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New home sales still off across Valley
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Valley home sales continued to slump in January, though the post-holiday numbers aren’t necessarily a good measure of what’s to come in 2007.
Some 4,520 existing home sales were recorded last month, down 14.1 percent from January 2006, a report by Arizona State University’s Realty Studies department shows.
That’s also down slightly from the 4,620 resales reported in December.
January is traditionally a slower month, said Jay Butler, director of the Realty Studies program.
“People really don’t want to put their home up for sale during the holidays, unless they have to,” Butler said.
It’s the March sales numbers that will be key to knowing whether the market is recovering, he said.
January’s median sale price was stable at $260,000, up from $257,000 at the same time last year. It’s the first year-to-year improvement since August 2006, ASU reported.
With interest rates low and the economy good, Butler said he expects the market to improve this year. The number of homes on the market will likely increase as sellers get back out in the market, he said.
More people seem to be taking an interest in older areas closer to city cores, where they can buy and fix up homes, Butler said. They’re looking more at neighborhoods, school districts, proximity to freeways and other features.
“A house is more than just a house now. People are going back to the basics,” he said. “For a couple years, we were just dominated by price appreciation. That’s all they cared about.”
In January, 15 percent of recorded sales were for homes priced from $125,000 to $199,999, 43 percent were for homes in the $200,000 to $299,999 price range and 39 percent were for homes that cost more than $300,000.
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