Altos Research has a proprietary market action index they use to track the real estate market. Looking at Scottsdale’s action over the past year, it shows that real estate is on an upward trend. Sales are up. Inventory (number of homes for sale) is down. Prices are still dropping. All of these aspects of the real estate market are included in calculating the health of the market. From this chart, Scottsdale still has a long way to go since an index of 30 is considered a balanced market, but for now, it’s headed in a healthier direction.
Not being content with generalities, and knowing that real estate is local, I’ve broken down this same indicator by zip code, and then grouped by North, Central, and South Scottsdale.
South Scottsdale Real Estate
This area covers from Indian Bend Road south to Tempe. The lower priced homes in 85257 are definitely leading the way, but 85251 and 85250, are not far behind and are following the same trend of improvement, since the low point at the beginning of 2009.
Central Scottsdale
This area runs from Indian Bend Road north to about Bell Road, but doesn’t include McDowell Mountain Ranch. The Scottsdale zip codes 85254 (that’s located mostly in the City of Phoenix) and 85260 are showing the most improvement (since Feb 2009) with 85259 (east of the 101), and 85258 (McCormick and Gainey Ranches) bringing up the rear.
North Scottsdale
North Scottsdale Scotts zip codes 85255, 85266, and 85262 are showing improvement as we move through the year and are much more stable than the latter part of 2008.
When you look at the where the Market Action Index is currently hovering for each portion of the city, you see that South Scottsdale with it’s lower prices is seeing stronger improvement than up north, where the average price of a home is considerably higher.
To put it in perspective:
North Scottsdale Market Index ranges from 11-13. Central Scottsdale ranges from 13-16, and South Scottsdale ranges from 15-18.
From the charts, you can see that the latter portion of 2008 was considerably stronger than anything we’ve seen this year. Short sales and foreclosures are playing an increasing role in the Scottsdale real estate market. Time will tell what the overall impact will be.
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