High season is in full swing and buyers are coming from all over to purchase properties as the slow but steady rise in values has started. Our demographics regularly show people from all 50 states buying property – but I’m seeing an increase in the number of Alaskan license plates and Canadian license plates in our parking lot and on the streets of Sedona.
Lots of mixed reporting on this year so far in real estate – but on the whole agents will agree that the market is definitely improving. The number of Sedona residential sales were down 1% for the first 4 months of the year compared to 2012. The average price of homes went up as well as we saw an increase from 394k to 409k for the same 4 month timeframe. Days on market stayed virtually the same – up to 184 from 178. Our luxury market has really taken off this year with 9 sales completed already over $1M and 12 more in escrow – so 21 total sales (including pending sales). To give you a sense of how the luxury market matches up to last year, we sold a total of 21 houses in Sedona over $1M — in ALL OF 2012. Assuming that these all close in the next 60 days, then we’ll have sold the same number of $1M homes in Sedona by June 30. That shows some serious traction in the upper end of our marketplace.
Total number of residential units on the market in Sedona is 421. Buyers already have 116 of these places in escrow, which makes a total availability of only 305. If we only look at Single Family Homes, then the picture is a little clearer – we have 336 total homes on the market and 92 in escrow – leaving only 244 homes available in Sedona.
Vacant land is another story altogether. We currently have 351 lots on the market with 22 in escrow with other buyers. 38 lots sold during the first 4 months of 2012 and 37 in 2013. There is a steady recovery underway in vacant land sales, and that makes sellers happy. The number of sales has not led to an increase in values, but they’re thinning the available units – which is the first step to recovery. Sellers have been waiting for years for the vacant land market to pick back up and it’s finally coming around. Part of this is fueled by developers need for affordable lots to build spec homes – something that didn’t really happen from 2006 through mid 2012.
