Season or trend? Phoenix real estate market slows

It’s not unusual for the real estate market to slide into the doldrums in the fall and winter, but the Phoenix market was all but becalmed in November. According to the monthly Realty Studies Report from the W. P. Carey School of Business, total recorded sales came in at 6,845 last month — the lowest level of activity since January 2009. And foreclosure activity fell to 2,095 recordings, or 30 percent of the total market — the lowest since April 2009. Is this a new trend or primarily a factor of the season? Associate Professor of Real Estate Jay Butler, who compiles the report, says the complexity of the situation makes it difficult to say what this downturn portends.

ASU-RSI: Battered Phoenix housing market enters the winter doldrums

At first glance, the drop in year-over-year Phoenix housing prices recorded in the October Arizona State University-Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI) could appear to be unmitigated bad news: this means prices compared to a year ago dropped for the third consecutive month. In fact, the rate of decline accelerated slightly to 6 percent. However, as ASU-RSI author and real estate Professor Karl Guntermann points out, October marked the beginning of what is typically the slowest time of the year for sales. And other economic factors may help to mitigate the drop going into 2011.

ASU-RSI: Continuing weakness in Phoenix real estate market

Price declines hit the Phoenix resale market for a second month in a row in September, with the drop accelerating to 4 percent, according to the latest ASU-Repeat Sales Report (ASU-RSI), released this week by the W. P. Carey School of Business. Report author, real estate Professor Karl Gunterman, said that the volatility in the market makes it difficult to be sure just yet, but another month of accelerated decline could mean that a new downward trend is developing.

Phoenix real estate: After a poor October, all eyes on holiday shoppers

The slumping Phoenix real estate market reached an ironic point in October where it was both "boring" and scary at the same time, according to Associate Professor of Real Estate Jay Butler, author of the W. P. Carey School’s monthly resale home market report. By now, Butler said, market watchers had expected a change in direction for the distressed market. Instead October brought another set of poor numbers. In a recent conversation, Knowledge@W. P. Carey asked him to describe that market.

Podcast: Foreclosure processing issues increase uncertainty in Phoenix market

In his latest Realty Studies Report, Jay Butler, associate professor of real estate at the W. P. Carey School, finds that 46 percent of the home transactions recorded in Phoenix in September were foreclosures — the highest percentage level of foreclosure activity since March. If you take into consideration the previously-foreclosed properties that changed hands in September, foreclosure-related activity actually represented 67 percent of the market. Several large banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. have temporarily halted foreclosures due to questions about documentation. The problem first came to light in the 23 states where foreclosure is a judicial, and therefore public, process. Knowledge asked Butler what the implications are for Arizona, which is one of 27 states where foreclosure is not a judicial process.

ASU-RSI: Signs point to improvement

The ASU Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI) continued to decline in June, but the numbers contained positive signals that improvement is the trend in the Phoenix metro real estate market. Overall, the ASU-RSI revealed that Phoenix prices in June declined by 31 percent when compared with prices in June 2008 — a slight improvement over May, when prices declined by 33 percent over May 2008, and April, which declined 35 percent compared to April 2008. When prices are compared month to month, there is more hopeful news. Prices tracked by the index increased by 0.8 percent in June 2009 compared to May 2009 — the first time that has happened since March 2007.