KW Sonoran Living  ·  Agent Edition

The headline numbers are telling two different stories at once, and knowing which one applies to you is what matters most right now.

At the top of the market, Greater Phoenix is on pace to shatter records. Twenty-one homes priced above $10 million have already closed in the first ten weeks of 2026 — more than the entire year of 2022. Dollar volume at that tier has exploded from $77 million to $283 million over the same period a year ago. That activity is real, but it belongs to a handful of zip codes in the Northeast Valley and it is pulling the average price for the whole metro upward in a way that flatters the headline without reflecting what most buyers and sellers are actually experiencing.

Strip out the ultra-luxury layer and the picture looks different. Every price band between $300K and $1.5M posted negative year-over-year appreciation in February. The $500K–$800K range saw closed sales fall over 12% compared to a year ago. New listings are down 8.9%, which tells you sellers are sitting on the sidelines. Yet under-contract counts are running 4.3% ahead of 2025, and new contracts in the spring pipeline are tracking 3.1% above last year. Demand is quietly building while supply stays tight.

Thirteen cities are still seller's markets. Chandler leads the valley at 149.4 on the Cromford Market Index. The geography of who's winning and who's waiting has never been more defined.

The market is bifurcating, and the split runs along two fault lines: price point and geography.

On price point: ultra-luxury is on a historic run while the $300K–$800K range is contracting in both volume and value. The average $/SF for all of Greater Phoenix is up 1.1% year-over-year because a few dozen $10M+ closings are doing heavy lifting the rest of the market isn't matching. The median price — which luxury cannot distort as easily — is down 1.1%.

On geography: the Northeast Valley is in a different market than virtually everywhere else. Paradise Valley's CMI jumped 13% in a single month. Chandler, Gilbert, and Fountain Hills all hold above 130. Meanwhile Goodyear sits at 70.3, Buckeye at 51.2. Same metro, entirely different reality.

Thirteen cities across Greater Phoenix still favor sellers, with Chandler holding the top position at 149.4. But the directional trend is down across most of the valley, and every price segment under $2M posted negative year-over-year appreciation in February. The spring demand wave is building — under-contract counts are running 4.3% ahead of last year. That window has a close date.

Nearly one in two February closings included seller concessions — paid by sellers who priced behind the market and negotiated down to a number they could have listed at from day one. The Listing Success Rate climbed to 74%, its highest since last spring. Buyers are returning. The sellers who capture this demand will be the ones who respected the data first.