Flagstaff home buyers and sellers can both find reasons to be happy with the Flagstaff home sales numbers for December 2009. Many expected grim results for December home sales because “the market always slows in December” and because fear of expiration of the tax credit (unnecessary fear, as it turned out) pushed sales into November. Here are some surprising numbers showing December Flagstaff home sales results:
- The median sale price of a single-family-home dropped only $1000 from December to November ($305,000 vs. $306,000), while the price-per-square-foot actually rose by $3 (to $134 from $131).
- The median single-family-home sale price dropped 10% from December 2008, but volume of home sales increased by 74% compared with a year ago.
- The beginning of January 2010 found inventory of Flagstaff single-family homes for sale at 9.72 months’ worth compared with 19.81 months’ worth at the beginning of January 2009.
- Sales of Flagstaff townhomes and condos increased in December 2009 compared with December 2008, and median prices for both of those categories were actually up on a year-to-year basis. I say this with caution, however, since there are so few sales in each category that the medians are easily skewed.
Of the 47 single-family-homes sold in Flagstaff in December, 7 homes (14.8%) where REOs (bank-owned) and 4 (8.5%) were short sales. So, if someone tries to tell you that only distressed properties are selling, tell them to think again. What are selling are homes owned by realistic, well-advised sellers who make their homes competitive.
There were 60 pending home sales at the end of December and 25 more homes listed as “active-contingency removal.” Many of these are distressed properties, which take longer to close because folks who operate on bankers’ hours control the speed of the seller-side response. When these sales are closed and reported, prices are likely to come down again.
In December 2009, the median price of Flagstaff single-family-homes was off 19.1% from the peak December price in 2005, but remains 7.4% above the median sale price for a Flagstaff home in December 2004.
Note: All numbers reported here are based on sales of homes with Flagstaff mailing addresses, whether in the city of Flagstaff or the surrounding rural-suburban areas. The reported data comes from information as reported to the Northern Arizona Association of Realtors® and is deemed reliable for sales reported to the association, but is not guaranteed and does not include all sales in the market area. Remember that these are overall Flagstaff market numbers and any analysis of a particular home price requires neighborhood comparisons.
To buy or sell any Flagstaff home, contact me:
Ann Heitland at RE/MAX Peak Properties.
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