FYI, My latest article in Forbes.com has taken off! It has over 100,000 views after just 2 days!
Phoenix Factoids
A Few More Houses for Sale
Seeing some signs of the number of homes for sale increasing a bit but it’s weird. The number of smaller single-family houses listed for sale in the MLS in Maricopa County is up a bit compared to last year at this time but the number of large houses for sale is way down. What’s with the large houses? Comments?
Single-Family Houses – Maricopa County
Number for Sale in MLS Now vs. Last Year at this Time
+35% – Houses 1000-2000 square feet
+37% – Houses 2000-3000 square feet
+12% – Houses 3000-4000 square feet
-8% – Houses 4000-5000 square feet
-44% – Houses 5000+ square feet
+17% – All Houses
Source: Cromford Report
It’s not that more smaller houses are hitting the market, it’s that fewer are selling. We still have a LONG way to go to get back to a “normal” number of houses for sale. See my weekly graphic at the bottom.
Also updated my Case-Shiller graphs on Real Estate Decoded. Lots of good information about the Phoenix market.
Phoenix has been the hottest market in the United States since mid-2019.
“What happened to downtown Phoenix? Once affordable, rents are now soaring. Here’s why”
– Catherine Reagor, Arizona Republic
Not mentioned in the piece but after skyrocketing during the first half of 2021, rents in Phoenix have been flat, at least by some measures.
Your Phoenix house probably made twice as much as you did last year. Phoenix house prices went up $103,470 in 2021. The median pre-tax income in Phoenix was $52,000, at least according to Zillow.
Build-for-Rent is when an investor buys brand new single-family houses to create a community of new build rentals. Right now, it’s a hot new investment. And Phoenix is the hottest.
Click on the graph to go to the full-size, interactive version.
This information can vary a lot in different parts of metro Phoenix. Your real estate agent can find the data for your specific city or zip code at The Cromford Report.
5 Responses to Number of Houses for Sale in Phoenix Increasing… Slowly
Hi John, Do you have data on single family and multi-family rentals over the past 10 years, broken out by zip code within AZ? I am looking for data on rental supply and prices at a granular level. Thanks, Steve
Hi John,
Great work on your last couple of Forbes posts. I’ve been following you since 2010 (we bought in PHX area in 2011). I got to thinking about your number crunching on owner occupied new buyers versus investor owned properties.
PHX is different because we have a very transient population as proven by a town with 100+ cell phone area codes. So the investors are circling PHX area more than most areas as the new arrivals what to rents homes 1st before they decide to stay. Therefore, tax breaks plus a transient population have resulted in steep investor involvement pushing up home prices way faster than normal.
IMO, the wild card is what happens if the investor decides to exist semi-fast. I think we would agree that the surge in pricing could have never happened without the tax law and speculative investors (many of who have already lost their shorts like Zillow and OpenDoor).
Maybe I’m just not smart enough to get it, but I never understood the Zillow and OpenDoor model of overpaying for houses and trying to rehab and flip them for a profit LOL.
Hi John, congrats on the article at Forbes. I came across it on Flipboard. You had some really great insights in the article.
I see a lot of parallels with 2004 to 2006. I’m in Idaho and the market here has been the same kind of crazy that you’re experiencing in Phoenix. Tons of investors and a lot of out-of-state transplants. Having so many investors in the market is probably one of the best signs of a bubble that we have. Bad loans popped the bubble last time, could it be rapidly rising rates this time around? If investors start thinking that home values are going to fall, seems to me that investor demand will dry up pretty quickly and housing prices will respond accordingly.
We’re seeing inventory climb quite a bit here, but that’s compared to very low inventory a year ago. How is inventory changing in Phoenix right now?
“Having so many investors in the market is probably one of the best signs of a bubble that we have.” That’s a good way to put it! Investors are the most volatile part of the market. They add most of the volatility on the upside and downside of the cycle. Thanks for the comment. Sorry, it took so long to respond.
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