By Frank May
I say this every year, and every year it rings more true…this year flew by, and it feels like it went faster than ever! Time stands still for no man or woman. Things that happened in 2019 but feel like they were years ago include: Avengers Endgame (even as I write this I am shaking my head that it was this year!); the Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire; the US women’s soccer team won the World Cup; The Big Bang Theory finale; a man ate his 30,000th Big Mac (did you miss this one?); the Diamondbacks won the World Series (ok, that one was years and years ago, but I thought I’d slip it in to see if you are paying attention, and I love the D-backs!); and Grumpy Cat passed away (I loved grumpy cat). What a fast year it was!
I don’t know how your year was personally (I hope it was great), but if you owned a home in 85383 this past year, you did well. If you have owned a home in 85383 for the past five years, then you have done incredibly well!
As we end this decade, I thought I would share some numbers to be thankful for in the Upper West Side:
• The average home sale in 2015 was $344,653.
This past year it was up to $426,540. Almost $82,000 in added equity.
• The number of homes sold in 2015 was 1,296.
This past year it was up to 1,864. Demand has increased each year.
• The average days it took for a home to go under contract in 2015 was 95 days.
This past year it was down to 77 days!
• The inventory (homes actively for sale) on December 1, 2015, was 442 homes.
As of December 1, 2019, we had 375 homes.
As we enter this new decade, the forecast is that prices will continue heading up because more people are moving to the area, they have fewer homes to choose from, and the interest rates have remained very low.
An interesting fact from Michael Orr that “Despite the euphoria of 2005-2007 and the nightmare of 2008-2011, on average homes are selling 81.6% higher today than they were in the year 2000. That’s an average appreciation rate of 4.3% per year over the course of 19 years.”
That means with all the crazy price increases in 2004, 2005, and 2006, and then all of the insane price drops between 2008 and 2010, we are right where we would be if we had experienced a 4.3% (a very reasonable range) increase year over year since 2000 – just as if it had never happened! So, I hope no matter when you bought that you are encouraged that you own a home in a wonderful area, in a beautiful state where people are moving.
I hope you have an incredible 2020 and may all of our home values continue to go up!
Frank May grew up in the valley, graduating from Northwest Christian School and NAU. He is a real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty and has been helping both buyers and sellers for 18 years.
