Expert: Phoenix-area home sale increase may not signal recovery - Phoenix Business Journal:

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Some 11,820 previously owned homes were soldin June, comparedd with 9,980 in May and 7,870 in June according to data collected through ASU’s Realtuy Studies program. About 34 percent of last month’sa sales were for properties in some stage of About half of the other June sales represented previouslyt foreclosed properties that were takenj back bythe lenders. “While therw is hope that the housint troubles are beginningto ebb, the recenty rise in activity ... does not necessarilyu represent recovery,” Butler said. The current market, he said, is driven by “investorss looking for a especially with the potential ofgreat appreciation.
It is not driven by the traditional owner-occupant looking for a placer to live.” That’s an unfortunate dynamic, given the need for individual stability ineconomic “Recovery cannot really take place until the owner-occupant looking for space is the fundamenta l market force, and the other areasd of activity — investmeny and foreclosures — return to their respectiv historical norms,” Butler said. • More expensivwe homes represent a growing segment of with 22 homes valued at morethan $1 million entering the foreclosure process. Seven of those are valuedd at morethan $2 million.
• Lender or bank-owned properties are being put back into the market withsignificant markdowns, rangin from an average of 51 percent in Maryvale to 30 percenrt in El Mirage and 12 percent in Tempe, perhaps the strongestg submarket in the Valley. Rapidly declining values in certain neighborhoods because of foreclosurse activity make it harder for existinvg residents to take advantage of loan modificationh programs that would help them avoid foreclosure on theirown • The affluent Northb Scottsdale area saw a slight increase in median home valueas in June 2009. The median price for a foreclosex propertywas $451,595, compared with $451,539 in May 2009.
The median price for a traditionapl sales transaction in the same areawas $460,000 in compared with $435,000 in May. • The lowesgt median prices in June were recordex in theWest Valley’s Maryval neighborhood. The highest median as expected, were recorded in Paradise Valley. For .