August 21st, 2009 by Michael Oliver

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Share on Facebook Home sales just came out today if you read this blog regularly you shouldn’t be surprised but existing home sales were up again for the fourth straight month. Existing home sales were up 7.2% in July as first time buyers have entered the market in droves to grab their $8,000 tax credit. Also this allowed first time home sellers to buy another property and take advantage of the historically low interest rates that are presently available. The annual rate of sales now stands at 5.24 million units versus an estimate of 5 million and up from 4.89 million units in June. The past six months of real estate data has all pointed out to the national real estate markets bottoming and I personally believe this is the case in Tucson Arizona as the lower end of the market is busy with buyer demand and sales. That should trickle through the rest of the market in the next coming months.

In the bigger picture it seems like the US economy is also doing better than last year and the recession is easing or ended depending upon where you get your news from. I think the recovery will be slow and steady as this recession was easily the worst one seen since WW2. In the real estate sector the word “recession” would be putting it kindly as most in the industry would suggest the real estate sector has gone through an outright depression since the end of 2006 in real estate. Commercial real estate will still suffer for some time as the economy only slowly comes out of the recession. As already mentioned I believe the residential real estate depression in Tucson is over. As long as interest rates remain low and the general economy does not take a turn south the residential market should see steady strengthening and regain a balance between buyers and sellers. I do have reservations as to how much demand is being pushed into the market by the $8,000 tax credit and what will happen after the November 30th deadline passes, however I believe in the long term the buyer will still show up and buy without the tax credit as prices are low and affordability is as high as we have seen in decades. Also in my opinion high quality real estate “deals” are getting harder to come by and the active inventory in Tucson continues to shrink.

Home Sale Stats, Tucson Home Selling Statistics