• March-April – Market tanked
• May-June – Market soared
• July-August – Tight but loosening
• September – Starts tightening again!
Unexpectedly, the market in September seems to be tighter than August, at least compared to 2019.
The number of houses hitting the market was running higher in July and August than in 2019 but in September it seems new listing are returning toward 2019 levels.
Have we already worked our way through the backlog of sellers who put off selling back in the spring because of Covid-19? If we continue to see new listings run at 2019 levels, I’d say the wave is past.
Moratoriums Mask Economic Impacts
The lower mortgage rates seem to be what’s driving the market. The impact of the lower rates is stronger than what I expected.
When the moratoriums end in January, we will start to see – over months – the number of houses hitting the market increase as some financially distressed homeowners sell.
However, right now I’m thinking the impact of the lower mortgage rates is so strong that prices won’t fade and we could see strong price gains later in 2021.
I don’t like the skyrocketing prices but the impact of the lower rates has been so strong so far that I expect it to have an impact on prices for another couple of years.
For U.S. real estate market analysis,
go to Real Estate Decoded.
New Listings
After trending higher than 2019 during July and August, new listings in September are trending back toward 2019 numbers.
I had hoped that the more-new-listings trend would continue but it looks like we may have already worked our way through the backlog of sellers who had put off selling during the Covid Spring.
For Sale
Still a crazy low number of houses for sale in the Phoenix MLS.
Under Contract
The number of single-family houses under contract to buyers has been moving HIGHER in September! That means the number of houses sold should remain high through October.
I didn’t expect that. I thought the wave of buying caused by the lower mortgage rates would be overwhelmed by the typical seasonal slowing in sales.
Solds
The number of homes sold was slowing in July and August but it seems sales have rebounded to higher-than-2019 levels again in September.
Tell me in the “Comments” what you think.
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.
Note. This post was written on September 27, 2020 but the graphs will be continually updated.
2 Responses to We’ve Worked Our Way Through the Backlog of Phoenix Home Sellers Who Delayed Selling Last Spring
If you look at your best market graph, I noticed that in 04 prices kept rising sept-dec when they usually are stagnant. I wonder if prices keep rising until Jan 2021 that we’ll enter mania in 2021. We shall see if we can get any inventory.
Brian, We’re definitely on the same wavelength. In late 2004, some people were saying that the sales were falling so things are getting back to normal. Looking back, I was new at watching the real estate market at the time and learned a big lesson from that. The fact that sales didn’t fall as much as they typically do that time of year was a sign of a very HOT market, not a cooling market. You gotta take the seasonality into account before deciding whether a number is strong or weak. That is, if sales go up at all during a time of year then they typically go down, that’s a sign of super strong demand.
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