Market Update
IT'S A BUYERS MARKET
SALES:
The multiple listing service reports only 7 homes going under
contract over the last month. This number is quite a bit lower
than normal, and It was actually quite a surprise to me when I ran the
report, because it seems like there has been quite an increase in
activity. We definitely have seen more people shopping for homes,
so we will see if that results in more sales over the next month.
inventory/
time on the market:
Currently we have 203 homes on the market which is the most we have
ever had. This is not a surprise however considering the growth of
the town since 2004, this is only a 20% gain in inventory since then.
The average time on the market is averaging 6 months which is reasonably
close to the average of years past (excluding 2005 of course)
PRICES:
We have not seen any notable changes in prices over the last year,
The Arizona republic reports a 3.7 percent increase in Median home
prices from last year. I don't think that Median reflects an
increase in property values however, It just reflects the fact that we
are selling more homes in the higher price ranges. I have
performed a couple of valuations for homes recently where I was able to
compare back to valuations I had done on the same home in 2005, so that
has been educational. The results of those valuations have
shown about a 5% increase in value since then.
Expectations:
We are getting into the time of year when the winter visitors come
back to town and with that, activity in Real Estate always picks up, but
at the same time, there are more homes on the market than ever before,
and buyers are expecting great deals. So I am predicting that
although the number of sold homes will increase over the winter, the
number of new listings will outpace the sales. With so many
choices on the market the buyers will continue to gravitate toward the
best deals, leaving many seller sitting on the market for extended
periods. So things are looking up for those motivated sellers,
because there will be more buyers, otherwise sellers had better consider
price reductions. For buyers the time is right. Wickenburg
does not have a history of falling property values, but this year may
actually see some small drops, so if you are looking to buy around
Wickenburg then you could not pick a better time, especially with
interest rates so low.
Land:
The demand for land has been much lower than normal of late even
though the availability is quite good. I attribute that to a couple of
factors. One factor is the cost of new construction, which has climbed
considerably this year The other factor is the asking prices of the land
that is on the market. The asking prices of land are actually higher in
many areas than they were in 2005. Looking on the bright side we have
actually seen a number of price reductions, and still continue to see
new listings to the market. So I wouldn't say that the values of land
are dropping, just that the asking prices are falling back to reasonable
numbers, that will in many cases still be comparable or even higher than
the banner year of 2005.
* When I mention an average I will exclude 2005 which was a most unusual year in Real Estate.
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