“Unless more houses start hitting the market, things are gonna get weird.”
The Phoenix MLS updated their stats for May so let’s look at those first and then look at the weekly data.
Phoenix Real Estate
At 6%, we still had good house price appreciation from May 2019 to May 2020 but it’s down a ton from last month. The annual appreciation from April 2019 to April 2020 was 11%.
The long-term graph below is a great way to see the COVID-19 real estate market in context. You can see that sales (blue line) have been down but the key to the market right now is the red line, the number of houses listed for sale in the Phoenix MLS.
Although supply is up a bit in recent months, it’s still crazy low and down 22% from a year ago. It’s similar to 2004 and 2005 during the Great Real Estate Bubble. The big Phoenix real estate market story today is still the crazy low number of houses for sale.
The Weekly Data
Amazingly, there’s been no changes to the basic trends in 2 months.
New Listings. The number of houses hitting the market has been kinda flat since mid-April. (The latest week of new listings is always revised up so I don’t focus on it.)
For Sale. The number of single-family houses listed for sale is down 44% from a year ago.
Under Contract. The number of single-family houses under contract to buyers is 14% HIGHER than last year. That means closed sales will continue to increase in future weeks.
Solds. The number of houses sold last week was almost the same as last year – it was only down 4%.
Takeaway
Unless more houses start hitting the market, things are gonna get weird.
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.
To see what’s happening beyond Phoenix, be sure and also subscribe to my other website, RealEstateDecoded.com.
Note. This post was written on June 22, 2020 but the graphs in this post will be continually updated.
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