REAL ESTATE
GILBERT SUN NEWS | MARCH 15, 2020
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Coronavirus may affect luxury home sales GSN NEWS STAFF
T
he negative economic reaction created by the COVID-19 epidemic is having some effect on the Valley’s housing market – but not all that much. But buyers who have been frustrated by the continuing plummet in inventory likely won’t find much comfort in that development because it is apparently affecting only high-end housing. The Cromford Report, which closely monitors trends in the Phoenix Metro housing market, said that while home transactions for more than $1 million increased last month by 56 percent over February 2018, the trend is likely to hit the same wall the economy seems to
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have hit. “With the recent negative developments in the markets for stocks and commodities we would anticipate the demand for homes over $1,000,000 to be less impressive when we look at numbers for the next few months,” it said. But buyers of more modest means are still likely to be frustrated, with February closings involving homes up to $250,000 down almost 19 percent from a year ago. Sales of homes between $250,000 and $500,000 increased last month by 26.5 percent over February 2019 while closings on homes between $500,000 and $1 million were up 26.5 percent, Cromford said. The bottom line, it added: “The supply
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situation is even more extreme than last month. Rapidly rising prices have done little to dampen demand.” Conversely, it added, “sellers are still gaining negotiation power in 14 out of 17” communities – including Gilbert. “Although there a few exceptions, the collapse in available supply in most ZIP codes is nothing short of remarkable,” it noted, although Gilbert is not among the 25 ZIP codes in the region where Cromford found the steepest inventory declines. Overall, it added, “the supply of active
listings without a contract is down 42 – making life extremely difficult for buyers. “New listings are still arriving more slowly than normal and year-to-date we have experienced a shortfall of 10 percent compared to 2019. Supply continues to fall quickly across most of the market with only the 55+ areas and the very high end maintaining a steady supply of active listings, albeit below normal,” it said. The report also noted that despite rising prices, “they have not risen nearly
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