March Home Sales in Phoenix Highest Since 2007, Las Vegas March Home Sales Highest Since 2006
1. "A total of 10,352 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in March in the Phoenix metropolitan area. That was up 44.3 percent from the month before and up 7.5 percent from a year earlier. A sharp rise in sales from February to March is normal for the season, although this year’s jump was larger than usual. March’s sales were the highest for that month since 10,712 homes sold in March 2007. In the overall Phoenix market in March, buyers paid a median $119,000 for all new and resale houses and condos that closed escrow. That was down 0.8 percent from the month before and down 11.9 percent from a year earlier."
2. "In March, 4,953 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the Las Vegas metro area – the highest sales tally for any March since 2006, when 8,486 sold. March sales were up 27.3 percent from February and up 1.6 percent from March 2010. The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the Las Vegas metro area in March was $117,000, down 1.7 percent from February and down 10.0 percent from a year ago."
MP: This seems like evidence that markets are working - bargain prices bring the buyers back into the market and home sales rise. If we measured the housing market the way we measure car sales (in terms of units sold), we would say that the housing market is doing quite well.
MP: This seems like evidence that markets are working - bargain prices bring the buyers back into the market and home sales rise. If we measured the housing market the way we measure car sales (in terms of units sold), we would say that the housing market is doing quite well.
9 Comments:
Great news?
The Phoenix area’s March median was 14.3 percent below the highest median recorded over the past year –$139,900 last June – and it stood 54.9 percent lower than the all-time peak of $264,100 in June 2006.
Another key price gauge analysts watch, the median price paid per square foot for existing single-family detached houses, fell to $64 in March, down from $66 the month before and down 14.7 percent from a year ago. It was the seventh consecutive month in which the median paid per square foot dipped year-over-year. March’s figure was the lowest since April 2009, when it was also $64, and it stood 62.6 percent below the $171 peak in May and June of 2006.
And for Vegas we get, "Cash buyers in March paid a median $88,450 for a home in the Las Vegas area, down from $90,242 in February and $103,750 a year earlier."
Vangel,
Great news for me. I'm moving back to Phoenix!
No mention of this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704810504576309532810406782.html
I really enjoy your blog but, at the same time, your completely non-objective coverage of the economy makes me wary that I'm wasting my time reading a propaganda rag similar to the doom and gloomers out there. Why is all of your coverage biased positive? And why do you bury your head in the sand with respect to the an institutional structure entirely antithetical to any reasonable free-market ideals; of course I speak of the financial system as anchored by The Fed and it's privileged primary dealer masters.
Vange-
Is this an example of the hyper-inflation you are seeing?
Housing selling for $64 a square foot?
Benjamin: in defense of Vangel, I think the argument can be made that we've had a massive hyperinflation of assets prices since the early 1980's Volker interest rate regime; assets and other high-end services (education, healthcare, etc.) experienced massive inflation while the stuff we need rose in a more benign fashion. Now we may be in an era when the stuff we need goes up rapidly in price while the other stuff declines relatively (note: not necessarily a fall but a less pronounced appreciation). If RE stays flat while everything else rises for a number of years then the proportion would shift back towards early 1980's proportions (doubt they will ever go all the way back). Just a thought...
Cash212-
Your comments are valid...but.
If we are to have a hyper-inflation, or even some high inflation 1970s style, it is not showing up in real estate or bond buying circles yet.
Bond buyers are giving the federal government money for 10 years at 3.19 percent interest. And real estate is going begging for buyers--a great hedge against inflation, and one you can leverage to buy.
Meanwhile, M2 is growing like it always had, about 6.2 percent annually.
Making predictions is hard, especially about the future.
But bond buyers, real estate buyers, and bankers see only mild inflation ahead.
I guess stock buyers too. The DJIA is very moderately priced.
Only some crypto-monetarists see hyper-inflation coming, along with an expose that our US moon-landing was faked.
Vange-
Is this an example of the hyper-inflation you are seeing?
Housing selling for $64 a square foot?
It is still too high. Housing that consumes cash flow and makes owners poorer should fall in price until its use becomes profitable again.
If we are to have a hyper-inflation, or even some high inflation 1970s style, it is not showing up in real estate or bond buying circles yet.
Two points. First, in many places housing is destroying capital so it is still too highly priced. Second, there is no free market in bonds so we cannot use the price movement to make any valid conclusion.
Bond buyers are giving the federal government money for 10 years at 3.19 percent interest. And real estate is going begging for buyers--a great hedge against inflation, and one you can leverage to buy.
Which bond buyers? Most of the new bonds are purchased by the Fed and foreign central banks. The last time I looked people like Buffett and Gross were shorting or ready to short bonds.
Meanwhile, M2 is growing like it always had, about 6.2 percent annually.
And you don't see a problem with that?
Making predictions is hard, especially about the future.
No, it isn't. It does not take brains to predict that the USD and the other fiat currencies will keep losing purchasing power.
But bond buyers, real estate buyers, and bankers see only mild inflation ahead.
I disagree.
I guess stock buyers too. The DJIA is very moderately priced.
Actually, it isn't. And in a hyperinflation stocks will lose much of their real value.
Only some crypto-monetarists see hyper-inflation coming, along with an expose that our US moon-landing was faked.
Monetarists? Where?
Typical scavenging activity. Nothing to get excited about.
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