More houses, more housing choices — and still much more affordable than many other areas. Today, the West Valley has the most land and the most home sales in the metro Phoenix housing market, but buyers arent choosing to live there just for the affordable big-box or retirement houses for which the area was known a decade ago. More: Valley home prices projected to stabilize in 14 People are buying houses that are mirror images of those in Scottsdale, north Phoenix or Chandler — but cost, in many cases, 25 to 50 percent less. More than 34,000 houses were sold in the West Valley last year. That compares with about 33,000 in the southeast Valley, including Pinal County. The shift to the west is becoming a long-term trend: More houses have sold in the West Valley than the southeast Valley for the past five years. ZIP codes 85383 in Peoria and 85338 in Goodyear ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the number of home sales in metro Phoenix last year. Homebuilders are lining up to buy land in the West Valleys top master-planned communities: Vistancia in Peoria, Estrella in Goodyear and Verrado in Buckeye. Several other developments are luring buyers attracted by the new freeways, shopping and developing job centers. New data from The Arizona Republics twice-yearly Valley Home Values special report shows that in 2013, the median price for home sales rose by double-digit percentages in most metro Phoenix ZIP codes. The median price Valley-wide jumped 30 percent in 2013, to reach almost $190,000. But in some West Valley ZIP codes in Peoria, Glendale and El Mirage, the increases were greater than 35 percent. This years home-price gains are forecast to be much lower as the market, after years of steep decline and then fast recovery, gets back to what real-estate analysts would call normal. But the West Valley, where properties are still more affordable, could fare better. The area west of Phoenix to the other side of the White Tank Mountains, north to Peoria and south to the Estrella Mountains, is not the West Valley of 1994, or 2004. That West Valley was known more for farmland or warehouses. Contd. Click here to read more..
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 19:50:55 +0000
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