By Mike Sunnucks | Rose Law Group Reporter
New homes sales surged in August though the current sales wave appears to have peaked, according to real estate expert Jim Belfiore.
“It’s already peaked,” said Belfiore, who is president of Belfiore Real Estate Consulting, sales volume is leveling off even as August new home sales posted the best month since late 2005. “The growth of sales has slowed.”
Summer new homes sales were especially strong in the Phoenix and Tucson markets considering the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the hottest summers on record and all the economic and social uncertainty.
Belfiore expects a strong regional housing market to continue into 2021 spurred by low mortgage interest rates, low supply of homes and expected population growth in Arizona.
An easing of the COVID-19 situation as well as possible vaccines and treatments could lead more prospective buyers into the housing market, he said.
Belfiore said home builders should prepare for a strong start to 2021. “They are going to find there is pent up demand,” he said.
Belfiore and others expect to see metro Phoenix to see population gains as businesses and workers reevaluate their current locations and homes in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and all of 2020’s social unrest. That could lead more jobs and households to exit markets such as New York, Portland, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle.
Belfiore expects home prices to continue to increase and limited supplies to home sales to continue.
He points out that demand for home is 91 percent higher now than in 2015 but the supply of homes in the Phoenix market is the same as five years ago.
