July Residential Sales Statistics

The Tucson Association of Realtors has published the residential sales statistics for July. The news remains encouraging for sellers, and may motivate some buyers to get off the fence.

Average sale price was $181,978, which is a 4.11% increase in only one month, and a 5.1% increase from a year ago. Even more shocking, the average sale price was 21% higher than when it hit bottom in September 2011. Average sale price is now slightly higher than it was in January 2004, just before the bubble started to inflate. Historically, prices peak in July, and if past trends are any indication of future performance, prices will now go into a slide until next February. Probably nothing dramatic or destabilizing, just the normal annual cycle.

The median sale price, the price at which half the sales were higher and half were lower, remained steady at $140,000 for the third month in a row.

Number of units sold (demand) typically peaks in June, and this year was no different. With 1,137 units sold in July, we saw a decrease of 10.4% from June, but demand was still 1.16% higher than a year ago.

Active listings (supply) was virtually the same in July (3,477) compared to June (3,474), but was down 36% from last July. The limited choice of houses for sale has created bidding wars that will continue to prop up sale prices in the under $150,000 market.

We now have a three month supply of listings. This time last year, we had a 4.81 month supply.

Foreclosures accounted for 26% of the sales in July, and 17% of the sales were short sales.