Realtor.com: Top housing market in ’17 will be Valley

CATHERINE REAGOR REAL ESTATE Drum roll please…. The top housing market in the U.S. in 2017 will be metro Phoenix, according to a new realtor.com forecast. It’s about time. The Valley’s steady growth in sales and price increases, tighter new home market and short supply of foreclosures make it one of the healthiest in the country.

Plus a wise housing analyst who tracks home sales and trends every day told me last year that 2017 would be the big year for the Phoenix-area housing market.

Realtor.com, a national real estate website, is predicting Valley home prices to climb 5.9 percent, and sales to jump by 7.2 percent next year.

That’s not the biggest projected price increase on its list of top 10 markets in 2017, but it’s the biggest sales increase.

It makes sense since one of the Valley’s top selling points for buyers is more affordable home prices, particularly in the West.

And that’s the intro for Los Angeles, which ranked No. 2 on the list with a predicted 6.9 percent rise in prices and 6 percent increase in sales.

Two other cities in the West, Sacramento and Riverside made the top five for housing market gains. All are pricier to buy a home in than the Valley.

There’s also good news for Phoenix’s southern neighbor Tucson. The real estate group ranks it as the ninth best housing market in 2017 with an expected 6.1 percent jump in prices and 5.5 percent gain in sales.

Rising interest rates

The rankings for Arizona housing markets comes with a bit of tempering. Interest rates are on the rise, and that always works against home sales.

Realtor.com reports that its forecast for sales in 2017 is lower for all areas as a result of higher rates. Nationally, it is predicting home sales will tick up 1.9 percent. That compares to a 3 percent forecasted increase for 2016.

That local housing expert I mentioned earlier, Tom Ruff of The In-