Chandler real estate market

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The Chandler real estate market, one of the areas included in the greater Phoenix Valley region, showed signs of recovery after a period of economic devastation. According to a May 22, 2010 article from the Arizona Republic, “April figures for existing-home sales in metro Phoenix reveal several promising shifts for those searching for signs of a housing-market recovery. The overall number of home sales in the region continued to hover near record levels last month.” The piece, written by Catherine Reagor, continued to state that “Beneath the sales figures were other encouraging numbers: Foreclosures did not dominate sales of existing homes in the Valley for the first time in more than a year. The number of investors purchasing homes from lenders dropped. More buyers purchased homes with the intent of living in them.”

The average purchase price of a Chandler home for sale also rose in the most recent tracking period, according to a May 27, 2010 report from Arizona State University. This piece found that “For the first time in three years, Phoenix-area housing prices are showing an overall year-over-year increase for the market. A new report from the W.P. Carey School of Business contains positive news for Valley homeowners, who have been waiting for relief from dropping home values.” Professor Karl Guntermann, the author of the report, stated that “This report reflects an important milestone in the recent housing cycle, with preliminary April data showing the first year-over-year increase in house prices marketwide. Also, prices for lower-end houses and the foreclosure segment of the market, which turned positive in March, continued to increase on an annual basis.”

The commercial sector of the Chandler and Phoenix real estate markets may have not yet seen the worst of the economic crisis. According to a May 30, 2010 article from the Arizona Republic, “Arizona’s housing market is deep into the process of flushing out its bad mortgage debt. But lenders and borrowers of troubled commercial real-estate loans continue to live a lie. Commercial real-estate brokers have coined a phrase, ‘extend and pretend,’ to describe lenders’ sluggish response to the billions of dollars in bad commercial mortgages on their books.”

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Hillsborough real estate

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The Hillsborough real estate market, one of the upscale residential portions of the larger San Francisco and Bay Area housing markets, has been showing mixed signals in the first half of 2010. According to a May 26, 2010 article from the San Francisco Chronicle, “The San Francisco area had the strongest quarterly performance among metropolitan regions in a closely watched home price index released Tuesday, although other areas and national numbers showed some weakening.” The piece, written by Carolyn Said, went on to note that “The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed the San Francisco area –which it defines as the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa – up 16.2 percent in the first quarter, compared with the same quarter in 2009. Other California areas also showed recovery, with San Diego up 10.8 percent and Los Angeles up 6 percent.”

The number of Hillsborough homes for sale that were actually purchased hit a near-record low in the month of April, however. According to a May 20, 2010 blog from the Press-Democrat, “Bay Area home sales in April reached their second-lowest level in the past 15 years, according to a report released Thursday. Last month, 7,003 homes were sold in the Bay Area, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego. That was down slightly from March and from April 2009, but nearly 25 percent lower than the historic average of 9,278 sales for April.” The post from Real Sonoma went on to say that “The Bay Area median price for both new and resold houses and condominiums was $370,000, compared to $380,000 in March and $304,000 in April 2009. The median price has risen for seven straight months on a year-over-year basis.”

These two contradictory signals for the Hillsborough real estate market were also reported by a May 20, 2010 article from the Contra Costa Times. This piece by Eve Mitchell went on to note that “Bay Area home sales in April were down slightly from a year ago while the median sales price rose sharply. The sales slowdown was tied to some buyers delaying escrow until May 1 to get a bigger home-buying tax break.”

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