The Cascade Team Blog

SALES Month over Month
Total Phoenix area home sales rose by 14.4% in February to 6,622, short by 3.7% of making up for the 18.1% decline in January. The February rise is typical of the January to February uptick in sales for every year since 2001.

SALES Year over Year
Great Phoenix homes for sale in February (6,622) declined 8.6% from the same month in 2012. STAT recorded year over year sales declines for the last consecutive 12 months, and a dominant pattern of monthly year over year declines since 2010. Only five months since 2010 showed year over year increases, specifically January and February 2011, and March, April and December of 2010.

NEW INVENTORY
Predictably, new Phoenix housing inventory fell 10.7% in February to 8,778 new units. Typically, the number of Sellers who rush to market in January, which this year logged in an unprece-dented increase (54.9%) over December, reduces the potential pool of available new Sellers. This February’s 10.7% drop is below the average January to February drop of 13%.

TOTAL INVENTORY
Total active Phoenix home for sale declined slightly (1.7%) to 21,718 units , which is 8.5% below the year over year figure for 2012. Inventory totals have been stuck in the 19,000-23,000 range since March of 2012.

ACTIVES and UCBs
Considering the total Phoenix area housing inventory composition, the number of Actives declined in February to 17,145, while the number of Under Contract-Backups (UCBs) ticked up to 4,452. Since STAT began tracking the UCB makeup of Actives in April 2012, UCBs as a percent of total Actives, declined from 37% last April to 20.49% in February. UCB’s hit their lowest point (3,852) in December at 18.26% of Actives.

MONTHS SUPPLY OF INVENTORY (MSI)
After a bump up in January, February’s MSI dropped back to 3.28 months, continuing on the wave pattern started in May 2012, which fluctuated above and below an average MSI of 3.04 months. STAT monitors market wide MSI as a barometer of overall market health. It should not be used to estimate MSI in smaller market niches, which have their own unique MSI based on supply and demand in that smaller area.

NEW LIST PRICES
Both new list Phoenix home price metrics saw modest gains of 2.8% and 2.5%, for median and average, re-spectively. February’s median new list price of $185,000, represents a rise of 23.4% over the last 12 months. The average new list price of $283,400, increased 21.69% since March 2012.

SALES PRICES
Median sales price rose 3.3% in February to $160,000, a level last seen in October-November 2008. Over the last 12 months, median sales price rose 23.17%. February’s average sales price was $216,500, representing a 19.87% rise since March 2012. Increases in both sales price trend lines have continued upward since they hit bottom in May 2011 for the median sales price, and August 2011 for the average sales price. As pricing rights itself, gains are best characterized as modest, slow and steady.

See the complete ARMLS STAT report here.  Need help interpreting some of the information?  Please contact us as we have Phoenix area Realtors available to assist and answer all your questions.