As Keith Jackson might put it, the Phoenix real estate market has a little hitch in its giddyup this week. Inventory continues to fall but sales also have dropped off for the month of June after extremely strong showings in April and May.

We have had 6,547 closed sales the past 30 days (not quite final June numbers since we won’t know what closed today until it appears in the system tomorrow) which is down about 500 from last week’s report. Inventory fell by just under 200 homes for an absorption rate of 3.17 months.

Bank owned sales over the past 30 days fell under the 4,000 mark to 3,904; inventory remains low at 3,188 but the drop in sales have given us a slight increase to .82 months of inventory.

For short sales, there are 5,249 active listings and 831 closed sales over the past 30 days for 6.32 months of inventory. And among non-bank owned, non-short sale homes, there are 12,304 active listings and 1,812 closed sales for 6.79 months of inventory.

As always, the particulars for the various cities and towns in the Phoenix real estate market are below. And also as always, all data is provided by the Arizona Regional MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Phoenix Real Estate Inventory: June 30

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Last night I was picking up my daughter at a neighbors house and they asked how business was going. “After all it’s a buyers’ market,” they said. Needless to say they were surprised to learn that’s not the case anymore. And this week’s absorption rate numbers confirm that fact.

Low-priced bank owned homes brought buyers out of the woodwork and exposed the latent buyers demand. When that inventory shrank, buyers turned their attention to non-bank owned homes. The result is an absorption rate of 6.45 months of inventory for non-bank owned, non-short sale homes.

(A balanced market actually has inventory in the 5 to 6 month range but after watching inventory fall by a half-month in the last week, it’s a safe leap to make.)

There are 12,440 non-bank owned, non-short sale single family detached homes for sale in Maricopa County and there were 1,928 closed sales the past 30 days.

Bank owned inventory fell to .74 months (4,274 closed sales and 3,157 active listings) and short sale inventory is at 6.10 months (874 closed sales and 5,330 listings.)

Overall, the Phoenix real estate market has 2.96 months of inventory available - 7,076 closed sales against 20,927 active listings.

Now for the part I’ll point to in two months, just as I can point to my April posts about the market improving significantly now that almost every other real estate agent in Phoenix is calling the bottom …

Will these inventory levels hold? For the short term, yes. But you’ll see them rising again by Labor Day just as happens every other year.

When is the next wave of foreclosures coming? No one seems to know. REO listing agents are carrying one-third to one-half as many listings as they once did and every assignment sends them to an elevated alert … at least until they learn there’s not three dozen more coming behind the one or two. Is it possible lenders have figured out the best way to hold value in their investment - and now that they own the home, it really is their investment - is to slow the pace and maintain a better supply-demand ratio?

About the supply-demand ratio … three weeks of inventory is terrible to work with. Too many buyers, two dozen offers on every property under $100,000, frustrated buyers, homes being bid up to where they won’t appraise. The list goes on.

What would be a better level, at least in Tobey and my eyes? About three months of bank owned inventory. Better selection, less competition for the same houses, more happy buyers and the stabilzation we’re seeing in prices still would hold. To get to three months of inventory we’d need about another 8,000 bank owned homes on the market. We won’t see that number without a flood of foreclosed homes hitting the market; even with the flood that was predicted by some two months ago, would we top that level? Hard to say.

As always, details from the various cities and towns in the Phoenix real estate market are below. And also as always, all data is from the Arizona Regional MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Phoenix Real Estate Inventory: June 23

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Posting on the 19th but all numbers are as of June 16.

Inventory of single family detached homes in the Phoenix real estate market fell again, this time by about 300-odd homes (and is down again looking at the real time numbers from this morning.) Closed sales over the past 30 days were down a touch at 7,001 but the supply of inventory - the absorption rate - fell to 3.07 months.

Bank owned inventory currently stands at .76 months, up .01 from last week (4,312 closed sales and 3,270 active listings.) Short sale inventory is at 6.35 months, down nearly a half a month (863 sales and 5,477 active listings.)

Non-bank owned, non-short sale inventory has dropped below seven months at 6.97 (1,826 closed sales, 12,720 active listings), continuing evidence that the rising tides of REO sales is lifting all boats.

As for the expected wave of foreclosures, some are beginning to speculate the tsunami will not come as banks collectively realize the return is better when supply is limited.

And if you’ve read this blog any length of time, you also know that at the current sales pace the Phoenix market easily could handle closer to 10,000 bank owned listings versus under 3,500 and still not see an appreciable further drop in prices.

As always, all the details from the various cities and towns in the Phoenix real estate market are below. And also as always, all data is provided by the Arizona Regional MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Phoenix Real Estate Inventory: June 16

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Time is short so we’re going to stick to the highlights this week …

Overall inventory of single family detached homes in the Phoenix real estate market fell again this week, this time by 500 homes to 21,821. There were  7,095 closed sales the past 30 days for an absorption rate of 3.08 months of inventory.

Bank owned inventory was down again and now sits at 3,338. With 4,457 closed sales, the absorption rate for REO properties is at .75 months. Inventory of short sales also has fallen and now is at 5,557 homes. There were 819 closed sales the past 3o days, leaving us with 6.79 months of inventory.

Lastly, the number of non-bank owned, non-short sales on the market declined by about 200 homes. We had 1,819 such sales for an absorption rate of 7.11 months.

Can non-bank owned homes compete in this market? Absolutely, if they are priced right. This afternoon I saw an absolutely stunning home in Rovey Farms, north and east of University of Phoenix Stadium. If it lasts on the market more than two weeks I will be shocked. Model perfect, well priced and move-in ready.

As always, the below table has all the particulars for the various cities and towns in the Phoenix real estate market. Also as always, all data is provided by the Arizona Regional MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Phoenix Real Estate Inventory: June 9

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Absorption rate is a wonderful gauge of the real estate market because it takes into account both inventory and sales pace.

Low inventory isn’t necessarily good on its own if there are few sales, high inventory might not be bad if there’s a brisk sales pace going on. Absorption rate is calculated by dividing the number of active listings by the number of sales. It’s just that easy. And while all statistics lie to some degree, absorption rate lies less than most.

The magic number with absorption rate is 5 to 6 months … if the absorption rate is in that range it’s a balanced market, where neither seller nor buyer has an extraordinary amount of leverage in negotiations. Below five months and it’s a sellers’ market, above six months and it’s a buyers’ market.

Taking away bank owned and short sale inventory, Phoenix remains a buyers’ market but the gap is closing fairly quickly. There currently are 13,194 single-family detached homes for sale in Maricopa County that are neither bank owned nor short sales. Over the past 30 days, there were 1,781 closed sales of such properties. The result is an absorption rate of 7.41 months, down nearly a full month from a week ago.

Say what you will about the Phoenix real estate market and such statistics … yes, there are huge differences in the sales pace in different communities and at various price points … but as a whole, the bank owned buying spree that has caused that inventory to dry up is helping traditional sellers. At least, it’s helping those sellers who are willing to price their homes to sell based on current market values.

Overall, the Phoenix real estate market’s inventory fell by about 1,100 homes this week to 22,382 single family detached homes. Some of this is due to the usual first of the month purge of expired listings - about 300 homes that fell off at midnight on June 1 were back in the system by late yesterday. There were 7,147 closed sales for an absorption rate of 3.13 months.

Bank owned homes continue to fly. There were 4,542 closed sales in the past 30 days and the current inventory is down to  3,506 homes for an absorption rate of .77 months - about 23 days. Short sales even are looking slightly better at 6.90 months.

As always, the details from the various cities and towns in the Phoenix real estate market are below. And also as always, all data is provided by the Arizona Regional MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Phoenix Real Estate Inventory: June 2

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