August 3, 2012 (Shirley Allen)
Monthly sales of new and resale homes in the Phoenix area fell during June while home prices posted another round of double-digit gains for the fifth consecutive month according to the latest housing data released from DataQuick.
A total of 9,556 new and existing homes and condos closed escrow in the Maricopa-Pinal counties area in June. Sales were 3.4 percent lower than the 9,892 homes sold in May and 8.3 percent lower than the 10,425 homes sold in June of 2011.
Home sales in the region typically fall around nine percent between May and June and were 7.6 percent below the average number of homes typically sold in for the month.
New homes sales were 31.2 percent higher than in the same month last year, but were still 56.2 below the average for the month. Sales of existing homes were 0.6 percent higher than the June average.
Cash buyers accounted for 41.3 percent of all purchases in June, down from 42.5 percent in May but up from 40.7 percent a year earlier. The record for cash purchases was in February 2011, when 48 percent of the sales were for cash.
The price that cash buyers paid for their purchases fell to $120,000 in June, which was down from $123,500 in May but up from $89,000 in June of 2011.
Absentee buyers, usually investors and vacation home buyers, accounted for 39.3 percent of all homes sold in June, down from 39.7 percent in May. The prices they paid for their purchases fell to $121,000 from $122,700 in May and were up from $100,000 in June of 2011.
The overall median price paid for new and resale homes and condos in June was $152,000, up from $150,000 in May and up from $123,500 in June of last year. It was the seventh consecutive month that home prices have increased year-over-year following 17 months of declines.
The current median price is 42.4 percent below the peak median price of $264,100 in June 2006, however, prices have improved by 28.4 percent since August 2011, when prices in the area reached their post-peak trough of $118,347, and are at their highest level since December of 2008.
Distressed property sales accounted for 34.9 percent of the re-sale market in June, with foreclosure sales accounting for 21.2 percent of all re-sales, down from 24.3 percent in May, and short sales accounting for 13.7 percent of all re-sales, up from 12.6 percent in May.
Foreclosure re-sales peaked in May 2009 at 66.2 percent of all re-sales. Last year at this time, foreclosure sales accounted for 49.6 percent of all sales in the Phoenix area.
Tags: existing home sales, Phoenix, distressed properties, resale homes, condos, cash buyers, investors, median price
Source:
DataQuick
