Was talking to a soon-to-be client this morning about short sales, particularly regarding the quantity of short sales in the Phoenix East Valley area.
So I waded through logging on to the MLS (past the double-password entry process designed to thwart agents from giving out their MLS login ID and passwords) and set up a custom search to extract listings based on the “Lender/Corporate Approval Required” field.
Now before we take a peek at the numbers, a few things must be noted:
1) MLS data is only as good as what is entered. I’m sure you’ve heard the term, “Garbage in, garbage out”. Trust me, there is some garbage in the MLS data. If an agent has listed a short sale and did NOT check the “Lender Approval Required” box, then there is no way for me to know if the listing is in a short sale position. Conversely, if the box WAS checked and should not have been. . . well, you get the idea.
2) It’s possible some agents selected “Lender/Corp Approval Required” instead of selecting “Lender Owned Property” when they listed “REO” (bank owned) property. Most that list REOs know which box to check, so one would think hope that the data is relatively clean in this regard.
3) Our current MLS, in its infinite wisdom, has not separated corporate approval from lender approval. Corporate approval? Yes, as in when a relocation company is involved is the most common cause for needing corporate approval.
Despite these limitations, what follows is a (sobering) look at the quantity of homes that are currently listed as likely short sales in the Phoenix East Valley.
Town | # Active Listings | # with Lender / Corporate |
Gilbert | 2,646 | 1,217 |
Mesa | 4,655 | 1,967 |
Chandler | 2,483 | 1,076 |
Tempe | 994 | 246 |
Adding these numbers up, there are 10,788 active listings in these major East Valley towns. (That’s all residential by the way, single-family homes, condos, mobiles, etc.)
4,506 of those are indicated as likely short sales (minus the aforementioned corporate owned homes and other data pitfalls — a relatively small percentage I suspect hope).
That would mean that 41.8% of the current East Valley home listings could be in a short sale situation.
Frightening, isn’t it?
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[tags]Phoenix east valley real estate short sales, ouch[/tags]
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And when you need an East Valley real estate agent to help with your East Valley real estate needs, there’s only one East Valley name to call.
Great Post!
(Yep, it’s one of those days)
Watcha trying to say big fella?
Yeah, there’s a few “EV’s” in there. (note, not one occurrence of “agent” — thanks for adding that!)
Still need to pepper a dozen (or more) in there to truly get it up to snuff. At least according to some models.
More importantly, how do these numbers compare to the West Valley? (Where there is only one West Valley agent worth your West Valley time to call — he can satisfy all your West Valley real estate needs.)
I almost want to look at just Maricopa (the town, not county) and Queen Creek, but the numbers are likely even more frightening. These are scary enough…
My jaw dropped when I read these stats. Wow. Really frightening numbers.
Hopefully that’s not the case. Talk about some serious depreciation issues.
Jay – with the news yesterday and today about the number of foreclosures rising and the equity people have in their homes being at a historic low, do you see this trend continuing in your market foa a long time? In other words, can we see much of the iceburg yet?
I’ve got to tell you, I’m thrilled to be in Austin. We’re not completely healthy, but we’re practically on fire compare to your area.
I’m working with someone at my local association in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) to do similar analysis but since we do not have fields available in our MLS, we had to do manual searching remarks fields… ugh!
Our numbers are not nearly as bad (and lump foreclosures & shorts into one group) but the numbers are telling. What is truly interesting is that the short sales & foreclosures are selling faster than the rest of the market!
Many members of the local board don’t want us to publish the data we’re compiling for fear it will make us look bad… I see it as data pertinent to the conversation we’re having as a nation.
I read this blog for the first time today, arriving via some of the early posts harping on about “Chicken Littles” and the ridiculous idea that there was a “Bubble”… and then I jump forward in time to more recent posts where the reality on the ground is undeniable i.e. Chicken Little was correct.
Kudos to the blogger for finally getting a clue! It only took 2 years.
Very useful information, thanks