Rates 30 year fixed No Points 4.875%
It is amazing how this historic low interest rate is being lost in the shuffle. It is not hard to sort through the Tucson real estate market and find value. It is everywhere. Resale prices are very good right now and it is possible to buy some really great homes at prices not seen since 2002 when interest rates were around the 7.5 – 8% area depending on a buyers credit. And even during to “boom” those getting a second mortgage were often well above the 8% rate on the second.
Investors are in the Tucson Real Estate Market
The investors that sold all their Tucson property to speculators a few years back at inflated prices are now back in the market. This is what real investors do. They buy low, sell high and find the next market where they can buy at good prices. Those True investors are back in Tucson and they are a welcome site.
