Vacation Home Market on Rise

Amid the rising interest rates, sales in many vacation communities in the U.S. are soaring.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the low prices and a general feeling that the worst is over is catapulting sales to their heights levels in years.  Here in Arizona, we have seen similar results.  Inventory levels of homes in many of the price ranges in Paradise Valley are the lowest in years and not that much new is coming to the market.  I have interviewed architects, builders, and subcontractors and calls are up for all of them.  Now whether that translates into new builds or not remains to be seen.  However, the inventory of newly built speculative homes abundant in the market a few years ago is all but gone. 

What was surprising to many of us was how few new listings came on the market at the first of the year, typically the beginning of our busy selling season.  Here in Paradise Valley, there were several homes built after 1996 priced under $1.6m, but they are almost all gone.  The most recent to go under contract were the ones on busy streets which is always an indication of depleted inventory.

Sales have been very brisk in Silverleaf, an exclusive gated golf community in north Scottsdale but those sales have not translated into greater activity in Desert Mountain yet in far north Scottsdale.  We are just going to have to see, but things started feeling better a year ago October but then died down this summer and have really accelerated since November/December.