Although the real estate market in the Phoenix area has cooled off a bit with the onset of summer heat, a report issued by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University gives some pretty darned good news. Overall the market looks MUCH better than it did last year. June home values were up over 29% from the previous year, and inventory has dropped rather dramatically over the same time period.

As I’ve mentioned before, investors are driving a large portion of our recovery. The report from ASU indicated that over 38% of June home sales were completed without financing compared to a little over 8% in June 2007. Sellers generally prefer cash purchases as these sales usually have fewer contingencies and therefore close quicker.