{"id":542,"date":"2015-01-07T04:27:50","date_gmt":"2015-01-06T23:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/?p=542"},"modified":"2015-01-07T04:27:50","modified_gmt":"2015-01-06T23:27:50","slug":"better-is-stillwell-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/?p=542","title":{"rendered":"Better is still\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6well, better!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy 2015! However tardy, we had to add our best wishes for a wonderful new year.\u00c2\u00a0 2015 has been a year long awaited by the real estate industry \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as \"january<\/a>many speculated in the last few years that real estate would boom in 2015.\u00c2\u00a0 So will 2015 in fact be the gangbuster year dreamed of?\u00c2\u00a0 Given the tumultuous past we have navigated, we are loathe to make predictions.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 As Yogi Berra so famously stated \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The future ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what it used to be.\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 But, we are seeing early signs of improvement in demand.<\/p>\n

As we mentioned in past articles, the lack of demand in our market (and frankly across the country) has been the story of 2014.\u00c2\u00a0 Oddly enough, the saving grace was that supply was also constrained at the same time.\u00c2\u00a0 Buyers didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t (or couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t) buy and sellers were scarce and did not put their homes on the market at expected levels. So 2014 became a low volume market \u00e2\u20ac\u201c meaning lower than \u00e2\u20ac\u0153normal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d levels of home changing occurred. The signal we have been watching for is improvement in demand.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently Santa was listening because in December the first signs of improvement in demand began to trickle in.\u00c2\u00a0 To quote our favorite real estate guru Michael Orr \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When comparing 2013 and 2014 we can see that 2014 has been weaker than 2013 for most of the year but has recently improved. The difference is not great but I find it convincing evidence that a slow improvement has started.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Locally, the first few weeks of December showed the highest number for home sales for the same period since 2006.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Trends by their nature must extend past a few weeks but these are the early signals (we hope) of what is to come.<\/p>\n

Another possible factor behind demand picking up is the lack of rental supply.\u00c2\u00a0 Finding homes to rent under $1000 monthly has become truly a challenge and at some point this lack of rentals will cause either more low end apartments to be built or cause renters to become buyers.\u00c2\u00a0 Could the recent improvement in demand be the first signs of renters becoming buyers?\u00c2\u00a0 We certainly hope so.<\/p>\n

Lending seems to be the primary culprit behind 2014\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lack of demand.\u00c2\u00a0 Add to that an economy still struggling to right itself, and the debt load carried by most consumers, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not too hard to see why demand has been constrained.\u00c2\u00a0 We feel confident that it is a matter of time until the lending community responds to the lack of programs for buyers.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, we are starting to see the first signs of the lending issues being addressed.\u00c2\u00a0 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced a program for first time home buyers that allows for a 3% down payment and lends up to $417,000 (currently FHA is 3.5% down and only lends up to $271,050 in the valley).\u00c2\u00a0 Add in the remarkably low interest rates (currently at less than half the historic average of 8.5%) and lending certainly is poised for improvement.\u00c2\u00a0 At the end of the day, lenders must lend to make money.<\/p>\n

A possible additional bonus to the local market is the Super Bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether imagined or real as a real estate boon, approximately 90,000 additional people are heading to Phoenix.\u00c2\u00a0 There can be little downside for our market to have that many valley visitors.<\/p>\n

If demand truly begins to pick up steam, we could see 2015 convert back to a seller market. Of course, the one lesson the last ten years has taught us is nothing is for certain. No matter what happens, we will strive to keep you aware of the ever changing market. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to a great 2015!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy 2015! However tardy, we had to add our best wishes for a wonderful new year.\u00c2\u00a0 2015 has been a year long awaited by the real estate industry \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as many speculated in the last few years that real estate would boom in 2015.\u00c2\u00a0 So will 2015 in fact be the gangbuster year dreamed of?\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-values","category-market-stats","category-the-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nohasslelistingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}