1/6 Guessing Game
Inventory Lowers As Demands Increases, Lowest Under Contract Listings Ever Recorded, Stocks Struggle Starting The New Year
This newsletter is 699 words and should take about 5 minutes to read.
Read last week’s newsletter here → "12/30 That's A Wrap"
Fed minutes suggest rate hikes are over. Zuck has sold half a billion in Meta stock in the last two months. Bitcoin closed the year with a 164% gain. Disney lost copyright protection of the original Mickey Mouse. Actor Shia LaBeouf announced he plans to become a Catholic Deacon. Soon you will be able to use a reusable Starbucks cup at stores (as if the lines weren’t bad enough). And to piggyback on that, there are lines of people waiting for a Starbucks Stanley Cup (not the NHL trophy, a dang water bottle).
tl;dr
The Phoenix market is beginning to slowly lose inventory while demand increases leading to a more competitive market.
The average mortgage rate is 6.75%
“Financial” guru and author Robert Kiyosaki announced he is 1.2$B in debt
After 2 years of releasing a newsletter once a week, there will soon be changes. Things like a name change, video content, and a few more things will be included. Hopefully should be rolling things out by the end of the month. Excited to share it all with you!
Phoenix
The market is beginning to heat up again. This is partly because the count of active listings declined during December (as expected) and partly because there is a slight increase in demand. This increase in demand is muted however. We did see a small upward move in the closing rate over the last 3 weeks but there has also been a large fall in the number of listings under contract. This is because the closings have taking a big chunk out of the pipeline that has not been replaced by new contract signings.
We are starting 2024 with one of the lowest counts of listings under contract we have ever recorded for the start of any year (5,127). We measured 5,456 last year and 9,393 in 2022. We have to go back all the way to the dark days of 2008 to find a lower count (3,468). 2007 was also very bad, but at 5,197 it just beats the 2024 reading.
The very mild optimism that was the order of the day in December is starting to look well-justified. We recommend mild to moderate optimism for the month of January, at least as far as market balance is concerned. Transaction volumes remain subdued but are more likely to recover if the market balance stays favorable to sellers.
The Cromford Market Index is a gauge of Phoenix’s Supply and demand metrics. 100 is considered a balanced market. Anything higher than the 100-point benchmark is considered a seller’s market. Anything below 100 is considered a buyer’s market.
As of January 5th, 2024, the CMI has increased to 110.03. Up 2.6 points from 7 days ago.
Supply has decreased by 1.1 points and demand has increased by 6 basis points
Rates
7-Day rate change: +8 basis points
YoY change: +25 basis points
Average interest rate: 6.75%
Rich dad, poor dad, & $1.2 Billion in debt dad
One of the best-selling personal finance authors and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki, admits that he has more than $1 billion in debt and he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. That’s because his debt has been used to purchase assets, he said in the video. He compared that with using debt to purchase liabilities, such as his Ferrari or Rolls-Royce vehicles — expenses he’s paid off in full, he said.
He then mentioned something along the lines of if he goes bust the bank goes bust.
To be honest, I did not have Robert in over 9 figures of debt on my 2024 bingo card. And I get it, leveraging money is a scheme to get wealthy. But my gosh, $1.2B is A LOT.
S&p500 weekly vibe check
US stocks mostly fell, as the Nasdaq fell for a consecutive fifth session
The Nasdaq fell 0.56%, while the Dow closed up 0.03%
Meme, tweet, & fact of the week
There are only two doubly-landlocked countries in the world, meaning they are landlocked country surrounded on all sides by landlocked countries. They are Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan.