There have been plenty of notifications of new listings coming to the market now that the holidays have wrapped up, expect sales activity to remain strong as Sellers and Buyers ramp up for the New Year.

See the latest Arcadia-Camelback Corridor Real Estate Statistics below!

Here is the latest Arcadia Tour stats for this week…as you can see Buyers are still hunting for bargains, almost a $100 dollar per square foot difference between asking and sold prices. See below!

What’s your home worth? It depends on who’s asking and what they want to know.

If you’re like many homeowners, the tumultuous events of the past few years have left you
wondering: What’s my home worth today?
Surprisingly, that seemingly simple question has more than one answer. “Your home may have
three very different price tags depending on who’s asking and why they want to know,” says
Scott Halliwell, a certified financial planner professional at USAA.
Your home’s three price tags are based on its market, replacement and property tax values,
Halliwell explains.
“Since different values can be used for different reasons, it’s important to understand when
each applies,” Halliwell adds. “Further complicating matters for some homeowners is the fact
that these values may be moving in different directions at the same time.”
Here’s a description of each value and why it’s important for you to know each one.
Market Value
This is the most commonly referenced calculation of your home’s value. It’s the price a buyer
would pay for your home in today’s housing market, no matter what you paid for it or how much
you’ve added in updates and upgrades.
Why it’s important to know
If you’re planning to sell your house,
market value is what you hope to get for it.
“In a buyer’s market like we see in a lot of
areas today, your home’s market value
may be lower than you’d like. You might
not have as much leverage against a buyer who wants to negotiate, but it’s where you need to
start,” Halliwell explains. An experienced real estate agent can gather information on the selling
prices of similar homes in your area, which will help you set reasonable expectations for your
home’s selling price.
You also should know the market value so you can calculate how much equity you have in your
home. Home equity is calculated by subtracting the amount you owe on your home from its
market value. Today, most lenders will allow you to borrow up to 70% to 80% of the appraised
value of your equity using a home equity line of credit or home equity loan.
Replacement Value
In the event of a total loss, replacement cost helps you rebuild your home based on current
construction costs in your area.
Replacement value can include the additional cost of tearing down and hauling away the old
structure. Also, homebuilders offer volume discounts that can drive down the price of new
homes and may not necessarily reduce replacement costs.
Why it’s important to know
Replacement value is the number that insurance companies use to determine the amount of
dwelling coverage needed in your homeowners policy. As building costs go up, it’s important for
your home to be adequately protected with homeowners insurance.
“It’s very possible to see local building costs increase while market values decline,” says
Halliwell. “This can lead to a situation where you actually need more dwelling coverage, despite
seeing your home’s value drop.”
Having one’s home damaged or destroyed is a tragic event, but not having enough money to
rebuild makes it even worse, Halliwell says.
Property Tax Value
This is the number used by taxing authorities to calculate your property tax bill. A given home
may be taxed by more than one property tax jurisdiction — hospital and school districts, for
example — and each may apply its own math. Typically, property tax values are meant to
approximate the market value.
Why it’s important to know
The property tax value of your home is going to drive your property tax bill. Sometimes, there’s
a big discrepancy between the property tax assessment and the market value. Perhaps this is
due to the assessment being outdated, which could cause your homeowner’s tax bill to be too
low or even too high. If the property tax value of a home exceeds the market value, consider
contesting the value with your taxing authority to reduce your tax bill. Also, be aware that
certain actions, such as remodeling, could cause the property value to be reassessed and
result in a larger tax bill in the future.

Metro Phoenix home prices continued to rapidly climb in May.

The median sales price of a home in the region is up 32 percent from May 2011, according to the latest report from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

During last month alone, the cost to buy a Phoenix-area house climbed 7 percent to $147,000. The region’s home prices have rebounded back to early 2003 levels.

More regular buyers and investors coupled with a shrinking supply of homes for sale are propelling metro Phoenix home prices higher.

ASU housing analyst Mike Orr said in his report “high demand and low supply” remain the dominant factors in Phoenix’s housing market.

The number of homes for sale in the area is down 50 percent from May 2011. Currently, 8,550 homes are listed for sale and don’t have pending contracts from buyers.

Moderately-priced homes continue to draw the most buyers and bids.

“Most houses below $250,000 priced realistically are attracting large numbers of offers in a short time, and many exceed the asking price,” said Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at W. P. Carey School.

He said a Chandler owner recently received 84 offers, and a Glendale owner snared 95.

The Glendale house closed within four weeks for 17 percent above the original asking price.

“Needless to say, this is not something we would see in a normal market,” Orr said.

Metro Phoenix home prices can’t continue to climb at the “extremely fast rate” recorded in the past few months.

“The most likely time for prices to stabilize is during the hot summer months of June through September,” Orr said.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/20120627metro-phoenix-home-prices-continue-rise.html#ixzz1z8YMSkxG

Inventory levels climbed back above 10,000 SFR homes, but we are still running at nearly 20% of the inventory from peak levels. Sales/pending activity remains strong. We’ll see how the heat of the Summer affects real estate activity! With the short supply of homes available, it could remain strong…
See below!

Inventory levels still falling, falling, falling…

Inventory levels contine to fall across the valley, and the tour areas are near low levels. 23 SFR homes in the “True Arcadia” area selling in the past month (and another 21 in a pending status)! See below:

This article appeared in Sunday’s Az Republic Real Estate section 4/29/2012…

Do Open Houses Help Homes Sell?

Does holding an open house make a home more likely to sell?
To answer this question, we analyzed over a quarter million listings across eleven different cities around the United States.

In San Francisco, an astonishing 83% of listings held at least one open house. In Phoenix and Las Vegas, less than 5% of listings had an open house. In the remaining cities, 20% – 65% of listings had an open house.
?
Apparently every weekend is open-house weekend in San Francisco. In fact, holding an open house is so expected there that homes that don’t hold an open house are a full seven percentage points less likely to sell than those that do.
In Las Vegas and Phoenix, where open houses are rare, the exact opposite is true. Homes that don’t hold an open house are 17 percentage points more likely to sell than those that do.
Everywhere else, the picture gets a little more fuzzy. In the other eight markets we examined, there was virtually no difference in the percentage of homes that sold, whether they had an open house or not.
?
But what happens if we break that data down a little further and take a separate look at homes that held an open house specifically within the first week of listing versus those that held an open house at some later date?
?
Interestingly, when an open house is held within the first week, a home is 13 percentage points more likely to sell than not having an open house at all, and 26 percentage points more likely to sell than if an open house is held sometime after the first week.
So is there some sort of magic that makes a listing so much more likely to sell if you hold an open house in the first week? Probably not.
What’s more likely is that an open house in the first week is just a sign that your listing agent is working hard to do everything he or she can to sell your home. In contrast, an open house later in the life of a listing is a sign of desperation—a “Hail Mary” attempt to move a listing that simply isn’t priced correctly or doesn’t show well.
So should you hold an open house? If you’re in San Francisco, absolutely. If you’re in Phoenix or Las Vegas, probably not. Everywhere else, it most likely doesn’t really matter whether or not you hold an open house, but if you’ve got a good agent, he or she will probably hold one anyway.

Another article that was on the front page of the Az Republic a couple days ago details the strong competition for houses now that the inventory has fallen. This is especially true of the Arcadia, Downtown and other central Phoenix locations! See below: