Brand new spring housing market numbers are revealing a shocking trend.
Nationwide, the number of homes for sale hasn't been this thin in 20 years.
It's shaping up to a be a seller’s market but a competitive one. First time home buyers will have the biggest challenge.
Trulia and Realtor.com compiled statistics from the country’s 100 largest metro cities and then boiled down the trends by zip code.
Overall the Valley is seeing an 18.4% drop in inventory with 20,643 homes on the market. The number of starter homes has been cut in half compared to five years ago. In 2012 there were 6,183 homes for sale in the Valley compared to just 3432 in 2017.
Those starter homes are also seeing the largest price increase compared to trade-up or premium homes. In 2012 you could buy a starter home for an average price of $69,300; today the average cost has shot up to $155,633. Trade-up homes are more expensive but the change isn’t as drastic going from $129,967 in 2012 to $231,996 in 2017.
Realtors expect inventory to creep back over the next couple years as more homeowners recover from the housing crisis.
"I think that's a lot of what's impacting it right now is that people are just now getting to the point where they can start to, to sell and move up and reap the benefits," said Patrick Lewis, Vice President of the Arizona Association of Realtors.
The good news is there's no shortage of people who want to buy a new home, the trends show they want a house that's already fixed up rather than doing the upgrades themselves.
Lewis says most are looking for affordable home prices under $250,000.
"Just a frenzy right now in the valley and where we are seeing that evidenced is there's a couple of zip codes in Peoria that are some of the hottest in the country, but really the southeast valley, Gilbert, Queen Creek." Lewis said.
The study also shows on average homes in Gilbert are only on the market for about a month and in Peoria they’re closing in just over three weeks.
