Homes for sale in Gold Canyon AZ

Metro Phoenix's housing market took a turn for the better last month, and if current trends continue, home prices could start to climb again before the end of the year. This is especially true for homes for sale in Gold Canyon AZ. Gold Canyon is one of the leading active retirement communities whose amenities are unparalleled by any other area in town. Many homes in Gold Canyon have been purchased either all cash or with very low loan to value ratios so the market prices have been a bit less disturbed by the market downturn. 

Prognosticators say it is too early to establish the beginning of a recovery for the Metro Phoenix’s depressed home values; however, the number of successful home sales is at near-record levels, the number of homes for sale is dropping, future foreclosures are in decline and home prices, although low, are holding steady. March saw the highest number of homes sold since 2005; this is encouraging news. 

The shift in the region's housing market started in March. An upward turn, if one materializes, would be much more significant than just another twist in an ever-changing market. It would mark the end of the worst housing bust metro Phoenix has ever experienced. 

Overbuilding during the 1990’s preceded a collapse of the American mortgage industry and, later, the global economy. Loans made to those who shouldn’t have qualified greatly added to the crisis as well. Phoenix area houses lost more than half their value since the peak in 2006. During the bust, foreclosures soared and home sales dropped. Arizona's economy, long dependent on housing, fell apart. What a time to be a buyer or investor, especially in Gold Canyon, Entrada Del Oro, Peralta Trails Gold Canyon AZ! 

Phoenix real-estate analyst Tom Ruff of the Information Market, a real-estate data firm, said almost all the key market indicators that turned negative during the summer of 2010 and led to the second dip in home prices late last year have now turned positive.

"I am not being overly optimistic when I say home prices could climb during the next six to nine months," he said. "Those same market indicators that went negative last year are now turning positive." 

Last month, existing-home sales in metro Phoenix climbed to their highest level since October 2005, which was in the midst of the boom. There were 10,031 resale homes in March. 

Last spring, home sales jumped as buyers rushed to take advantage of a federal tax credit that gave first-time buyers $8,000. 

Analysts believed the credit spurred most of the likely buyers in the market to make a move, meaning few other prospective buyers would exist after the credit expired. Indeed, by the expiration that summer, sales fell off substantially and remained low, averaging about 7,000 a month until March. 

New homes accounted for a third of all metro Phoenix home sales before and during the boom but have since declined to 7 percent of the market. 

There are still concerns of the large amount of foreclosure inventor and the unknown phantom inventory yet to be released by the banks; these factors or fears only delay the recovery. 

And although sales are up, most of those sales - about 65 percent in March - are what the industry calls "distressed" properties: homes sold at foreclosure auctions, taken back by lenders through foreclosure and resold, or short sales. 

Although foreclosures continue to drive the market, signs indicate those could soon start to decline. 

The historic recession left many in metro Phoenix without jobs, and plummeting home values meant many homeowners who couldn't afford their mortgages also couldn't sell their homes for what they owed. The result was a huge wave of foreclosures: Buyers defaulted on their mortgages, and banks either sold the homes at auction or took them back and waited to resell them on the market. 

The result was a glut of inexpensive foreclosure homes for sale. Experts have long said that home prices wouldn't recover until foreclosures subsided. 

Last month, the number of homes foreclosed on actually climbed - but the shift was expected. Lenders last fall put a moratorium on foreclosures amid questions about their handling of the practice. Those foreclosures are now being finalized and artificially inflating the monthly numbers. In March, there were 5,000 foreclosures or trustee sales in the Phoenix area, up by about 500 from February. 

The more important indicators are so-called pre-foreclosures, or notices-of-trustee sales. The legal filing notes that a lender plans to seize a home from a delinquent buyer and sell it at auction; it typically precedes a foreclosure by three to nine months. 

Pre-foreclosures have been hovering around 5,000 a month this year, after averaging 7,000 a month in 2010. This signals fewer homeowners are falling behind on payments or abandoning their homes, meaning fewer future foreclosures. 

For the past year, investors have bought the majority of the region's foreclosure homes and turned them into rentals that are filling up quickly with tenants who lost their homes or can't afford to buy. 

The number of homes for sale in the Phoenix area has been dropping steadily during the past four months, signaling the supply of homes for sale is down while demand is up.

Homes being sold after foreclosure or homes offered for short sale - in which banks let homeowners sell for less than they owe - now typically make up about half of all homes listed for sale. 

Although that remains the case, the total number of homes on the market was about 36,000 on Tuesday, a more than 15 percent drop from last year's supply. "Both investors and owner-occupied buyers are starting to burn through the inventory of homes for sale," said Beth Jo Zeitzer, president of Phoenix-based ROI Properties and an expert on distressed property sales. 

She said buyers who can pay cash, usually investors, continue to dominate the market.

Julie Bieganski, a Phoenix real-estate agent and investor, said it's becoming more difficult to find inexpensive homes, including foreclosures, in popular neighborhoods because there are so many more buyers vying for them. 

The median price of resale homes in metro Phoenix has held steady at $115,000 since December. 

The Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, an index of homes for sale run by local Realtors, maintains data on homes under contract for upcoming sales. This data, the Pending Price Index, has called for another big drop in Valley home prices this year.

However, in January, the index predicted the area's median would fall to $100,000 by March. Instead, prices remained steady. The group's index is now forecasting the median price for metro Phoenix home sales will be $113,000 in April. 

Based on the pending sales index from the "Cromford Report," a daily analysis of listings data and public records, home sales and prices this month are supposed to stay at March's levels or climb higher. Pre-foreclosure filings are down so far this month.

"The housing market is showing encouraging signs of a strong recovery in demand and a correction of an oversupply problem we have had since 2006," said Phoenix housing analyst Mike Orr, publisher of the report. Many are forecasting that prices will start to rise in Metro Phoenix by year end; especially as the lower end investor homes are taken off the market. Regardless if you are looking for a nice area in Phoenix with unbelievable mountain views and just miles from the snow or downtown Phoenix, homes for sale in Gold Canyon AZ is the route to go. Prices are still low; contact us through this website for a full package on homes for sale in east Mesa, Apache Junction, and Gold Canyon.