No bubbles in Valley real estate forecast
Jun 12, 2013, 5:00 AM | Updated: Oct 21, 2013, 9:12 am
That’s what a new report from Arizona State University is telling us.
Michael Orr, Director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at the W.P Carey School of Business at ASU released his April 2013 report for the Valley on June 5.
Even though prices have been dramatically gaining in the Valley, the report stated the greater Phoenix housing market is not in danger of a bubble.
Here are some other points of interest in the report.
Housing market remains dominated by a chronic supply shortage.
Number of active listings has declined still further since last month and the shortage continues to get more severe among the most affordable sectors.
Higher prices would normally encourage more ordinary home sellers to enter the market but it seems many potential sellers are either locked in by negative equity or are on the sidelines waiting for prices to rise further. At some point, we will reach a pricing level where re-sale supply will free up, but it seems clear we are still not there.
Strong demand from investors is slowly subsiding to be replaced by demand from owner-occupiers and second home buyers.
For now it looks like developers will probably build fewer than half the homes necessary to keep pace with current population trends.
Although large price increases have been occurring for well over a year now, appraisals are still a problem area, preventing some transactions from completing. The appraisal industry often has a difficult time allowing for three-month price change of 9 percent as we just saw over the last three months.
Listen for more Phoenix real estate news with realtors Diane Brennan and Rod Lakin on That Real Estate Show Saturdays at 3 p.m. on News/Talk 92.3 KTAR.