Month of January

Welcome back to our What's Up Southeast Valley for the month of January! Happy New Year!

The real estate market is changing with each moment and we're finding new ways to connect with you, our community and local small businesses throughout it all! Welcome to Fall in Arizona, we are so excited to be on this journey with you!

We LOVE our clients, community, local businesses, giving back and serving YOU. Let's have an incredible month together!

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Our Team Around Town

This month has been full of fun as we stepped out, stepped up, and stepped into the lives of our community! From Women in Leadership events, to the House of Refuge volunteer day, buyer's walk throughs and more - Check out all of the fun and follow us on SOCIAL!

We're Hiring!

The Amy Jones Group is RAPIDLY growing! We are hiring Real Estate Sales Professionals for our Gilbert office. On pace to serve more than 165 families in 2021 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]!

If you haven’t seen the memes about what New Year’s Eve looked like going into 2020 versus 2022, do yourself a favor and look them up. It’s a  somewhat comedic reminder about how much we’ve been through as a community over the last couple of years. With COVID cases on the rise again, we are cautiously optimistic that with some experience under our belt, we are geared up and ready to take on 2022 with a new attitude. If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that we can’t predict the future, life is short, and where there is opportunity to help our community, we should all dig in.

The housing marketing has also provided its fair share of memes over the last two years. With record breaking appreciation rates, historically low interest rates, and a break-neck pace - the world of real estate appears to have been just as unpredictable as the headliners we’ve seen scrolling across our TV screens for the last 24 months. In that time, our average home price has risen from $364,646 to $532,675, appreciation has risen from an average of 9.6% annually to 26.0% annually, and we’ve gone from having 12,494 active listings to just 5,930 active listings - neither of which are enough to sustain the growing interest in the Valley. With just 45 days of inventory 2 years ago to 16 days of inventory today - we would need at least 5 times the amount of inventory to be in balance.

Keeping an eye on the numbers over the next few weeks is going to be easy - we don’t expect to see much change as many people are distracted by mistletoe, candy canes, and champagne toasts but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good time to try to snag your piece of the real estate pie. The holidays are bustling but buying a home during the holidays doesn’t mean you are MOVING during the holidays, in fact many of our sellers selling this time of year have negotiated 30-90 day lease backs to help them SELL now and STAY in their home until after the new year.

So what does that mean for the coming year? We are currently sitting with about 1000 less listings valley-wide than we had last year and we all know what that did to our appreciation rates come the spring time. We’ve already started to see listings with multiple offers the first weekend on the market, the return of lease backs and other concessions for sellers making it easier for them to navigate the low inventory market on the purchase side, and with rental rates currently outpacing the resale market - we can expect renting to become less and less desirable of an option which will continue to drive demand on the buy side. Interestingly enough, we saw about 1000 more listings sell in the last 30 day period than we did in the same time frame two years ago, and that’s with less than half the inventory telling us that while we’ve got a deficit of inventory, we’ve also got a healthy amount of demand for the houses that we have available.

Interest rates continue to be a variable for 2022 with many analysts predicting a modest 1% increase by year’s end meaning that while still very low compared to historical averages, home prices will continue to go up while they’ll also become more expensive to buy by the end of the year, if not sooner. This sense of urgency and also the idea that there isn’t another shoe to be waiting for to drop, is in part what is driving the increased demand headed into 2022. What will follow will likely be our typical surge in contracts as our peak selling season, when most buyers AND sellers are coming to the market, kicks off and comes to a close when it gets a little too hot to walk around to open houses.

New construction will continue to be a viable option, especially for our renters looking to transition out of a variable monthly payment into a secure mortgage and some time left on their lease to accommodate the average 10-14 month build time that most builders are averaging. Supply chain issues and labor shortages impeded their ability to keep up with demand over the last two years but we are starting to see some lot availability, some flexibility in interest lists and lotteries - each community is going to be different and having a specialist to help guide you through the intricacies of purchasing new construction can make that dream a reality.

One thing is certain, national housing experts continue to highlight suburban cities that are amenity rich as one of the fastest growing segments of our market. To see how this prediction could help your family in 2022, reach out to us today!

BeLocal Business Buzz

Monday Market Update

Thursday 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!

Through Her Eyes

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.

Community on Purpose Podcast

👏 Congratulations! Mazel Tov! ¡Felicidades!

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