My Home Advise

The Cave Creek real estate market, a small residential market enclosed within the larger Phoenix area and Maricopa Valley markets, seemed to be showing signs of a potential recovery while still remaining quite weak. According to a May 22, 2010 article from the Arizona Republic, “April figures for existing-home sales in metro Phoenix reveal several promising shifts for those searching for signs of a housing-market recovery. The overall number of home sales in the region continued to hover near record lows last month.” The piece by Catherine Reagor continued to note that “The return of average buyers to the market suggests more people are buying for the long haul rather than for a quick resale. The shift away from foreclosures also means more Valley homeowners were able to sell their houses last month.”

The rate of foreclosures in the greater Phoenix area, which previously had been seriously harming Cave Creek homes for sale, declined relative to the number of home sales. According to a June 1, 2010 article from DQ News, “Phoenix region home sales rose to a four-year high in April and posted an above-average gain over March as first-time buyers and investors continued to dominate the sub-$200,000 market. The region’s overall median sale price rose above the year-ago level for the second consecutive month, reflecting widening price stability and fewer foreclosures and other properties selling below $100,000, a real estate information service reported.” The article, also published in the NuWire Investor, went on to say that “Buyers paid a median $135,889 last month for all new and resale houses and condos that closed escrow in the Phoenix metro area, up 0.7 percent from March and up 8.7 percent from $125,000 a year ago, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego, which tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records.”

The commercial aspect of the Cave Creek and Phoenix real estate markets may still be in serious trouble, according to a May 30, 2010 article from the Arizona Republic. This piece, written by J. Craig Anderson, noted that “Arizona’s housing market is deep into the process of flushing out its bad mortgage debt. But lenders and borrowers of troubled commercial real-estate loans continued to live a lie. Commercial real-estate brokers have coined a phrase, ‘extend and pretend,’ to describe lenders’ sluggish response to the billions of dollars in bad commercial mortgages on their books.”

The Scottsdale real estate market, which is often analyzed together with the larger Phoenix area and Valley real estate markets, continued to face a number of serious problems as the first half of the year comes to a close. According to a May 14, 2010 article from the Arizona Republic, “Scottsdale home prices continue to fall even as the Valley resale housing market has seen a 5.5 percent increase in prices from January to April. Scottsdale’s median home price was $360,000 in April, down 10 percent from a year ago and a dip of 3.2 percent from January, according to an Arizona State University Realty Studies monthly report released this week.” The piece by Peter Corbett went on to say that “Foreclosures, short sales and fix-and-flip deals on recently foreclosed properties continue to drag down the Scottsdale market, making it harder for traditional sellers to get good prices for their homes.”

Although the number of foreclosures in the Phoenix area and the Valley remains high, their effect on Scottsdale homes for sale may be less pronounced than previously, according to a May 13, 2010 report from KTAR News. This piece found that “Arizona continued to rank high in housing foreclosures – second only to Nevada – but there is one indication the situation may be getting better. Notices of foreclosure sales – the early stage of foreclosure – in Phoenix were down 17 percent from a year ago in the latest report from RealtyTrac.” The piece, written by Jeremy Foster, continued to note that “The number of properties actually in foreclosure are up nearly 60 percent from this time a year ago, but the number of people entering foreclosure is down almost 20 percent…He believes foreclosure numbers in the Valley will remain high for the rest of this year.”

The rate of home resales in the Scottsdale and Valley real estate markets increased slightly in the month of April, according to a May 12, 2010 article in the Arizona Republic. This piece, written by Dawn Gilbertson, noted that “There were 6,765 resales of detached single-family homes in the month, up nearly 2 percent from 6,640 in April 2009, according to the monthly Realty Studies report from Arizona State University.”