Tucson Market Statistics - June 2010
| June 09 | June 10 | % change | |
| Home Sales Volume | $237,996,501 | $221,400,614 |  6.97% |
| Home Sales Units | 1139 | 1170 |  2.72 |
| Average Sales Price | $208,952 | $189,231 | 9.44% |
| Median Sales Price | $165,000 | $149,450 | 9.42% |
| Pending Contracts* | 1432 | 1145 | 20.04 |
| Active Listings | 6261 | 6852 | 9.44 |
| New Listings | 1892 | 1505 | 20.45% |
*Has not yet closed escrow. | |||
| Information provided by Tucson Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service | |||
| ARCHIVED STATISTICS | |||
Market Recap: By Michael Oliver
The Tucson AZ real estate marketplace is still running along the bottom of a turn around. There is a slowdown in demand (as expected) due to the total expiration of the $8k tax credit. Now, if you are an active duty member of the U.S. military and you have orders to be sent somewhere, you get an extension of 1 year (your $8k tax credit would expire on 4/30/2011 and have to be closed by 6/30/2011) to still use the tax credit, but everyone else's credit time has passed. You can see that demand is cooling by looking at the pending contracts as they are down 20% from last year when the beginning of the $8k tax credit was in full swing.
It's also interesting to see that home prices in Tucson have (on average across the city) fallen almost 10% over the past year even with the tax credit pushing demand into the market over the last 12 months. Active listings are up, prices are down, and interest rates are down. This makes the case for buyers who want to do something that sellers are going to be willing to make deals, as the market is not in their favor yet.
From everything I see, the market will continue to be sluggish for the next 3-6 months as demand is going to be weak in Tucson. On the further out time tables (12-24 months) I believe Tucson will be much more balanced and can even be a seller's market as the foreclosure crisis is still working itself out. My foreclosure contacts say they are not listing as many properties as in years past. If this trend continues, I would suggest that Tucson is getting closer to having moved past the super high percentages of foreclosure homes on the market for sale.
Once we are through this, we should see a very stable real estate market. Lending standards are strict and overall home owner profiles have been increased dramatically since the downward market (bear market) started in Tucson real estate in the end of 2005 and then caught serious speed in the end of 2007 and through all of 2008 and 2009.
The one thing worth mentioning is lack of clarity in the marketplace itself. Buyers and sellers are starting to head off in different directions again regarding "what a house is worth." Last year, buyers were willing to pay and sellers willing to discount to make deals happen. This year buyers seem much more willing to wait and find something else if the seller doesn't discount heavily.
On the reverse side, sellers feel like the listed price they are asking is reasonable. Furthermore, retail sellers (those other than banks or investors selling foreclosures) do not expect a home sale to be easy or quick, which puts them in the mindset of waiting for a better buyer to surface. This "feeling" in the market can change very quickly and it is also very subjective, but this is what I have been seeing in my own business and clients on both sides of the deal. The last time the market induced this pulling apart of buyer and seller expectations was probably in mid-2007. In that situation, the sellers lost and had to start discounting heavily to make sales.
This time around, I think that in the short term, the buyers will win as demand always trumps supply. HOWEVER, I think (as previously discussed) the sellers are going to end up winning over the near long term as the buyers already have everything going for them: literally record breaking low-interest rates, Tucson home price levels we haven't seen since 2000 (10 years ago for those counting), and a pretty ample supply of homes to pick from. Once the word is out that the sell side is not giving the ground they have in the past (which is coming), then buyers are going to want to run (pent-up demand) to lock in what will probably be the best home buying terms they will ever see. All this of course hinges on whether foreclosures in Tucson continue to become a lesser presence in the marketplace.
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