Good morning Friend,

I hope you have been having a wonderful
holiday season.  While I have been blessed
with some terrific celebrations with family
and friends, this has also been the busiest
holiday season in many years.  Usually,
people have other things on their mind - not
this year, many clients have put real estate
their list for Santa Clause.  Thus, I have been a
busy elf during the normally slow Thanksgiving
through New Years period.

The only reason I mention this is because
seasonal changes in our market are quite
substantial.  Every year, January brings more
people to Arizona, and many of those people
are buyers of real estate.  Thus, based on
what I have seen first hand recently, I am
anticipating 2013 to be a blockbuster year
in Paradise Valley real estate.  Not only are
we going to see the volume of transactions
increase, we are going to see price per square
foot continue to increase, and we're going
to see a lot more activity in the upper end of
the market which had previously been the
last to budge.  

If you have been thinking about selling,
please call me.  It's an opportune time to
get a home sold quickly.  Also, with my ever
growing list of readers and clients, there's
a real opportunity to market your home
without having to list it on the MLS.

Alternatively, if you've been thinking about
buying, please recognize things are going
to continue changing.  The price and selection
you now see is as good as it will be for a
long time.  The only exception to this will
be in the $3 million+ market, where I believe
a number of sellers have been holding back
because they didn't need to sell; they would
be willing to do so if they could get a 
reasonable number.  There won't be a huge
bump in this inventory, but there should be
enough for the $3 million+ market to be stable.
However, for homes in or near the "sweet
spot" of $1.5 million, the competition will
get increasingly intense, perhaps even
shockingly so. 

Don't believe me?  I have attached the latest
statistics from Standard & Poors/Case Schiller
just released the day after Christmas.  They
show the Phoenix market was the #1 market
of 2012 with an price increase of 20.4% --
to put that in context, the second best
performing market was Minneapolis, and it
was only up 8.8%.  So our rate of increase
was over double the second fastest rising
market of the year.

***

Please note that deliveries of this Paradise
Valley MarketWatch Newsletter will now be
every Saturday, instead of every Tuesday.

The fee for this newsletter will be increased
by 100% from its current price of zero ;)
But seriously, it's a lot of work to produce
this every week and I want to make it the
very best it can be.  Your feedback means
the world, and it will be incorporated, so please
don't be shy.  What could be done to make
this better?  What could be done to make
your life easier buying or selling real estate?

If you have no suggestions, then please know
flattery is always appreciated.

Happy Holidays!

***

Closings Last Week
Numbers are a bit skewed since we are
covering a 10 day period, anyway we
had good volume despite the holiday with
$13 million closed.  There were 8 homes
sold at an average of $1.625 million.  Price
per square foot was $289, up from $274
in the prior week. 

New Listings This Week
Only 6 new listings in the prior 10 days,
not surprising given the holidays.  However
it makes me sad to say there is nothing at
all - nada, zip, zilch - that I would recommend
this week.  In the past 2 years that's never
happened.  They're not terrible, just nothing
that gets the Alex stamp of approval for quality
or value.  Enjoy your friends and family this
week, because these new listings will likely
be here after the New Year. 

To see all of this week's listings, please click here.

To see everything on the MLS in Paradise Valley
please click here.

That's all for this week, I'll be back next week with all
the latest in Paradise Valley real estate.

Regards,
Alex
SearchParadiseValleyProperties.com

p.s. If you wish to chat, my direct line is (480) 442-7325