Chandler real estate market

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.”

Folsom Real Estate

Folsom, California, most famously known for its prison as sung about by country legend Johnny Cash, is an upper class neighborhood, with a median household income in 2007 estimated to be around $87,500. The Folsom real estate market, like nearly every market in the vicinity, has suffered in the past few years as it has struggled to deal with the aftershocks of the U.S. economic recession and housing market crash.

The Folsom market is still showing signs of a struggle as prices continue to slip and attempt to maintain a stable range. According to statistics compiled and maintained regularly by the Sacramento Association of Realtors, there were 40 homes sold in Folsom in the month of February this year, a decrease from 50 sales in January, and also a slight decrease from 45 sales in February of last year. Of the 40 sales, 10 were bank-owned homes, 12 were short sales and 19 were conventional sales.

The monthly inventory of Folsom homes for sale stood at 91 in February, an improvement on last year’s figure of 96 but a slip from January’s 73 homes on the market. This put the total inventory in February at 218 homes, up slightly from January’s 204 but an improvement upon figures from February 2009, when there were 245 homes on the market.

In February, the median price of a home sold in Folsom was $314,500, a sign that prices are still not stabilized in the community, as this was a drop of more than $10,000 from January’s median of $325,625 and a fall of nearly $100,000 from a year ago, when the median price was $410,000. The monthly median listing price, however, was up compared with January, to $394,900 from $380,000, though both figures are lower than a year ago’s figure, which was $427,500.

New Haven

The suburban area of New Haven, Connecticut, like many of its neighboring and nearby cities on the East Coast, has seen its share of ill effects from the U.S. financial crisis, which triggered a collapse in the U.S. residential real estate market. As a result, New Haven real estate has seen a decline in its value, a rise in troubled mortgage-holders and a buildup of inventory.

Despite tough market conditions, the market for real estate in New Haven does seem to be on the brink of turning the page into a brighter, if not at pre-crash levels, future. According to local realtor Donna Bigda, at the end of October 2009, there were 178 homes for sale in New Haven, ranging from just $29,900 all the way up to $1 million.

October’s real estate statistics show slow improvement in the market. The month saw 34 sales, an increase of 16 from October 2008’s figures, up by around 50%. Prices of homes on the market in New Haven remained mostly steady. In October of last year, the average sales price for a sold home was $174,050; this year in October, the figure rose slightly to $174,534.

However, homes are now spending more time on the market before selling as compared with last year. In October 2009, the homes sold did so after an average 108 days on the market. Last year’s average was just 68 days. It is estimated that the market had about a six-month supply in 2009’s third quarter.