Another installment of the Sunday Stats, on Monday this week. Since it’s the Labor Day holiday – which we ironically celebrate by taking a holiday – today feels like Sunday, tomorrow Tuesday will feel like Monday for most of us, and when Friday arrives in 4 days instead of 5 it’ll be a great treat.
Inventory levels continue to drop. First timers are keeping The Phoenix Agents hopping lately, and we hear the same from most of our colleagues. The federal $8,000 first time home buyers’ tax credit isn’t (and shouldn’t be) the reason many rookies are home shopping but you can’t shake a stick at it either.


There’s also quite a lot of investor activity going on. We’ve been helping first time buyers shop lately in both Queen Creek and Surprise. We had the bright idea of looking for non-bank owned properties, since foreclosures are so hard to get a contract accepted on. Almost every single one of the non-bank owned homes was a fix and flip! Investors are buying homes at the foreclosure auctions, installing new paint, carpet, appliances and lighting fixtures, then selling them at a (small) profit. Talk about shades of the boom-boom era.
Note: These charts include data from the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) and include single-family detached homes, patio homes, town homes, condos, multifamily housing, and loft housing. The charts exclude commercial properties, raw land, mobile & manufactured homes. All data believed accurate but – since it is based on data in the ARMLS – author is unable to guarantee.