The Walter Group AZ

07/03/2023

Happy Birthday (Eve), America
Congratulations, America—Tuesday marks the 247th commemoration of the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress. The Congress actually voted to separate from Great Britain two days earlier, and most didn't sign the document until August ... and some argue the US didn't really become a country until we began operating under the Constitution in 1789.

Still, since then, the country has grown from 13 colonies with about 2.5 million people to 50 states and 14 territories with a population of more than 330 million. The economy has swelled to over $26T, with a median household income above $70K.

Scientific and technological advances—public sanitation, the germ theory of disease, and more—have revolutionized public health, with our citizens living 35 years longer on average since the mid-20th century. Deaths during childbirth have dropped fifty-fold, while the child mortality rate—the percentage of children dying before age five—has plummeted from 45% to 1%.

We've built almost 4 million miles of paved roads and more than 5,000 public airports. More than 2.7 million miles of power lines electrify the country, with about 85% of households having access to broadband internet and 92% having at least one computer. In 1800, 95% of the population lived in rural areas, and now about 83% live in urban areas.

Almost 90% of adults have a high school degree or equivalent, while just over one-third have a college degree. About 45 million immigrants call America home—the most of any country—while a roughly equal number of international tourists visit each year.

While there will always be challenges to face and improvements to make, we've come a long way since the beginning. So grab a hot dog (or alternative) and your drink of choice—here's to the next 247 years.

Copied from 1440 Daily Digest

07/17/2020

Thanks Mr Carrier.

06/30/2020

Summer in Arizona!

06/16/2020

Bars and clubs in downtown Scottsdale could give way to hotels, office space and retail shops, according to redevelopment plans submitted to the city.

05/04/2020

PERSPECTIVE:

In the attached article, the authors talk about constrained supply keeping the market in Seattle 'hot'.

Here are some numbers about the Phoenix market...
Going back to July 2013, through 2019, the average amount of total inventory on the market has been roughly 20,000-21,000 homes. We began this year with just over 12,000, 'spiked' to 14,000 a month ago and now have around 13,400 homes listed.

Meanwhile, our current average number of sales is 8200/month, which has fallen recently. However, over the time period referenced above, the average was close to 7500/month.

Why housing prices may not fall as much as you think during this crisis.

03/19/2020

Interesting perspective from Michael Orr at the Cromford Report - the preeminent data source for residential real estate here in the Phoenix Metro. See below...

March 18 - A number of people seem to assume that we are heading for a recession and that home prices will fall. The first assumption is quite reasonable. The second assumption is based on fear and has little analytical data to back it up. Obviously anything can happen in a uncertain and disrupted world, but a fall in home prices is still looking very unlikely from today's numbers.

In 2005 the housing industry started to sicken because homes were being used as speculative commodities not for places to live. In 2005 I met a man in his early 20s who owned 12 homes in the Phoenix area, all with no occupants. How had he been able to buy them? 100% loans from unscrupulous lenders who went bust between 2007 and 2010. The housing industry (and more particularly the lending industry within it) was the cause of the 2008 recession. Phoenix was a hot spot for the cause of the problem, as was Las Vegas.

In 2020, housing is an innocent bystander to a probable recession caused by a pandemic. It has supply at extremely low levels and most homeowners have a large amount of equity. Even if they lost all their income and could no longer pay their mortgage, they could quickly find a buyer to release that equity. There is little likelihood of them facing foreclosure because the lender can be paid off with the sale proceeds. Only when demand collapses do the banks have to foreclose to get their money back. At the moment demand is still well above normal and has only shown very tiny signs of easing. In 2006 demand fell off a cliff yet home builders continued to build even more new homes because lenders continued to write ill-advised loans in huge numbers.

In 2020 builders are probably going to have to build fewer homes than they wish because of shortages of labor and materials. We are unlikely to see a glut of homes on the market for a very long time. A successful vaccine for the novel corona virus is more likely to appear before a surplus of homes could possibly develop.

Because the virus has not been contained yet, except in several parts of Southeast Asia, we are likely to see a lot of people out of work. We do not yet know how long it will take to get control of the pandemic in Arizona, but many people may be out of work for quite some time. These people are more likely to be renters rather than homeowners. Landlords may find it much harder to collect rents and the yields from their portfolios are likely to fall. Some may decide to evict tenants and sell their properties. At the moment the extra supply would be welcomed and receive multiple offers, even in these troubled times. The evicted tenants still exist and therefore still represent demand for shelter of some sort. There will be hardship, but not a flood of homes with no-one to live in them.

Housing demand is created by the existence of people and increases when more people turn up and decreases if they go away. In 2005 the people we were building new homes for were largely imaginary. In 2020 they are very real and migration trends have been very favorable with families and individuals moving to Arizona from other parts of the USA.

All the indicators for the Central Arizona housing market remain very healthy at the moment and we will report any change as soon as we spot one. There is no cause for panic and if you are delaying a purchase because you think the price will come down, you are probably making a poor decision.

02/18/2020

A major factor in our local market...

A chunk of home-searchers looked to move to another metro in the fourth quarter of 2019, 26% in fact, compared to 25% in the same period the year before.

02/04/2020

Low interest rates throughout the end of 2019 contributed to the largest single-month acceleration in home prices in more than six years, but despite that, housing is more affordable than it's been in two years.

11/25/2019

As they say, real estate is local. But this article definitely reflects the situation in Phoenix.

In October, America’s home sales rose by 3.9%, marking the fourth month of the past six to post a year-over-year increase in sales, according to the RE/MAX National Housing Report.

11/08/2019

Best Value on the Ahwatukee Home Tour yesterday! This is a great home that's ready for a lucky family.

Best Value on Tour! Wonderfully updated Equestrian Estates home! The combination of an open great room and split bedroom floor plan is what sets this home apart. The result is a space that lives much larger than square footage would suggest. It's really a perfect family home, and an EXCEPTIONAL set-...