While Canadians can still find deals in Phoenix, the window is quickly closing on the bargain-priced often foreclosed real estate that characterized Arizona's largest city for the past five years.
"I had to apologize to my Canadians," said Linda Gerchick of Phoenix-based Gerchick Real Estate after a recent property tour she mounted for B.C. and Alberta investors went sideways. "Property after property had already been sold. I couldn't even show them."
Gerchick estimates Phoenix now has about a five-week supply of homes for sale, compared with a three-month inventory just a year ago.
According to the Phoenix Association of Realtors there were 1,632 "lender-owned" properties for sale in the city in January, compared with 2,169 during the same month last year and more than 8,500 in January of 2010. Sales of such foreclosures, at 830 homes in January, accounted for 34 per cent of the entire market - the lowest percentage since the recession started in 2007.
Phoenix home prices remain low by Vancouver standards. The average price per square foot is US$108 and the average detached house sells for less than US$155,000. Average foreclosure condo prices are below US$50,000 per suite, if you can find them.
Phoenix realtor Todd Smith of AZ Performance Realty specializes in sales to Canadians. He told the Jurock Land Rush Conference in February that, by 2015, Phoenix real estate prices will be back to pre-recession levels, perhaps higher.
from Western Investor April 2013
