Investors driving Phoenix area home sales to record levels!!

According to DataQuick, Phoenix-area home sales rose in May, when resales of single-family houses hit the highest level for that month in six years amid near-record levels of investor purchases.




The region's median price remained at essentially the same level - $120,000 - it's been at the past six months as distressed property sales continued to account for around two-thirds of the resale market. The median price dropped sharply from a year earlier, however, as the number of homes selling below $100,000 shot up nearly 41 percent year-over-year, a real estate information service reported.



A total of 9,837 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow during May in the combined Maricopa-Pinal counties metro area. That was up 0.8 percent from the month before and up 4.9 percent from a year earlier.



On average, Phoenix-area sales have risen 5.2 percent between April and May since 1994, when DataQuick's complete Phoenix region statistics begin.



May's total sales were the highest since 2007, when 10,112 homes sold, and were 8.6 percent short of the average number of May sales since 1994. However, the number of existing (not new) resale single-family detached houses that sold in May was the highest for that month since 2005, while resales of condos were the highest for a May since 2006. The new-home market remained troubled, however, with sales at the lowest level for a May in 14 years.



Sub-$100,000 home sales, which rose 40.8 percent from a year earlier, represented 39.7 percent of all May transactions, compared with 28.8 percent a year earlier.



In May, buyers paid a median $120,000 for all new and resale houses and condos that closed escrow in the two-county Phoenix area. That was the same as the month before but down 13.7 percent from a year earlier. The median has fallen year-over-year for 11 consecutive months.



The May median was 14.2 percent below the highest median recorded over the past year -$139,900 last June - and it stood 54.6 percent lower than the all-time peak of $264,100 in June 2006.