Phoenix Home Sales
Metro Phoenix homes sales (blue line) fell back to earth after the stratospheric Phoenix home sales in June 2011.
Metro Phoenix single family home sales in July (7242) were still 21% above July 2010 (which crashed after the first-time home buyer tax credit ended in June 2010) but were below July 2009 sales (7993).
Phoenix Housing Inventory
Surprisingly to me, the inventory of homes listed for sale in metro Phoenix (red line) continued to fall, that is, in mid-August the inventory of listings was less than in mid-July.
Phoenix New MLS Listings
As I said, home sales fell in July but the number of NEW listings (not shown on the graph) fell as well so the inventory of single family homes listed for sale in metro Phoenix fell. The number of new listings hitting the market in July was lower than any July in at least 10 years, according to my interpretation of MLS statistics.
A big discussion among real estate agents is whether the banks have a shadow inventory and whether banks are going to start releasing their inventory onto the market.
ADDED: I may be making this more complex than it is. You don’t have to have a Masters Degree in Economics to look at that red line and know that something major is changing in the metro Phoenix real estate market. Let’s not over-think this.