In the single largest increase in the history of foreclosure-type sales in the Phoenix area, January 2009's foreclosure-type sales increased 13.7% from December 2008. The second largest increase of 7.9% was recorded just last month. The third largest increase was 6.8% from December 2007 to January 2008.
This phenomenon is going to cause "normal sellers" to do one of two things:
- take their homes off the market because, face it, they can't compete with foreclosure prices
- reduce their prices to a level where buyers are willing to pay a little more for a cleaner house
Read this chart in the following manner: In January 2009 there were 4,746 residential sales. 3,540 of those sales were "foreclosure-type" sales, or 74.6% of all sales.
