March 3rd, 2010
Signs of a Market Recovery
We’ve all been watching the real estate market carefully, looking for clear signs that a recovery is afoot. For those considering investing in real estate, it is a critical question.
No one can say for sure exactly when or how quickly the recovery will happen. But there are quite a few authorities saying that, at the very least, the market has already hit bottom. If that’s true, the time to move on discounted Phoenix properties is right now.
Most prominently, the recent Standard & Poor/Case-Schiller Home Price Index outlines a national home price increase of 0.3%. (See more on the S&P/Case-Shiller numbers in this CNN article, and here.)
While authorities are cautious about what this means for the nation as a whole, the Phoenix market, along with several others in the Southwest, has seen seven consecutive months of improvement. This is a good sign.
A recent article in the Phoenix Business Journal points to a bottom for Phoenix real estate almost a year ago, in April 2009. This indicates a shallow Ð but steady Ð recovery from here.
And Fidelity National Title, in partnership with The Cromford Report (an online statistical resource on the metropolitan Phoenix real estate market), released a recent study on the Phoenix market that was fairly positive. You can read a synopsis of the report in this article from DSNews, but here are a few highlights:
- Pending home sales were at a record level in January 2010, indicating an increase in demand with sales price increase likely to follow
- Buying in the $250,000 - $400,000 range is beginning to increase and showed substantial activity in fourth quarter
Of course, we all have to make our own decision on where the market is going. But with optimism continuing to grow, and clear signs that the bottom has passed, the best time to invest may well be upon us.
We’ll bring you more signs of the market recovery as they surface.
