40,000 listings — what does that mean?

At this moment in time, there are 40,017 listings in the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS). That’s a lot of inventory. Especially when compared to January 2005 when the MLS listings equaled 3,402.

People ask us all the time if we are in a “Buyer’s market” or a “Seller’s market”. I don’t believe anyone has ever tossed “Neutral market” into the question.

Compared to the outrageous seller’s market of early to mid last year, this sure looks like a buyer’s market. But ANYTHING would look like a buyer’s market compared to that. It was insane.

I’ve read and heard several “experts” proclaim that a real estate market that has six months of inventory available can be classified as a neutral market. (I’m looking for a source for that and will post it here when I find it).

In April, there were 6,751 homes sold. Do the math and that means there is currently 5.9 months of inventory listed. That’s close enough to six months for me. So “mathematically” we are in a neutral market. But as my college statistics professor once said, “you can prove anything with statistics”.

Real life experience tells me we are in a Neutral to slight buyer’s side market. However there are a lot of people out there that would argue this assesment (and please feel free to do just that in the comments). What makes me feel we’re in a neutral market? It’s hard to pin it down. We’re still seeing buyer’s filter back into the market. Sellers are getting more reasonable in their expectations for listing prices. There are pockets of places where the market is still very hot, and others where it is significantly cool. But over all, across the Valley and across the types of real estate, we are in a neutral to slight buyers’ market, in my humble opinion.

I’d love to hear other’s opinions…

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