It was bound to happen and now it’s beginning. Millennial buyers are starting to move into the market in earnest. This is good news for our overall market for a number of reasons.
But first, an expert’s statement: Tom Ruff of The Information Market (owned by our MLS) said that FHA financed loans accounted for 32% of all home sales in April. This is a significant rise in the use of these loans. Ruff stated:
“The biggest change in homes financed occurred with FHA loans. In 2014 FHA loans accounted for 18.4% of home loan purchases, in April 2015 this percentage grew to 32%. The percentage of home purchases financed continues to trend higher which translates into an improving housing market.
Obviously we don’t have exact demographics about who these FHA buyers are, but it’s a pretty safe bet that they are the millennials (born from early 1980’s to early 2000’s or Gen X’ers) who need help with down payments, closing costs and qualifying ratios, which is what is attractive about FHA.
The good of this trend for Phoenix Metro is the continued solidification of our local real estate market. With more millennials buying this frees up the lower to mid-price range sellers to get their home sold and to then “move up” the home buying ladder. Move up buyers are another part of our market that we have sorely missed. If the $150K to $300K sellers can now sell, they can “move up” to the $300K to $500K price ranges. And then these sellers can move up or out, or whatever. This is all about a market getting “freed up” to do what it normally does in a healthy economy.
As we’ve mentioned before what’s good for sellers is not so good for buyers. This same lower to moderate price range is getting skimpier on inventory creating price increases, fewer buyer selections, with hyper buying activity.
More evidence? Well, on a personal level, millennial son and partner Jonathan had to offer on three homes before getting the home that he and Sarah just moved into. Jonathan then just sold a home to millennial friends Travis and Autumn who also experienced feverish activity in their home search before finally securing one last week.
All in all, we feel it’s a very healthy market for buyers and sellers and by all appearance it’s getting even stronger.
