Foreclosures and home prices in the Valley failed to show much improvement in 2011 despite some positive momentum during the year, according to the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
One of the better developments in the year-end findings was that foreclosures dropped to 35,855, down from 41,625 in 2010. That translated to foreclosures representing 34 percent of transactions, down from 39 percent in 2010. However, foreclosures account for less than 5 percent of transactions in a typical year.
Median prices fell in 2011, from $138,000 in 2010 to $125,000 for a single-family home. Condo median prices dropped from $88,000 to $79,000, according to Jay Butler, an emeritus professor who authored the report.
"Although 2011 ended on a slightly more positive note than 2010, there are several issues, including a weak economic recovery and stricter mortgage underwriting guidelines playing a role here," Butler said in a statement. "The main question for 2012 is whether homeowner/occupants will play an expanding role. We're starting to see investors getting very involved again, and many have shifted from buying foreclosed homes to actually attending foreclosure auctions. The number of non-institutional investors with successful bids has moved from about 20 percent all the way up to just over 40 percent."
About 3 percent of single-family homes in Maricopa County underwent foreclosures in 2011. More than 14 percent of all single-family homes in the county have been foreclosed on since 2008.
The sale price of homes, excluding foreclosures, has dropped by more than half since 2007, the report found. Median prices stood at $125,000, down from $260,000 four years earlier.
Butler said it will take years to fully reverse the drop from the peak. He cautioned that it won't be a straight upward trend, but a back-and-forth dance over the next several years that he called a "stretched recovery."
Contact writer: (480) 898-6548 or ggroff@evtrib.com
DrJCA1 posted at 4:58 pm on Thu, Jan 19, 2012.
We need more "investors" buying houses and renting them to god-knows-who. Many of these people rent to anyone who comes along, never mind their ability to pay the rent or the concern to take care of someone else's property. I choose to live where people actually own their own homes and have some real investment in the house and the community. My condo HOA here in Cincinnati has a strict limit on how many units cn be rented and vette anyone who wishes to live there. Sounds snobby or elitist, I know, but when you have a lot of money tied up in your home, you want to make sure you have all the positives on your side so as not to lose everything.
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