June Home Sales UP In The Phoenix Metro

Phoenix, Arizona has seen some ups and downs in its June home sales, with the biggest high for the overall sales. The region has boosted its monthly sales by 11%, as compared to the previous month. Even the median sale price rose, for the fourth month in a row, above last year’s level.

A lot of factors can be thanked for this positive turn to Phoenix’s home sales. The biggest one, most probably, is the tax credit. Also, more $200,000-plus homes were sold in that month. Even the number of sold foreclosed properties went down.

San Diego’s MDA DataQuick, which started tracking the Phoenix-area statistics in 1994, released the numbers for Phoenix’s June sales. The company says it is normal to see a rise in May and June sales, with gains averaging 1.4%. They do admit, though, that this year’s June rise is 4.8% lower than the average of 10,951.

In the combined Maricopa-Pinal counties metropolitan area, 10,430 new and resale condo units and houses were sold. This figure is up 11.2% from the previous month though down 2.8% from June of 2009.

Resale of both existing houses and condos are 8.5% more than May’s but 5.9% less than 2009’s. There was a dip of 8.5% in sales of existing detached houses but a boost of 17.5% in resale condos.

New homes also enjoyed a significant growth in sales, with the numbers rising 35.1% vis-à-vis May’s numbers. Though the number is also 26.9% higher than June 2009’s, it is still the second lowest turnout for the month of June in more than 10 years.

Home buyers paid an average of $139,500 – 0.4% up from May – for both new and resale houses in June 2010. This median is also 7.3% more compared to last year’s $130,000. This is the fourth month that the figure has increased year-over-year; prior to

February of 2010, the median has been falling for 36 consecutive months.

Even with the good numbers, though, DataQuick points out that June still fell 47.2% short of the $264,100 peak in June 2006. And though highest for this year, June’s median is still lower than the high for the last 12 months, which was $142,700 in November. The lowest median since the post-housing boom is $125,000 in April 2009.

Resale condos saw a bleak median at $89,900 – lower by 8.3% from May, lower by 13.6% from 2009, and lower by 51.8% from the $186,500 peak in June 2007. The median for resale single family homes, though 49.3% lower than the $268,000 peak of June 2006, is still 8.7% higher than last year’s at $135,875.

As for foreclosures, 5,467 houses and condos were closed – this may be 19.5% increase from may but it is also 7.1% decrease from last year. In the first half of 2010, a total of 30,797 housing units have been foreclosed, up by 9.9% versus the same period in 2009.