recent home sales trends in the Tucson Foothills

Because of the constant barrage of real estate news coming at us from all quarters of the US, it's easy to lose sight of what's happening in our own backyards, which is what really matters if you're in the market to buy or sell a home in the Tucson Foothills.
January through June is traditionally our busiest season for home sales in the Tucson Foothills, and despite all the bad news, this year is no exception, as sales in the Foothills have been increasing nicely month over month since January.

For the latest 30 day period 63 homes have sold in the Tucson Foothills. And given the current inventory of 583 homes for sale, that puts us at about 9 months of inventory (583/63 = 9.25)
And that's an improvement from last month (12 months inventory) and the month before (11.5 months inventory).

So what happens now.
Sales should continue to do well through May and start to taper off as June approaches. There will also be fewer New listings, and some home sellers will pull their homes off the market until the fall.
This season was slow in getting started, as buyers held off making a commitment while they waited to see what would happen.
What happened is that prices in the Foothills have only dropped about 2% so far this year vs last year, not the 7, 10 or 12% price drops that we hear about in other cities.



And now, late in the season, instead of dwindling, home buyers are continuing to show up in strong numbers. (currently there are 84 homes under contract in the Tucson Foothills) Maybe the murmurs about an improved outlook for real estate are bringing buyers back to the market. Maybe the consensus is that prices in the Foothills have been very resilient and aren't going to drop much more, if at all, or maybe people are just tired of waiting and they want to buy a home now, because there are some good deals out there, and lots to choose from.

One thing's for sure, no maybe's about it, the increased availability and lower cost of jumbo loans, has gone a long long way toward easing the path for home buyers in the Tucson Foothills. A few days ago Long mortgage was offering Conventional Jumbo 30 year fixed rate loans at 6.875% w/.5 pt, OR 6.625% w/1pt.(update: as of 5/9 jumbo's @ 6.625% w/.5 pt.)  That's roughly equivalent to where jumbo rates were before the credit crunch.

see my web site thefoothillsToday.com
to search for and learn more about Tucson Foothills Homes

Comments

[rebecca]

i just perused the 'just sold' on your site and they just looked 'different' than the just solds (can i say 'just' a few more times?) of recent months -- many under $500k (which hasn't been the case so much) and the $/sq ft seemed a lot lower than numbers i'm used to seeing. this past month looks like reinvigorated nonluxury sales. just (!!!) an observation ...

[John Schneider]

rebecca, you don't know (just)how good an observation that is. until recently I only showed homes selling for $500k or more under Just Sold on my site. two or three weeks ago I changed that and quietly began showing all homes sold, from $0 & UP.
I did this because on one hand I was quoting 572 homes for sale in the foothills today (which included all prices) and under Just Sold, just (it's catching) showing those that sold for 500 or more. and it was (just) a misleading picture of inventory vs sales. and originally I Justified doing it that way through some convoluted reasoning that because 99% of my biz is above $500, that that's just what I should do. but so what, I finally figured out, who cares about my biz, just show it all,