Tucson area Housing Market Shows Demand and Price Gains for 2013

Tucson Association of Realtors (TAR) released stats for Year-End 2013. Year-over-year unit sales, volume, median and average sales price as well as active listings were all slightly up over 2012. The latest Tucson Association of REALTORS® Multiple Listing Service (TARMLS) report includes both year-to-year (2013 over 2012) and month-to-month (December over November 2013) statistics.

Here’s what the TAR’s Residential Sales Report reveals:

Home unit sales increased by roughly 3.7 percent (13,943) vs. a year ago (13,448) units changing hands in the Tucson area. In December unit sales of 1,038 vs. 933 homes sold in November 2013, an increase of 11 per cent. While total sales volume of $2.1 million was 17.39 percent higher than November’s $1.79 million, an increase of 14 percent over 2012.

Observers saw the 1,038 home closings reported for December decreased in median sales price, after increasing for three months in a row, sale prices decreased in December to a median price of $157,900, a 1 percent decrease from November ($159,500) and a 7.05 percent increase over median sale price for a single family home in December 2012 ($147,500).

The average sales price of $197,064 was 8.5 percent higher than a year ago, that of $181,684 in December 2012.

At the end of December, overall inventory of residential properties decreased to a 4.8 months average in the Tucson area. There were 5,150 properties available, up 15.75 percent vs. a year ago, and a decrease of 2.57 percent from November.

On average, residential properties spent 54 days on the market in December, a week longer than September 2013 which was 47 days, the shortest market time since before 2009. Year over year, there were 5,150 active listing, 15.8 percent higher than at year end 2012, good for buyers but not so good for sellers. With 1,506 sales pending at the end of 2013, pending sales were down 25.52 percent from a year ago.

Conventional loan sales accounted for 36 percent of the all sales in December, continuing to exceed cash sales of 32 percent; while FHA and VA loans combined accounted for 28.23 percent according to TAR’s tracking.

Tucson housing has always been less volatile than the Phoenix area housing, without the extreme highs or the extreme lows.

Please refer to full December sales report for graphs and additional information at https://tucsonrealtors.org/tar-v2/statsDec2013.pdf

Tucson Rental Statistics can be found here: https://tucsonrealtors.org/tar-v2/statsRentDec2013.pdf