Go West Young Man! (Or at least get warm)

The famous cry of our ancestors seems to be the way people are moving lately.  Since this is a story by a moving van line, I would think we can discount DC because of all the moving in and out there.  However, there aren't too many people moving from Arizona to Maine...
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Prices are Flat since last year, However...

January 23 - The average list price per sq. ft. for Greater Phoenix non-distressed listings under contract is just under $145 today. One year ago it was also just under $145. This shows us that pricing for homes going into escrow has been close to flat for the last 12 months.

However we are seeing fewer price cuts for active listings than we saw in January 2014. The current weekly rate of price cuts is about 2,300 per week while last year 2,900 per week was typical.

Overall we would say pricing is holding steady, as you would expect with the Cromford® Market Index close to 100.

Return on Home Improvement Projects

So many people do big projects - like updating a Bath - that costs thousands of dollars.  Unfortunately, they don't really imporve teh vallue of their home.  Many times, the least expensive projects provide the greatest return on the dollar.

Here are some examples:

Home Improvement Advice

Current Median and Average Prices Artificially High

If current indicators continue, this year is going to be very interesting. The Median Price and Average Price are unnaturaly high because the number of homes in the lower price ranges are low.  From the Cromford Report:


January 18 - Overall we have fewer homes available for sale than at the same time last year, but the picture varies a lot by price range:

Active listing counts above exclude those in UCB status Over $300,000 we see plenty more supply than last year at this time but under $200,000 there is far less. When demand grows it is likely to grow at the bottom end first, creating a shortage. The top end of the market has plenty of supply and this would remain true even if demand were to increase significantly in this segment. The other implication of this change in the mix is that the average price for active listings has increased a lot since since year even though the asking price of any specific home has not. This effect can lead to a lot of misunderstanding by sellers who can easily get over-optimistic.

New Year Holds Optimism as the Number of Listings Climb!

New Year Holds Optimism as the Number of Listings Climb!

January 15 - After 2 full weeks it is now possible to analyze the rate of new listings coming on to the market without distortions due to the highly weighted distribution by day of the week.

There have been a total of 4,353 new listings added since the start of the year (across all areas & types) which is 9.1% below 2014 and 1.3% below 2013. This is a low number and suggests that supply trends are weak despite the seasonal increase in active listings that we see in January every year. In fact it is a new record low for the 15 year period 2001-2015.

New supply is particularly weak at the bottom of the market under $200,000 while it is quite strong over $800,000.

Sellers of entry level homes are going to have less competition while sellers at the top end are going to have more competition compared with last year.


The new supply of short sales and REOs across greater Phoenix is much lower than in any of the years since 2008, but is higher than 2007 and all previous years since 2001. HUD homes are down to insignificant levels, lower than all years since 2001 except 2005 through 2007.

That doesnt make and Scents!

I only disagree with the idea that scents should be removed from the property - I love the vanilla and baked cookie scents!

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/32492-the-secret-to-selling-a-home-fast-home-staging

The Rental Picture is changing in the Valley of the Sun.  For more info:  December 2014 Rental Stats

In essence, the number of rentals is down every month except one in 2014.  On the other hand, rents are pretty good!

Here is the data from ARMLS that this info is based on: