Tucson Association of Realtors (TAR) has released encouraging stats for March 2014. Total sales volume of $226.7 million increased 20 percent over February ($189 million), although still down by 11 percent compared to March 2013.
Despite an increase month-over-month, it was not enough to make up year-over-year unit sales, sales volume, and median sales price which were still in the negative compared to 2013.
Here are the highlights from TAR’s Residential Sales Report:
Home unit sales were 1,131 homes, an increase of 17.7 percent changing hands in the Tucson area since February (961) and 14.9% less than March 2013 unit sales (1,329).
Observers see the 1,131 home closings reported for March showing an increase in median sales price of $162,000, up by $4,000 since February; and $11,950 higher (+8%) over March 2013 ($150,050).
The average sales price of $200,479 was $3,898 higher than February ($196,581); but about 4.5 percent higher than a year ago, that of $191,881 in March 2013.
At the end of March, overall inventory of residential properties was 5,705 an insignificant increase; it is still at the highest level since May, 2011. Year-over-year active listings are 35.5% higher than March 2013 (4,210 units).
In May 2011, there were 5,795 homes for sales in the region, with listings generally trending downward since then, reaching a low of 3,474 units in June 2012. From that point, the housing supply began trending upward until dipping during the spring 2013 selling season.
On average, residential properties spent 62 days on the market in March, 16-days longer than September 2013’s 47-days, the shortest market time since before 2009. With 2,173 sales pending at the end of March, pending sales are trending up by 9.8 percent over end of February.
Conventional loan sales accounted for 37.1 percent of the all the sales in March, continuing to exceed cash sales of 33.5 percent; while FHA and VA loans combined accounted for the remainder according to TAR’s tracking.
Please refer to full March sales report for graphs and additional information here:
https://tucsonrealtors.org/tar-v2/statsMar2014.pdf
Tucson Rental Statistics can be found here:
https://tucsonrealtors.org/tar-v2/statsRentDec2013.pdf