Short Sales

It's quite an exciting time in the Phoenix real estate market. Good things are happening, despite the continued distress in the housing market and overall economy. There are some negatives to this turn in the market and we'll get into those, but they pale in comparison to what the market went through in the last half decade. 

This is now the year 2012 and it just keeps getting better. I know for many the financial and economic situations vary. In 2008/2009 when so few properties sold, it was hard to make ends meet and our reserves were depleted, the real estate portfolio value went down, even some properties were purchased a decade ago had no equity and the near future was bleak. Some people are still in hard times, but the important thing to remember

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November is usually exciting for other reasons than real estate: shopping, Thanksgiving and more shopping, yet there is some activity to take note of, as well get into below. 

New data show an 8.6% unemployment rate which is the lowest in the last 2 years. Seems like an improvement but, 315,000 people stopped looking for jobs, remain jobless yet they don't count toward the unemployment rate: maybe we need a modified unemployment rate which takes into account these people and underemployment.

People are buying more then deals on the latest plasma tv's, real estate is moving, supply keeps dwindling and guess what prices are moving up.

Active listings are at a paltry 26,655 at a time of the year when they should be higher. Last year we had a

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The Arizona Regional MLS is coming out with some nice data lately. It's about time, even though we have the venerable Cromford reports to rely on for well scrubbed data. The newest addition is a monthly report of distress in Greater Phoenix. Here is the intro from the ARMLS, "Gathering intelligence on Short Sales and Foreclosures is now easier with the Distressed Property Report. This report contains three interactive maps: short sales, foreclosures and a map of all distressed properties. Each map is a snapshot of the active distressed property aggregated by ZIP Code. Clicking a dot on the map will display more information. Each map is displayed below":  I like it visually.

The first map shows short sales. Notice where the concentrations are: on the

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The success rate is an important measure. It gauges how many of the listings that exit the active market actually sell versus simply being taken of the market for multiple reasons,  amongst them failure to sell.

Below is chart showing the success rate of normal listings - normal meaning traditionally sold homes, i.e. not REO or short sale properties. Remember those? 

These are making a comeback in a big way. They are slowly replacing distressed properties which is a sign of a return to a normal market, one with only a small percentage of distressed properties. 

A higher success rate of normal homes means buyers are willing to buy these homes instead of bank owned and short sale homes. In order to do that they have to see value in this and

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While the weather may be cooling down the real estate market in Phoenix continues its hotness, yet the seasonal trend continues: supply increased, demand slowed and prices moved up.

7,436 residential properties sold in October which is awesome good compared to 6,520 last year. I would dismiss 2009 numbers or at least adjust them because there were heavy government incentives to buy at that time. 

Considering how difficult it is to find good homes I think achieving this number is actually amazing. Take away all the over priced homes or homes with unmotivated sellers and the inventory is truly much lower. Just because a home is on the market and even priced properly does not mean it's going to sell. Case in point: we've been trying to get into one

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Short sales have some characteristics to them that some people find unappealing. The whole idea and process of short sales is an anomaly in the market place that can conjure up many ugly words from the mouths of those dealing with them, but like it or not short sale is a tool which is helping the market work through the current housing difficulties. An easy way not to deal with them as a buyer is to simply avoid short sales in the first place. Short sales make up 38% of the active homes out there and 20% of the sold properties. Clearly there are 23,000 out of the 38,000 properties for sale that you can pursue. Mind you some of the aggravation you'll feel with short sales is the same as with bank owned properties of which there are just over…

When buyers walk away from a short sale purchase the result, often, is a seller, needlessly, going into foreclosure.It seems to be happening more often.  We hear it everyday, even several times a day.  A transaction falls apart and the seller often goes into foreclosure despite obtaining an agreement letter from the bank stating that they have an approved short sale and can proceed with closing.How’s that happen?  It happens when buyers, seemingly motivated, ready and willing buyers - upon hearing a short sale has been approved - walk away from the transaction.In a traditional sale the loss of one buyer is mostly no big loss as another can be found if the home abides by the rules of the market, but in a short sale there are time frames which…

The Phoenix housing market sends mixed signals confusing even hardened analysts, but a few trends have emerged.You've probably heard some news lately that housing is down again.  Those were reports for the Case-Shiller Index which is always 3 months behind and yes, the prices were down as were sales, but we have more recent scrubbed numbers available and they point the a rather mixed market.Let's start off by mentioning seasonality.  The graph below indicates sales each year since 2001 with the dark green highlighted as 2010.   "October marked the beginning of what is typically the slowest time of the year for sales. Because of this, Guntermann projects that year-over-year declines will likely continue for the next several months." (ASU-RSI) Unlike…

Getting to know the short sale buying process with 12 succinct articles that help you as a buyer navigate the process.It seems as though everyone is now familiar with short sales, in the term at least if not the actual process and meaning.If you did not have to deal with the short sales then your want to know the what, how and why of it all.  So we have put together a beginners guide to buying a short sale with a compilation of articles we've written.Let's start off with the basics.1:    What is a short sale.1.1: How is a short sale different from a bank owned home.1.2: How does a bank define a short sale.Knowing the above it's worth asking your self a few questions if it's even worth pursuing a short sale, specifically if you have defined…

Professional level photography coupled with attention to other details is worth thousands of dollars to a seller.The fact that having good photos, especially professional level photos is of a great benefit when selling  is obvious, more so obvious when  you take into account that well over 90% of home buyers look for homes online and that in cities like Phoenix plenty of buyers are out of town and are not able to drive by a place.If you are a seller and a buyer at the same time, which is happening often now, then you’ll be privy to both sides of the transaction and I’m sure you’ll see the benefits, as a buyer, of more and better photos during the property selection process.The obvious is obvious, but Redfin dug into the numbers by reviewing a…