The Housechick Blog

The Tucson MLS has released the numbers for June 2007.  Here’s the quick numbers:

• Average Sales Price: $298,477
• Median Sales Price: $229,000
• Average Days on Market: 64 days
• Active Listings: 8725 listings
• New Listings: 2820 listings
• Number of Sales: 1226

So what does that mean?

Well, the average sales price is actually the highest recorded for Tucson, up about $18,000 from last month.  Median sales price is usually regarded as the better indicator, the theory being that a couple properties selling on the high end of the scale could throw off the numbers.  The Median sales price was $229,000, also a record high number for Tucson, up $5500 from last month.

Breaking it down into types:

• Average Single Family Home Sales Price: $324,526
• Median Single Family Home Sales Price: $245,406
• Average Townhome Sales Price: $202,887
• Median Townhome Sales Price: $163,750
• Average Condo Sales Price: $157,406
• Median Condo Sales Price: $149,950

Remember that a Condo is a form of ownership, and a Townhome is a style of housing!

Average Days on Market is not a good measure for the Tucson Real Estate market, as DOM can be reset very easily.  A better figure is the absorption rate, which would be how long it would take to sell all the existing inventory, at the current sales rate.  Balanced markets are usually in the 4-6 month range.

The absorption rate for all residential types is about 7 months.  This continues our downward trend in absorption rate, which would signal a slow return to a more normal market.  Here’s a graph - the dip in months of inventory was during our rush in 2004, you can see the buildup over 2006, and a slow decline in 2007.

We’ll get to absorption rate for the various areas and types of housing in another post.  Let’s stick to broad strokes here.

Positive indicators: a lower absorption rate, higher median sales price, and a drop in new listings (we’re pretty flooded at the moment)

Negative indicators: number of sales are down from last month when they more typically go up in June (and down in July), and our sales volume for the year is still lower than last year.

And that was June 2007 Tucson Real Estate Market Statistics!  Watch for a more detailed absorption rate analysis in a couple of days (for all you numbers geeks out there).