In case you are curious how the current real estate market is doing in Arizona, check out these charts published by ARMLS (Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service) in May. ARMLS is the home listing service that services the Phoenix Metro area, so these numbers may vary from Prescott’s own statistics, but our market is doing just as well as theirs, if not better.
Tom Ruff from ARMLS, whom posted the article, stated, ” After a close fact-check of homes reported sold by ARMLS, May was a record-setting month. New all-time records were established for both sales volume and total dollar volumes, as well as the most homes sold and for the most money. Total dollar volume was $3,593,145,906. The monthly median sales price also set a record high reaching $278,000. After a slow start, 2019 is purring.”
Ruff goes on to say that with statistics like these that have continued to rise over the last several years, people inevitably begin to talk of another real estate “bubble.” However, Ruff, along with many others in the real estate industry, aren’t very worried about that. Current underwriting standards and the elimination of crazy money are two of the main reasons for this.
People aren’t worried because the differences from then to now in these two things are significant. Standards for lending are much more strict and the dollar amount on homes still has yet to reach what it was back before the burst. Due to better lending protocol alone, a huge bubble pop like last time is fairly unlikely.
Hopefully knowing that makes us all rest a little more easily and not fear that a few years after purchasing a home we’ll be looking at catastrophic amounts of foreclosures, short sales, and bankruptcies.