After reviewing the year-end statistics for the Flagstaff real estate market in 2011, the most striking statistic is that foreclosures were just under 30% of all sales and short sales were nearly 12% of all sales. Combined, distressed sales (short sales and foreclosures) were over 41% of all sales!
What’s the significance of foreclosures outnumbering short sales 3-to-1? That means three out of four homeowners in distress didn’t do a short sale or their short sale wasn’t successful. This goes to show that many people don’t know they have better options than foreclosure or they need to be working with an agent who is trained in short sales. Short sales are usually better for the homeowner’s credit and it saves the surrounding community from having another foreclosure nearby, which further depresses prices.
Of course, 59% of all sales were not distressed. This includes new construction, which was 3.5% of homes sold.
There were 953 total residential sales in Flagstaff. This includes single-family, townhomes, condos, and manufactured homes. This is 97 more sales than in 2010, which amounts to an 11% increase and is the highest number of sales since 2007.
The trailing median price ended 8% lower than the beginning of the year. It dropped a total of 12% in the first part of the year before climbing back up in the last few months.
The supply of homes (the balance between the inventory and the current pace of sales) has continued to drop to a normal level. It started at 8 months of inventory and dropped to 5.3 months at the end of the year. Six months of inventory is considered a balanced market, so the current level is helpful for price stabilization because it indicates that the major oversupply of homes is diminishing.