Fletcher Wilcox recently presented his annual report on the real estate market to local agents, going over the results of 2019 and offering his forecast for 2020.

Vice President at Grand Canyon Title, Wilcox said he expects inventory to be tight in 2020 and interest rates to be low. Purchase prices will also most likely rise, meaning lots of competition and, for those in the business, lots of opportunity.

As Wilcox puts it, Maricopa County is in the middle of a growth spurt that Fountain Hills could potentially benefit from.

Steady build

Due to the number of sales and dollar sales volume, Wilcox said he expects approximately 105,000 real estate sales in Maricopa County this year.

The annual dollar sales volume for single family resales has officially topped figures seen at the market’s peak in 2004, but the road to those heights was far more gradual this time around. Single family resales went from $8.2 billion in 2000 to $26.1 billion in 2005. Those figures dropped off sharply heading into the recession, falling back to $12.0 billion around 2008. Rather than skyrocket in five short years, single family resales have been on a steady rise over the past decade, settling in at $27.1 billion in 2019.

Maricopa County

According to Wilcox, 2020 will be a year of opportunity spurred on by population growth around the Valley. Arizona was third in the country for population growth in 2019 while Maricopa County once again saw the highest growth in the state, as well as the country. The latest figures have Maricopa County increasing in population by 81,244 between July 2017 and 2018, or about 222 people moving into the county per day.

“That’s three years in a row the Census Bureau came out and said no county gained more than Maricopa County,” Wilcox added. “So when they come out with their data this April, which will be for the previous year, I predict it will be four years in a row Maricopa County topped numeric population increase.”

One of Maricopa County’s biggest groups of new residents is retirees, with the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area leading the nation as a retirement destination for seniors.

Wilcox noted that a lot of people are also moving to Arizona from California for a number of reasons. For starters, the top individual income tax rate in Arizona (4.54 percent) is about a third of California (13.30 percent). And the Arizona corporate income tax rate (4.5 percent) is about half of that in California (8.84 percent).

Combine that with more job opportunities in the state and Arizona has become a premiere destination for those looking to move. According to financial writer Adam McCann, Scottsdale tops the list of 2020’s best cities for jobs in the country. Chandler is sixth on that list with Tempe being number eight, meaning three clustered Arizona cities are in the top 10 for the nation. This is partially due to corporations expanding and relocating near STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) talent, according to Wilcox, with the Valley being home to everything from USAA and Intel to Deloitte, Go Daddy, Infosys and more.

The result of all of those new jobs and residents is that 63,300 more people were employed in Maricopa County in 2019 compared to 2018, Wilcox explained, or about 173 new jobs per day.

Fountain Hills

Many of the people moving to Maricopa County for retirement or new jobs are eyeing Fountain Hills as a place to live. The question is whether or not there’s enough inventory to go around. Wilcox explained that while residents were pouring into the state over the past decade, the recession meant homes were not being built.

“That’s why you see all of these apartments going up now,” Wilcox said. “There’s more demand than there is inventory. That’s pretty much Valley-wide, including in Fountain Hills.”

According to the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, about 61 percent of sales in the community for 2019 were single family resales. Single family resales actually dropped from 553 to 551 between 2018 and 2019, with overall totals – including apartment style, townhouse, patio and Gemini – rising slightly from 903 to 906 sales.

Single family monthly listings were also down 57 year to year, though the median purchase price for single family resales raised 3.1 percent, moving from about $480,000 in 2018 to $495,000 in 2019.

Looking at a wider window, the median purchase price has risen in the community by 16.4 percent since 2016 ($425,000), which in turn raised the median monthly rent price by about $401 in that same period of time; $1,874 in 2016 versus $2,275 in 2019, or about 21.3 percent.

“The challenge for Maricopa County moving forward is that we need more homes in that $250,000 range,” Wilcox said. “The problem is that the land is too expensive…Single family is the most desired but, when that’s not available, people start looking at their other options…Prices are up, but that’s what you get when you have people looking to buy and not enough inventory.”

For questions or additional information, Fletcher Wilcox can be reached at fwilcox@gcta.com or by phone at 602-648-1230.