Jay Butler, professor emeritus of real estate at the W. P. Carey School of Business, has been a familiar voice analyzing the Phoenix metropolitan market since 1978. With his December 2011 report, he closes his ASU career. In this podcast, Dr. Butler reviews the numbers from December and wraps up the year 2011. Butler also shares some thoughts about the much-smaller city he moved to in 1972, and the challenges ahead for the Valley of the Sun.
Summary:
There were 7,940 recorded transactions in December, bringing the total for 2011 to 106,850 sales -- down slightly from the 106,975 transactions recorded in 2010. Foreclosure activity increased from 2,075 in November to 2,270 transactions in December, but remained at 29 percent of total recorded sales. 2011 ended with 35,855 foreclosures, or 34 percent of total recordings, which is a decrease from the 41,625 transactions (39 percent of the total activity) in 2010. In 2011, over 3 percent of the single-family homes in Maricopa County were foreclosed bringing the total since 2008 to more than 14 percent.