Across Maricopa County, we in the housing industry, including lenders, title agents, builders and we Realtors, have great optimism for 2015. It is still very early in the year, but that hasn’t stopped those of us who pay attention to the market from looking for the smallest of evidences to substantiate our hopes.
One of those small evidences we have notices is an increase in the number of houses currently in escrow compared with this time last year. Theoretically this should represent an increase of demand, which is really the one thing our housing economy lacks right now. This increase is not yet great enough to warrant any amount real celebration but is still worth noting.
If we look at the amount of dollar volume sold in Maricopa County last December compared with December 2013, we see a small decrease. Now December is never a strong month for sales in Arizona, and January is usually worse, so it is possible to make too much of it, but still, it keeps us from breathing easy just yet.
You may know that here in the Valley of the Sun, the high season for Real Estate is really March through July. Already we are seeing that people are coming out of the woodwork to buy and sell. Our listing inventory is low right now, having sold most all our listings, but we have already three or four that should be coming to the market soon. We assume that other Realtors are experiencing the same.
To be fair, it probably will not be until late February or March until we will see substantial signs of 2015 being any better than 2014. Over all 2014 was a flat year, but we’re confident of a better 2015. Until then we’re thankful that we have a market more in balance – more or less.
All data referenced courtesy of CromfordReport.com, in our opinion, the very best source of accurate Real Estate and housing data for Arizona.
