Susan Miller Team
  Keller Williams

The Market of the Moment Anomoly, and how to deal with it!

Currently, the national real estate scene, and the local Phoenix market in real estate have been heavily impacted by the economic SHIFT.     Rates are still low, but a soft economy that some consider a major recession, accompanied by all time high statistics in mortgage delinquencies have contributed to the Market of the Moment Anomoly!

That is to say that currently, the Phoenix real estate market, and specifically, the Multiple Listing Service(MLS) has nearly 40,000 homes listed for sale or lease.   The market of the moment anomoly is that over 50% of all homes listed for sale are one of the following categories of distressed properties:

 1 - short sale                                                 2 - pre-foreclosure                                    3 - REO or bank owned

What makes this interesting is that in many places through out the valley, prices have plunged to a place where prices are being bid up.   This doesn't mean values are going up, but that list price is at such a low price that not only do normal buyers want to buy, but groves of DEAL hungry investors are pulling out their cash and buying up properties.    

This causes a unique situation for both buyers and sellers.                          

For the seller, one has to be willing to price ahead of the rest of the market, otherwise, no one will look at their property.  If a seller has equity, but all the comparables in the area are short sales and REO properties, it's likely that no one will pay attention to the listing because the price is not competitive with the distressed property prices.

For the buyer, it's a tough market because as soon as property hits the market, it gets a number of offers quickly that in turn cause the price to be 'bid' up.    This makes the buying process much more competive and strategic than most would like.  Our experience has been that it takes a bit longer to find the right purchase as a result.

We have been working diligently to stay ahead of the market of the moment, implementing new strategies and new techniques that give us a head start on the competition, both from a seller's and buyer's point of view.