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Tucson MLS Statistics for March 2008

April 14, 2008

March showed a marked improvement over February for 2008 in some key areas. Please note improvement is not always indicated by a + sign. Sales were much stronger in March, and will probably be stronger than April. Time will tells us more on this figure. As of Noon on April 14, 2008 there are 291 closed transactions recorded for the month of April in the Tucson MLS. I believe this is a little lower than this time last month.
However, March is not the month of Federal and State income taxes. March is also a month when many winter visitors (snowbirds) who have spent the winter and love it make purchases so they will have their own home to return to in the fall.

The snowbirds have left with the exception of a few that stay on till they have to leave. Many leave to be home in time for Easter. This year that came early. Winter is hanging on in much of the country making it easier for some to stay in Tucson till the snow is completely gone.

Now let’s do the numbers.

Tucson MLS Statistics February 08 - March 08 Summary

Average Sale Price This dropped by $3,035 from the previous month. This includes all types of properties. Since there were more properties sold in March than in February (Feb 710, Mar 900) I’ll have to do more digging into the numbers to see if these sales were smaller homes, town homes and condos for returning fall snowbirds. In any event, this drop in Average Sale Price will help the market, not hurt it.

Total Units Sold Nice uptick in Total units sold by 190 more sales in March than Feb. Compared to last year it is a good indicator. Considering all you had to do yet last year at this time was fog a spoon and get a loan, to have 900 closed transactions is healthy for the Tucson real estate market.

Median Sale Price Not a big change here. But I’ll mention it only to say $100 one way or another in a median is like splitting hairs.

Pending Contract are Up over last month and last year. Most of these are in their initial inspection period at the time the stats were pulled. Some of these will close in April other not till May. When in the initial phase there is always the chance the sale will fall out of contract over inspection issues or refusal of sellers to meet buyer requests on the BINSR.

Active Listings are down by 146 over last month. Better still they are down 1163 over last year. We still need this number to be lower for a heathier market but we are moving in the right direction. Getting below the 9000 mark and back to the 7000’s would be great by summer. (It is okay to have a dream).

New Listings are up 12 which is saying about the same as last month. But down 266 over last March. Still no red flags here on the new listings numbers.

Tucson MLS Statistics Mar 07 - Mar 08 Summary

In the year over year figures not mentioned above is the decline in Average Sale Price and Median Sale Price. Both of these are hefty drops. And positive signs for those selling and buying. Yes, for sellers they are getting a little less this year than last, but they are selling to more qualified buyers and they are still seeing a good return on investment if they didn’t buy in the past two years or if they bought smart when they did buy.

Buying smart is defined as one who had good market analysis of the asking price, didn’t finance more than they could afford, didn’t expect a boom market to continue without end leaving them with expectations they would “make a killing” when they sold no matter when that might be.

Since April is Tax month and many people have their focus off of anything but getting all those receipts together and wondering “How much do I have to come up with this year”. We will probably see a slight pulling back from March figures in April. But, remember I’m the one that wasn’t sure we would break 850 for closed transactions in March and we ended up at over 900. The number right now as of this posting is 913 for March 2008.

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