LOVE is in The Air!

Welcome back to our What's Up Southeast Valley for the month of February in 2021

Let's do what we LOVE and do a lot of it - 

We LOVE our clients, community, local businesses, giving back and serving YOU. We are ready for 2021, for the love of real estate and for the love we 

have for each other and all of YOU. Let's celebrate this month of LOVE!

Join Our Team

The Amy Jones Group is RAPIDLY growing! We are hiring Real Estate Sales Professionals & for someone to fill our Client Care Role out of our Gilbert office. On pace to serve more than 165 families in 2020 alone, we are looking for EXPERIENCED agents to join our Southeast Valley team. Known for our excellent client care, exceptional negotiation skills, world class digital marketing, and being trusted advisors in the SE Valley for more than a decade - we are looking for hard working, ethical, creative, real estate professionals who love to learn and thrive in a team environment, where giving back and giving to each other is important to our overall success. For more information on who we are and how to apply, visit https://www.amyjonesgroup.com/careers or send your resume to [email protected]!

What's LOVE got to do with it?!

We held our second Women in Leadership Breakfast at Parlay Kitchen and Cocktails in Chandler this month and that's right, we talked about LOVE. Love exists in everything we do and everywhere we go. Love is what keeps us going, helps us grow, appreciate each other and continue to give grace even when you don't feel like it. Our incredible guest speaker, La'Vista Jones applied the topic of love to our everyday lives and business relationships. We talked about how to leverage love languages in business relationships, in the workplace and most importantly, with OURSELVES. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram for event updates and our next Women in Leadership Breakfast event coming up in June!

Serving The Community

We continue to face our daily challenges and uncertain times together and are thankful and grateful for our team and all of your support! We are looking forward to the connecting with and serving the community in 2021. We have remained diligent in supporting our community through highlighting local businesses, starting a women in leadership series, renovating a local teen center, giving back through food, water & clothing drives, helping families continue to move forward through weekly COVID-19 challenges and changes, pivoting our business model to meet the needs of our clients & business partners, offering more virtual services, growing our team, finding new ways to thank our current and past clients, reaching as many of you as possible and spreading the word that we are here for you no matter what! We're looking forward to thriving in the new year with you!

👀 Watch Our LIVE! 

Here are the basics - the ARMLS numbers for February 1, 2021 compared with February 1, 2020 for all areas & types:

• Active Listings (excluding UCB & CCBS): 5,180 versus 11,974 last year - down 56.7% - and down 14.5% from 6,055 last month
• Active Listings (including UCB & CCBS): 9,727 versus 16,035 last year - down 39.3% - and down 0.6% compared with 9,788 last month
• Pending Listings: 7,070 versus 5,969 last year - up 18.4% - and up 15.2% from 6,135 last month
• Under Contract Listings (including Pending, CCBS & UCB): 11,617 versus 10,030 last year - up 15.8% - and up 17.7% from 9,868 last month
• Monthly Sales: 7,330 versus 6,464 last year - up 13.4% - but down 26.8% from 10,015 last month
• Monthly Average Sales Price per Sq. Ft.: $217.59 versus $182.18 last year - up 19.4% - and up 2.9% from $211.50 last month
• Monthly Median Sales Price: $339,000 versus $289,900 last year - up 16.9% - and up 2.1% from $332,000 last month

January is usually a very good month for new listings and overall supply tends to be stronger at the beginning of February than it was at the turn of the year. However 2021 has been completely different. New listings arrived in the weakest flow we have ever recorded and although demand subsided a bit, it was more than strong enough to soak up almost everything sellers could offer. Instead of rising, supply collapsed another 14.5% during January. This does not show up if we look at active listings including UCB and CCBS, because so many agents place listings into these statuses when a contract is signed, rather than the more traditional pending status. The vast majority of these "active" listings are not really being marketed and the signed contract will quickly proceed to closure. 

The supply situation is the worst we have ever recorded, lower than the first quarter of 2005, which used to hold the record. When supply is this low, it starts to drag demand numbers down with it. Sales volumes are limited by the number of homes for sale. Although they are still much higher than January 2020, sales counts and under contract counts are not growing as fast as normal. This is probably due to a combination of factors: higher interest rates, lack of supply and affordability concerns. Prices rose by almost 3% over the last month, so in theory demand should decline as prices increase. We will see how true that turns out to be as prices are set for extremely high rises over the next several months. The annual appreciation rate has already surpassed 19% and could easily reach 30% by the time we are well into the second quarter.

New home builders are trying as hard as they can to create more supply, but there are many physical, financial and legal limits to how quickly they can do this. These additional homes are sure to be priced well above the current level. In times like this the MLS data paints an incomplete picture because a much larger percentage of transactions never touch the MLS:

• homes sold privately (usually to investors for flipping or conversion to rental)
• new homes (only a small percentage of these get listed on the MLS)

There is currently no indication that supply trends will improve and at the moment it looks like supply will drop further over the next 2 months. We would not be surprised to see demand continue to trend lower, but this will have little effect on prices. We already have far more buyers than the market can support. Our best guess is that the average price per sq. ft. will continue to rise at about 2% to 3% per month for the next several months.

For our buyers, the primary driver of taking advantage of the market is stabilization. If you are a renter, you are at risk of having your home sold by a landlord looking to capitalize on the market, losing your home due to an unaffordable rental price increase, or being evicted due to a late payment on your rent - all creating a difficult situation that necessitates moving often with little notice in the middle of a global pandemic with or without the  added issues of working from home, having kids at home from school, and maybe quarantining. Purchasing a home takes work in this market, those same skills its taken you to get through one of our country’s most challenging years by putting your best foot forward with offers, working with trusted professionals to ensure you are educated and armed with the knowledge to succeed, have the ability to move quickly and the patience to see it through - but it is worth it. Moving up into more space with an affordable payment, moving down into less space with a more affordable payment, or setting yourself and your family up to thrive when this is all over by building wealth through real estate and turning your primary home with equity into an investment home or investment fund can literally change the course of your life.

For our sellers, the competition is fierce and the reward is high. The concern is that you’ll sell high and have to buy high but when you are buying with a low interest rate and in an appreciating market - you’ll sell high, and buy as low you can as both interest rates and prices will likely only go up from here. It’s a great time to get what you need to make your move possible and for some price ranges, new construction is providing an unbeatable solution with many of our families breaking ground with more than $50,000 in equity already in their proverbial pocket. We’ll continue to see gridlock as families seek out solutions to buy before selling as they fear not having anywhere to go which will continue to inflate the prices of AirBnBs and VRBOs as stop gap solutions which will continue to drive the desire for investors to purchase these homes and many to use their primary residences in this way as they cash flow to help with other life challenges. We’ll see some Canadians who put their homes on the market as they have continued challenges getting over the border and we’ll have Californians continue to scoop them up as our prices remain affordable in comparison.

Live.Love.Local - Connecting The Southeast Valley

Connecting with the community lights up our souls and we couldn't be more thrilled to get to know those who run our small businesses. It's so important that we support local, especially right now. Each business below is open, taking appointments, reserving parties and staying safe by following our state guidelines. Let's all do our part in keeping the economy alive, so that when it comes time to fully get back to life, we can all thrive once more.

Market of The Moment

Every week, our trusted Title partner, Don Czajkowski with Fidelity National Title has a meeting of the minds to talk about the ever changing real estate market, especially right now. This week, Mindy was a featured guest talking about inventory, new home builds, interest rates, tips to release the equity in your home, alternatives and options to give yourself more time to find a property to purchase when selling and what the Amy Jones Group has been up to this month. Check out all of the recent broadcasts below starting with the one from this week!

👏 Congratulations! Mazel Tov! ¡Felicidades!

None of this is possible without our amazing clients.
We'd love to help you or someone you love if we haven't already - or help you again!
Here are the buyers and sellers who made big moves last month...

 In Case You Missed It...