Inventory Level of Single Family Homes in Metro Phoenix DROPS by 700

Yes, that is right! The inventory of single family homes for sale here in the valley dropped by over 700 homes from September 30th to October 1st. I track the market here on a weekly basis and that is the largest drop I have registered this year. I started a weekly tracking of the Active, Pending and Sold homes back in 2005. It is a great tool in measuring what is happening in our market.
Our inventory level of Single Family Homes (SFH) listed in the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service was at 47,476 homes on Sunday September 30th and on Monday October 1st that number dropped to 46,752. This represents a drop of over 700 homes. This is due to many home Listings expiring at the end of September. But that happens at the end of every month. This is just the largest drop I have recorded so far this year.
You will hear other numbers much higher than the 46,752 SFH that I report. Most news agencies like to make it sound as high as possible. They include all the condo, town homes and mobile homes in their number. The funny thing is they put them all together when reporting the inventory level, but most of the time, they only report the sales for SFH.
My number is actually an over statement of what is for sale here in the valley. The exaggeration is caused because of the following reasons:

1. Realtors list the same home twice.
2. Vacation homes in Flagstaff and other areas get listed in our MLS. Some 6,649 of the listings are not in Maricopa County.
3. Builder SPEC homes get listed. Even though we have a separate system for builder SPEC homes, they list their homes in the MLS too.

These listings overstate the amount of homes for sale here in the valley by nearly 10,000 SFH. If I were in charge non of them would be in our MLS system.

Jeff Cameron