Tucson Market Conditions April 2007
New Stats are out from the Tucson MLS for April 2007. So what’s the state of Real Estate in Tucson?
Just the facts:
- Active Listings: 10,387
- Number of Sales: 1280 units.
- Average Sales price, Single Family Home: $298,876
- Median Sales price, Single Family Home: $237,000
- Average Sales price, Townhouse/Condo: $184,869
- Median Sales price, Townhouse/Condo: $167,000
- Average Days on Market: 65 days
Adding meaning to the Numbers:
Active listings are at record numbers. People - If you don’t NEED to sell, get your house off the market. Typical inventory levels for Tucson are between 4000-5000 listings, at least they were before the 2005 boom and the 2006 run-up in inventory.
A good figure to look at is months of inventory, which takes into account both the number of listings AND the number of sales: at the current rate of sales, how long would it take for all of the houses to sell, if no other homes were to come on the market.
General rule of thumb is that anything around 4-6 months is a balanced market, under 4 months is Seller’s Market, and over 6 months is a Buyer’s market.
In this chart, you can see our Seasonality: inventory drops during Summer, our peak sales time. It looks like Tucson has been fairly balanced, until 2005 when our sales went crazy and inventory dropped. Now, since 2006, months of inventory has climbed. There was a small drop in March 2007, and we went back up a bit in April 2007. It will be interesting to see if we’re going to bounce our way slowly back down to normal levels.
Another way to consider active listings and number of sales is simple division: of the 10387 listings on the market, only 1280 sold - which is roughly 1 in 9 homes.
Let’s restate that: One in nine homes sold last month. More typical levels? One in five.
Average and Median Sales prices have fluctuated fairly gently since the start of 2006. They vary a little, month to month, but overall, no big movements are seen from January 2006 to today, in terms of Average and Median prices. This indicates fairly flat prices.
Days on market has been dancing around in the 60s for six months now. Since 2000, Tucson has averaged somewhere in the mid 50s for days on market. Since we’re at 65 days for April, we’re still taking longer to sell than our traditional market would indicate. Given that agents can restart the days on market clock by withdrawing and relisting the same house, this figure isn’t the best measure. It’d be more interesting to see ACTUAL days on market, inclusive of past times a house has been listed and expired or been withdrawn.
Here’s my take: Inventory is still too high, but well-priced and well-marketed homes are still selling. The number of sales took a small dip in April, but we’ve otherwise been following our yearly trend for number of sales this year. It’s a good time to be a buyer, but understand that the best properties at the best prices will still move fast. Sellers - either get serious about selling or get off the market. Our market is still deciding where it will land. If you don’t HAVE to sell, then don’t. If you do have to sell, you’ve got to price aggressively and present the best home possible. In this market, you can’t be lax about the housekeeping or the repairs if you want the best price.
