(Image source from: Home Prices to Stabilize in Phoenix this year})
Good news for all the Phoenixians waiting to buy a home! By this year, home values might return to normal, allowing you the chance to buy a home in your favorite neighborhood.
Home values that had peaked to double-digits in 2013 and more than half of all the ZIP codes in Maricopa and Pinal counties registered maximum annual increase in home prices since the rise.
The median sales price was $205,000 on Dec. 31 as compared to $164,000 in December 2012. Prices spiked by 35 percent in 2012, meaning prices are back to about 2003 levels for most people.
Once affordable parts of city registered their biggest rise in home prices. The median home sales price in Mesa's 85201 ZIP code, an older part of the city next to central Tempe touched the highest - 50 percent.. The typical house sold for $135,000 in the area, about $50,000 below the Valley's overall median.
However, with fewer buyers in the marlet now, homeowners can expect a relieff in home values, unlike the years 2012 and 2013.
"We are seeing a big drop in demand compared with the last two years, and there are ominous indications of a softening market when we dig deep into the numbers," said Mike Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business.
"The market conditions suggest prices will struggle to make any further upward progress in 2014."
The West Valley sold most number of homes 2013. Sky-rocketting homeprices in the southeast Valley communities of Chandler, Gilbert and Mesa also s forces buyers to look for more affordable homes in the Pinal County.
