August 17, 2009 by lourie
The answer is a little of both! In Maricopa County, as of the time of this post, there were 18,493 residential properties listed in the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service as active under $350,000… 7,925 properties were listed over $350,000…totaling 26,418 active residential properties versus over 55,000 this same time last year! Last week alone in Maricopa County 1,406 residential properties closed escrow and 2,157 went into escrow!
Why? If you consider that the maximum FHA sales price for the Phoenix Metro area is $346,250…with a minimum down payment of 3.5%, or $12,119. It would take a household earning $80K – $90K per year to likely qualify for the payment using this scenario…depending on their credit rating, interest rate, insurance, property taxes, and other non-housing related debts. This is not a lot of money and under FHA guidelines the down payment and closing cost funds can be gifted!
The point is that you can buy a great deal of home for this price. I saw a 4300+ spft. home, with a three car garage, on an acre listed in east Mesa 10 days ago for $270,000!!! In 4 days the listing agent had so many offers, that the seller refused to accept additional offers for review. Besides the incentives for first time homebuyers, there are a lot of cash investors back in our market. This has created an extremely competitive market…a Seller’s market…for well priced properties under $350,000.
It’s rare that I right an offer that isn’t competing with at least 5 other offers. Don’t kid yourselves…the only part of the market that is a “Buyer’s market” is the market for homes over $400K. and that is just 30% of our available inventory! So don’t listen to the media…they are clueless! And if you’re thinking about buying or selling give me a call…
