Buyers Market Outside of Manhattan

I just returned from a short but much needed vacation to Fountain Hills, AZ.  First I want to say that this is the second time that my wife and I have been to the Phoenix/Scottsdale area in the past 3 years and the area is absolutely beautiful.  And everyone out there is so damn nice!  The friends that we were traveling with decided to try their hand at some skeet shooting with some of the locals and when my buddy Jules nearly shot his toe off, no one seemed to flinch, and even more frightening was that no one asked him to put the gun down (by the way, they tried to recruit his wife because she was such a crack shot!).

Anyway, this is a real estate blog and I have to mention that I was blown away at the amount of development that has taken place in Arizona since we last visited and the number of cranes that we observed while driving around town.  For those who are familiar with the Phoenix/Scottsdale area, you also know that there is an incredible amount of desert that remains undeveloped.  So when does this development boom stop?  According to the locals, it’s DONE!  Several people whom I spoke with indicated that the market has softened considerably and Cox Cablevision’s Real estate program was chock full of agents touting a "buyer’s market." 

I often feel like selling real estate in New York City is so different than the rest of the country for so many reasons.  Wall Street, co-ops, fewer speculative investors, a finite amount of land/development opportunities and more savvy consumers (maybe) are just some of the reasons that Manhattan seems "different."  That said, as I watched the Cox Real Estate show, I imagined how things may change for both real estate professionals and consumers if the bottom fell out of our market.  After a brief period of anxiety, I remembered all of my customers, friends, and colleagues who have been waiting on the sidelines for some sort of dip in real estate prices.  How long will they wait?  If a dip indeed presents itself, at which point will they "jump in?"  Does it matter when they "jump in?"  I don’t for one moment believe that New York City is immune to a real estate collapse, but in the near term, it doesn’t seem likely.  Should the market dip or "correct," it is likely that those sitting on the sidelines will serve to maintain demand.  Fewer "resale" sellers will serve to balance the increase in supply due to new developments and conversions.  An equation that seems unlikely to add up to major declines in prices.   Only time will tell.