Regional Outlook April 2008, by Will C. White

The future is now in the land market in Pima County. The decisions and deals that get made over the next 3 years will shape and determine what happens for the next 20 years in Pima County. The activity in Tucson metro over the past 7 years was at a pace that I do not know will ever be duplicated again. There was almost $2 Billion worth of land that was traded since 2000. We have spent the last few months looking and evaluating what exactly has happened to the land market and why prices have fallen. The bottom line is that in 2005 there were approximately 598 deals done making up +/- $960,000,000 million of trading. In 2007 there were approximately 307 deals done making up +/- $500,000,000 million dollars of trading. The volume has dramatically fallen. We can almost be assured that this year will be proportionately less. The best days are in front of us as far as the land market is concerned and I genuinely feel that 2008 will show the bottom of the market in activity and pricing and that demand will pick back up towards the end of this year and into next year. This will stabilize prices and start to get real deals to happen again. More →