Arizona’s housing market has been in a state of flux for at least 3 years now, with no real signs of recovery. Recent reports show that home prices have fallen for 3 straight months, home sales are nonexistent on average, and foreclosures haven’t stemmed yet, even with the federal government’s pause on foreclosures while they investigated the industry.
Now it seems to be impacting other parts of the industry as well. People who did contract type work, such as roofing or remodeling, are suddenly on the decline because so many homeowners put off projects for their homes that some contractors and suppliers got out of the business and those remaining have workloads that don’t enable them to get to everyone who now needs someone to do repairs or remodeling for their homes.
With predictions that this type of thing could go on longer, it becomes a topic of interest that one would hope someone in the state with the authority to at least make suggestions would undertake to at least attempt to change some things. It’s certainly not us, but that doesn’t stop us from coming up with 3 ideas that could help the Arizona housing market.
One, put a clamp on banks foreclosing on new properties for at least six months. Of course the banks would hate that, but the industry needs some good news and this might help. Also, unemployment is finally starting to drop a little bit, which means homeowners might have a chance to at least work out deals, if not actually catch up, on outstanding debts for their homes.
Two, give some larger incentives for new homeowners to purchase homes. Why not have a state tax credit, and why not offer it to home builders as well as home buyers? The state got federal money anyway, but the reality is that the state makes a lot more money off property owners than it would lose in offering some up front tax breaks to potential buyers.
Three, encourage banks to release all foreclosed homes for purchase instead of trying to artificially keep prices up by withholding some homes. If the price drops it makes more homes attractive for purchase, and isn’t it better that homes are bought at a lower, discounted price rather than homes not being purchased because some home buyers still can’t afford what’s out there?
These aren’t perfect ideas, but they would get things started and moving in the right direction. At least they’re ideas; anyone else have any that could help?
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Mitch writes on real estate, finance, and many other things.