January Residential Sales Statistics

The Tucson Association of Realtors has released the Residential Sale Statistics for January. It's not pretty. Average sale price is $166,998, a 17% decline from the previous year. Median sale price is $134,250, down 16% from the previous year. At least the number of sales increased 9.5% from 2010, to 780 sales. Total sales under contract was 2,013, a 74% increase. Does that look a little suspicious? I can't think of a good explanation for that.

I checked the Tucson MLS myself, and found 839 sales in January. I don't know if the extra 59 sales were by agents who didn't turn in their paperwork by February 5 or what. Of the 839 sales, 99 were short sales and 351 were foreclosures. In other words, 54% of the January sales were either short sales or foreclosures. I myself was involved in two sales in January where the sellers were underwater, but they were able to pay their lenders the difference between the sale price and the mortgage balance, so they did not have to do a credit-destroying short sale. This is usually not the case.

Of the 780 sales reported by TAR, 94% were under $400,000 and 84% were under $250,000, and 70% were under $180,000. Six houses sold for more than $750,000.

If cnnmoney is to be believed, we are poised for a blazing recovery. See the article below.