Tucson MLS Statistics for August 2007
September 15, 2007
Post Tags: Tucson-Housing-Market-August-2007 , Tucson-Real-Estate-Trends-August-2007
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The Tucson MLS Statistics for August 2007 were released yesterday September 14, 2007.
Tucson MLS Apples to Oranges comparisons.
Back in May 07 the Tucson MLS changed the areas included in reporting. This is actually a good thing, but when doing year over year comparisons they still use data for all areas from last year and data from the limited areas this year. Result, skewed reports which we attempt to straighten out.
The above paragraph will be standard boilerplate until May of 2008 statistics are released and the numbers in the report once again are apples to apples comparisons.
Tucson August First Magnus and other the Sub-prime Mortgage Meltdown
The month of August 2007 saw some major changes in the financial side of real estate. Yes that is an understatement. We have covered much of this during the month and will not rehash it here. Kenneth Harvey had an interesting article in the Arizona Daily Star this morning on the whole issue looking at it from a national perspective.
Many of us working on the Real Estate sales side of Tucson Real Estate have had to make some adjustments especially if we had clients who were getting their loans through First Magnus.
We have had other clients and potential clients asking “Can I get a loan?” or “If we sell our home can we get a loan to buy another one?”
In a nutshell here is the deal.
- If you have a good credit score
- you can put 20% down-payment
- you are employed.
Yes you can get a loan.
Short form, if you qualified for a loan before 2002 you can get a loan today.
The Impact on Tucson AZ Real Estate Sales in August 2007
The big question has been for many of us, How is the Mortgage Industry meltdown going to effect the Tucson Real Estate Market? We didn’t know. All most of us have to go by are the sales and contract figures we see each day displayed in the MLS system, and our own anecdotal experiences from our personal business. As it turns out: there was an impact, it wasn’t significant. Here are the numbers.
Tucson MLS Statistics July 07 - August 07 Summary
| Category |
July |
Aug |
Diff. |
| Avg. Sale Price | $268,983 | $273,932 | + $4,949 |
| Total Units Sold | 1098 | 1019 | -79 |
| Median Sale Price | $218,750 | $220,000 | - $1,250 |
| Avg. Days on Market | 65 | 69 | + 4 |
| Pending Contracts | 1777 | 1019 | - 758 |
| Active Listings | 8,692 | 8,954 | + 262 |
| New Listings | 2,766 | 2,337 | - 429 |
Average Sale Price is up from July. Yes, UP. The average sale price in July 07 was $268,983 August was $273,932 an increase in ASP of $4,949 over last month. This is interesting and significant. It may seem like a small amount around $5,000 increase in the average, but there were only 9 closed transactions in Tucson over 1 million dollars in the month of August. In July there were 13. This reflects the middle of the market had a stronger showing.
Total Units Sold dropped by 79 over July with 1019 units closed in August. Again, giving the credit scramble the last two weeks in August this is a very good number.
I’ll inject here one of those personal anecdotal pieces of information. We had 2 transactions that were to close the 31st of August where were delayed until the first week in September. This was not due to any issues with our clients, but with the tremendous upheaval in the Mortgage industry there were delays in getting funds to the closing table. For those Mortgage companies healthy and functioning trying to pick up all the business that suddenly came to their doors due to the close of First Magnus and others caused a backlog of loans to fund an all that goes with them, appraisals, underwriting, etc.
Those 2 transactions took place without a hitch, but will be in the September numbers instead of August. It is not uncommon for closings to be scheduled for the last few days of the month. I wouldn’t doubt there were others who had their closings delayed for the same reasons.
Median Sale Price rebounded from July to $220,000 up $1,250. Ok, it isn’t much of a rebound, but the figures have hovered around the $220,000 mark for most of 2007.
I’ll take a look at the breakdown of housing types and the changes from July to August which will give a better picture of where the Median Sales Price increase came from.
Pending Contracts are down 753 from July to 1019 for August. However, looking at the year over year figures to see if there was a drop in August of 2006 over July of 2006 we find the answer to be yes, from 1089 in July to 893 in August. Last year we did not the breakdown of the Pending data by area so this was all areas vs Tucson areas this year. The increase in the Year over Year figures are 126 more pendings in August 2007. One of the key indicators of where a market is going is pending contracts.
Active Listings were up 262 over last month. There were fewer contracts written in August. In the Year Over Year figures the Tucson MLS Report indicates a drop in active listing over July 06 by 4.75% when there were 9,401 active listings reported.
Once again we are faced with apples to oranges reporting. Active Listings are broken out by area. When comparing just Tucson Areas for July 06 to July 07 we find an increase in the number of active listings from 8,881 to 8,954 a net of + 73. It isn’t a significant increase but it shouldn’t have been reported as a drop of 4.75%.
New Listings Dropped in August by 429 over July’s 2,766 to 2,337. The report usually provides the New Listing Data broken down by area in Tucson, however, someone forgot to update this chart because is shows the exact same numbers and total for August as July, Hopefully they will fix this in an update of the report.
Tucson MLS Statistics Aug 06 - Aug 07 Summary
| Category |
Aug |
Aug |
Diff. |
| Avg. Sale Price | $268,408 | $273,932 | + $5,524 |
| Total Units Sold | 1,335 | 1,019 | - 316 |
| Median Sale Price | $220,900 | $220,000 | - $900 |
| Avg. Days on Market | 53 | 69 | + 16 |
| Pending Contracts | 893 | 1019 | + 126 |
| Active Listings | 8,881 | 8,954 | + 73 |
| New Listings | 3,050 | 2,337 | - 713 |
The telling month is going to be September. This has been the month I’ve looked for the last quarter as the month of Convergence. Even with the troubles and issues in the Mortgage industry it appears to be the month where the numbers for the most part are going to invert. I hear the question now, “Is this calling bottom?”
I grew up in a family that fished a lot. The process of calling bottom all depends on where you are and the direction you are moving. Coming in to shore the bottom is coming up, going away from shore the bottom is going down. Moving around the lake it was changing all the time. What is calling “bottom”. I don’t know. I do know the first indicators in converging data is reflected in two areas first. Number of New Listings, Number of Pending Contracts. In 2006 in August and September the number of New listing climbed dramatically while the number of pending contracts dropped significantly. Now in August of 2007 we are seeing New listings continueing to drop and Pending Sales increasing.
Septembers numbers are going to be interesting, 30 year fixed interest rates have dropped a little. As I write there are hovering around 6.35%. In 1999 no one expected these number to ever go below 7% and if they did it would only be a matter of days before they were back up around 8% where everyone hoped they would settle and not go even higher.
I know there have been a lot of bad reports out lately, Why? because a lot of people want the Fed to drop the Prime Interest rate on September 18th. The more bad news reported the heavier the pressure on the Federal Reserve.
