Housing sales jump in March

More houses were sold in Maricopa in March than in any month since May 2009.

The numbers vary slightly depending on who you ask. Dagmar Mouritsen, a local realtor with Independence Realty Professionals, calculates buyers closed on 303 homes last month, while Maricopa realtor Bill “Waz” Wasowicz pegs the number at 291.

Either way, it was a big jump over the 180-190 homes sold in the city in February, and substantially more than the 217 sold in March 2010.

As sales have heated up, inventory has declined, always a good sign for sellers.

According to Wasowicz, there are 453 active listings in the city, a more than 50 percent drop from late last fall when there were 1,000-plus homes listed for sale.

I don’t know if this is the beginning of the recovery,” said Mouritsen, “but it is almost like someone turned a switch and inventory has come down over the course of the past months. From my experience, the sales are from people buying second homes. They are a few years from retirement and are spending vacations here and thinking about moving here when they retire.”

The increase in sales seems to have pushed prices up slightly.

The median price of a home in sold in Maricopa in March was $85,000, up from $80,000 in January. The $42.26 per square foot buyers paid last month was up more than a dollar and a half from the February figure of $40.63 price per square foot, but still $7.76 per square foot less than in March of last year.

Despite the good news, Wasowicz believes inventory will begin to creep back up as the snowbirds return home and foreclosures continue to come on the market. “I expect a very strong summer buying season driven by delayed seasonal buyer purchases along with relocations during school vacations,” he wrote in his blog yesterday. “Unfortunately, I do not predict that it will keep up with the foreclosure releases. Whether or not there will be enough buying activity to fend off the dreaded “double dip” remains to be seen.”