How is the Prescott AZ Real Estate Market?

Every day we hear the talking heads tell us what is happening to the real estate market But its important to remember that "All Real Estate Is Local". So how much does our local Prescott AZ market follow the rest of the country? For the past couple of months when people ask me "How's the Market?". I've been telling them its great, I'm busy. So I did a little more research so I can speak a little more intelligently on the subject.

Lets look at the period from 9/1/09 through today 11/23/09 and compare that with the same period in 2008. Here is what we find. *Note we are looking at residential listings and sales in the Prescott Association which covers nearly all of Yavapai County.

Listings: declined 14.4% This is great because it mean sellers in Prescott have less competition and buyers still have plenty to choose from. As inventory declines we move from a buyer's market toward a neutral market.

Sold Listings: increased 33.8% This is even better. It means we have sold 1/3 more homes. Woo Hoo!

Average Sale Price: declined 20.2%. This is a mixed blessing. Great for buyers; not so much for sellers.

Days on market: no change This surprised me, but we are looking at an average number of days on market being 164 with most of the homes that are well priced selling much quicker.

Vacant Land sales has increased 101% in the Prescott real estate market but that's still only 123 sold listings which means things are getting better, but land is going to be lagging far behind home sales.

The final point I should mention is the Prescott REO market. In the period we are looking at in 2008 we had 11% of the closed sales come from REO properties. This year in the same period we had 39%. In actual numbers we went from 52 REO sales up to 244 just since 9/1/09. That is huge, but I don't expect that trend to continue. We actually peaked in June with trustee sales at 415. Now we are down to about 320 per month for Yavapai County.

Dave Conners specializes in selling Bank Owned, REO Homes in Prescott Arizona, (and doing what his wife tells him to do and also playing with his kids):