A Strong Start to 2026 for the Greater Phoenix, Arizona Housing Market
- Brad Daniels
- Jan 12
- 6 min read
A Strong Start to 2026 for the Greater Phoenix, Arizona Housing Market. Affidavits of value for December have taken a little longer than usual to process, but the data for Maricopa County is now complete, and it provides a clearer picture of how the market closed out the year. Brad Daniels, Realtor® My Home Group
Closings: Up on Paper, Softer Beneath the Surface
December recorded 6,098 closed transactions, which is:
Up 5.0% year over year from 5,805 closings in December 2024
Up 16.8% month over month from November
At first glance, this appears encouraging. However, context matters. December 2025 had 22 working days, compared to 21 in December 2024 and just 18 in November. That gives December a built-in advantage—5% over last year and a sizable 22% over November.
When adjusted for working days, year-over-year growth in closings is essentially flat, and the month-over-month improvement falls short of our normal expectations.
New Homes vs. Resales: A Clear Divergence
The most notable shift remains between new construction and resale activity.
New home closings: 1,205
Down 13.2% year over year
Up 11.1% from November
Once adjusted for the working-day advantage, new home closings are down about 21% year over year, confirming that the recent period in which new homes consistently outperformed resales is now firmly behind us.
Resale closings: 4,893
Up 10.8% year over year
Up 18.3% from November
Adjusted for working days, resales were nearly 6% stronger than last December, though still slightly weaker than November on a per-day basis. Under current conditions, the resale market is holding up reasonably well.
Market Balance & Cromford® Market Index* (CMI)
The average CMI rose 8.1% over the past month, a solid gain but slightly weaker than the 9.7% increase reported last week, suggesting that seller momentum has softened over the past two weeks.
10 cities remain in a seller’s market
2 cities are balanced
6 cities are in a buyer’s market
This distribution is unchanged from last week.
Avondale has joined Paradise Valley in shifting toward buyers over the past month, while Gilbert, Phoenix, Glendale, Mesa, Peoria, Goodyear, Tempe, and Queen Creek posted the strongest recent moves in favor of sellers. Goodyear appears close to transitioning into a balanced market, while Paradise Valley may do the same from the opposite direction. Importantly, supply—not demand—is driving most of the index's movement. Demand remains weaker than normal across most price ranges and has shown little improvement over the past two weeks.
Pricing: Modest Gains, Still Lagging Inflation
Median prices moved slightly higher, but not enough to outpace inflation—consistent with a market that has leaned buyer-friendly for much of the past year.
Overall median price: $489,652
Up 1.4% year over year
Up 2.0% from November
New home median price: $539,087
Up 1.1% year over year
Up 1.8% from November
Resale median price: $470,000
Up 2.6% year over year
Up 2.2% from November
It’s also important to remember that new-home median prices reflect only top-line sales prices and do not account for builder concessions, which have been substantial. Builders continue to rely heavily on rate buy-downs and other incentives, making new home pricing appear stronger on paper than it often is in practice.
The Bottom Line
The resale market is performing reasonably well given current conditions.
The new home market has cooled significantly over the past few months.
Supply constraints are supporting prices, but demand remains below normal.
Price growth continues, but at a pace below inflation, reinforcing the broader buyer-leaning environment seen through most of the year.
We’ll be closely watching the first full week of January data to see whether any meaningful shift in direction is emerging, and will report back as trends develop.
All figures include only single-family homes and townhouse/condo properties within Maricopa County.
*Cromford Market Index™ is a value that provides a short-term forecast for the balance of the market. It is derived from the trends in pending, active, and sold listings compared with historical data over the previous four years. Values below 100 indicate a buyer's market, while values above 100 indicate a seller's market. A value of 100 indicates a balanced market.
A Big Week for Rates, Jobs, and Market Confidence
The biggest news of the week came on Thursday afternoon, when President Trump announced he had instructed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds. The market reacted quickly and positively to the news, to say the least, and we’ll be watching closely in the weeks ahead to see whether it lowers rates further. Let’s take a look at what else happened this past week.
A big drop in job openings
The JOLTs report for November showed that job openings fell to 7.15 million, well below expectations. Aside from September 2024 (when job openings briefly dipped to 7.10 million), this is the lowest figure we’ve seen since late 2020.
Slow job growth continues
According to ADP, private employers added 41,000 jobs in December 2025. While that was a turnaround from -29,000 in November, it’s still very low. Over the last 6 months, the average monthly job gain was just 22,000.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth in December fell short of expectations. Employers added 50,000 jobs, well below the 73,000 forecast. In addition, October and November payroll figures were revised lower by a combined 76,000 jobs. The unemployment rate did tick down slightly, from 4.5% to 4.4%.
Trump wants to keep big investors out of the SFH market
As with most of President Trump’s initial pronouncements, the plan was short on details. But his goal was clear: stop giant landlords like Invitation Homes from competing with real humans trying to buy their first home. However, there are several problems with this. First, large investors such as Invitation Homes and Cerberus own only 2–3% of single-family homes nationwide, so the impact would be limited in most markets. Second, how do you define a ‘large’ property investor? More than 1,000? More than 10?
Bond and Mortgage Market
Over the last few weeks, average 30-year mortgage rates fell below 6.25% and have remained there. The most recent jobs data (ADP, JOLTS) have been quite weak, but the BLS jobs report out on Friday, January 9, is always a wild card. In addition, the bond market has been rattled recently by Trump’s plan to significantly increase military spending in 2027. A lot more debt on the way?
Note: After the rate cut on Dec 10, the Fed Funds Rate policy range is now 3.50–3.75%. The probabilities below are sourced from the CME Group website and are implied by the Fed Funds Rate futures market.
January 28 FOMC Meeting: 88% probability that the Fed does nothing; only a 12% probability of a 25 bps rate cut.
March 18 FOMC Meeting: 41% probability that rates are 25 bps below current. That means a rate cut at either the January 28 (unlikely) or the March 18 (more likely) meeting, but not at both. 59% probability that the Fed Funds Rate target range is kept at 3.50–3.75%. In other words, no cut at either the January or March FOMC meetings.
Market in a Minute
Housing
Entry-level affordability is improving. Single-family homes under $700K are slightly cheaper than a year ago, and when combined with higher incomes and lower mortgage rates, they’re meaningfully more affordable than headlines suggest.
The resale market is holding steady; new homes are cooling. Resale closings are modestly higher year over year, while new-home sales are down sharply, signaling builders are losing momentum and leaning heavily on incentives.
Market balance varies by price and city. Most cities still favor sellers, but momentum has softened, demand remains below normal, and select areas, such as Avondale and Paradise Valley, are tilting toward buyers.
Economy
The labor market is clearly cooling. Job openings fell to 7.15 million (near the lowest level since 2020), and recent job growth came in well below expectations—signaling a slowing but still stable economy.
Slower growth is helping financial markets. Weaker jobs data has eased inflationary pressures and supported bond markets, reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve can remain patient rather than tighten further.
Policy headlines are influencing confidence. Announcements about mortgage bond purchases and potential limits on large investors are moving markets in the short term, though longer-term economic stability still hinges on inflation trends, government spending, and Fed decisions.
Weather
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