Final numbers for 2010 Phoenix housing market

<p>The final numbers are in, and it appears the Phoenix-area housing market saw an overall slowdown in activity for 2010. However, the rate of foreclosures went up. A new report from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University offers year-end analysis and some overwhelming statistics.</p><separator></separator><p>“About 4 percent of the single-family homes in Maricopa County were foreclosed in 2010,” reveals Associate Professor of Real Estate Jay Butler, who wrote the new report. “Since 2008, more than 11 percent of the single-family homes in the county have been foreclosed.”</p><separator></separator><p>The total number of single-family home transactions, both foreclosures and resales, in the Phoenix area in 2010 was 106,975. That’s down from 112,730 in 2009. Foreclosures represented 39 percent of the transactions in 2010, up from 36 percent in 2009. The actual number of Phoenix-area single-family home foreclosures in 2010 was 41,625.</p><separator></separator><p>“The year ended in the midst of foreclosure moratoriums, legal challenges to the foreclosure process, weak economic and job recovery, and strict underwriting guidelines for home loans,” says Butler. “The main question for 2011 is whether – when the issues are resolved – the market will begin a path to improvement or keep being dominated by foreclosures.”</p><separator></separator><p>For December alone, the new numbers show more than 2,400 foreclosures. That’s up from about 2,100 in November.</p><separator></separator><p>The median price for a single-family home resold in December was $125,000, the lowest median since it was at the same level in April 2009. For all of 2010, the median for traditional home resales (not including new foreclosures) was $138,000, slightly up from $135,000 in 2009, but still way down from $200,500 in 2008.</p><separator></separator><p>“Another influence is that, for the last year, approximately 40 percent of the traditional resales in the market were foreclosed homes sold again with a median markdown in price of 14 percent,” adds Butler. “This is actually an improvement from 2009, when the markdown was 25 percent.”</p><separator></separator><p>In the 2010 townhouse/condominium market, the median price for traditional resales (not including new foreclosures) was $88,000. That’s significantly down from $106,000 in 2009. More than 4 percent of the townhome/condos in Maricopa County were foreclosed in 2010.</p><separator></separator><p>Butler’s full report, including statistics, charts and a breakdown by different areas of the Valley, can be viewed at <a href="http://wpcarey.asu.edu/realestate/Phoenix-Resale-Market-Reports.cfm">ht…;. More analysis is also available from <em>Knowledge@W. P. Carey</em>, the business school’s online resource and newsletter, at <a href="http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu">http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu</a>…;