41% of Homes Did Not Sell in Maricopa County, Was Your Property One Of Them?

A recent article from Redfin pointed out some interesting, but not surprising, numbers for a few counties including Maricopa County which includes Greater Phoenix.  

The data showed that of the homes that went on the market for sale in 2009, 137,647 of them - 81,204 ended up closing. That translates to 59% of properties being sold.  I have not seen the actual data nor the details of it, but there are many reason properties don’t sell.  

The 41% that did not sell could have not sold because they went into foreclosure for instance, after a lengthy short sale - I know that happened a lot, just not in real numbers. There are other reasons, but the primary reason properties don’t sell is price.  

That same data shows that 3.6% of the properties that went on the market in 2009 were still active for sale 8/11/10 which theoretically could translate into as many as 20 months on the market. That’s a lot for any home.  It’s ridiculous for starter and some move up homes and somewhat reasonable for homes nearing and surpassing $2,000,000.

According the the Cromford Report data, the success rate for 2009 was as high as 67%, but as low as 35% in the early part of 2009 when the market was still in a slump.  Compare this to the previous 2 years: 2008 and 2007, and 59% starts to look rather good.

None the less if you are about the sell your Phoenix home or are in the process of selling a 59% chance of selling is probably not very encouraging.  

It means that you need to be very careful about whom you pick to sell your property and be very weary of agents promising a higher price: don’t pick and agent based on the selling price, especially if it is unusually low or high. There is data that can be studied to price a home within a safe selling range.