The residential market across the whole valley, spanning inventory, price, and momentum from Surprise to Queen Creek, Anthem to Ahwatukee. Sourced from the Cromford Report and ARMLS.
21,617
Active Listings
+2.8% vs prior mo
67%
Success Rate
+0.0% vs prior mo
$291
Avg $/SqFt
−1.7% vs prior mo
Greater Phoenix · Maricopa County
September 2026
Table of Contents
What's Inside
Pages 1 – 9
01CoverGreater Phoenix Market Report · September 2026
14EndKW Sonoran Living · Office Locations & Contact
September 2026
Our Perspective
Signals Up. Sales Down.
Buyers started stirring earlier than usual this year, and it has not reached the closing table yet.
August closed with 5,606 residential sales across Greater Phoenix, down 13.0% from July and 5.6% below August 2025. The monthly drop reads steeper than it was, because August carried 21 working days against July's 22. Adjusted for the calendar, closings per working day were off about 9%. The annual comparison needs no such adjustment, since both Augusts held 21 working days. Maricopa County affidavits told the same story from a different angle, recording 5,417 total closings, down 7.8% on the year, split between 4,362 resales, off 4.5%, and 1,055 new homes, off 19.5%.
What makes August unusual is that the forward-looking half of the market moved the other way. Pending listings rose to 4,336, up 3.2% on the month and 4.5% on the year. Listings under contract climbed to 7,307, up 2.3% and 0.6% respectively, and the contract ratio firmed to 30.87. Every one of those gauges now sits above where it stood a year ago, while closed sales and the $3,317 million in monthly dollar volume sit below it. That is the mirror image of July, when the completed numbers read well and the leading measures were sliding. Days of inventory eased again to 126.0, from 127.1 a month ago and 133.4 a year ago.
Pricing kept softening. Average price per square foot came in at $291.53, down 1.9% on the month though still 3.8% above August 2025. The median sales price slipped 1.4% to $445,500 and its annual gain narrowed to 0.7% from 2.3% a month earlier. Sellers who closed collected 97.24% of list, essentially unchanged from July and from last year. In Maricopa County the overall median held at $470,000 for a second straight month, which is flat in nominal terms and cheaper in real ones. The new home median gave back July's jump, falling 4.3% to $512,000, while the resale median eased 0.5% to $450,000.
Builders had their first encouraging month of the year. New home closings rose 4.4% against July, a gain of more than 9% per working day once the shorter month is accounted for, and new construction recovered to 19.5% of the Maricopa market from 16.3%. That still leaves them well under the 22.3% they held a year ago, roughly an eighth of their share surrendered over twelve months. The longer view shows where the pressure actually sits. Measured in real dollars since August 2022, homes under 2,000 square feet have lost 16% to 17% of their value per square foot, while homes between 6,001 and 10,000 square feet have gained 15.6%.
The Cromford Market Index average slipped 0.2% over the month, its first negative reading after gains of 2.1%, 1.9% and 1.2% in the preceding weeks, and once again nearly all of the remaining strength came from the top of the market. Paradise Valley leads at 207.8, up 13%, with Fountain Hills at 193.4 and Scottsdale at 156.0. Moving the other way are Maricopa, down 9%, Glendale, down 8%, and Peoria and Phoenix, each down 6%. 10 of 18 monitored cities are trending toward sellers and 8 toward buyers, but the standing count now reads 8 seller's markets, 3 balanced and 7 buyer's, with Tempe crossing into that last group.
New listings totaled 7,637, up 3.4% from the 7,383 counted a month ago, as sellers who waited out the summer began coming back, and active supply followed with a 2.8% rise to 21,617. Set against the 21,545 active listings on hand a year ago, that is a market carrying essentially the same supply it did last September. Cromford's wider count of active listings excluding UCB and CCBS actually fell 1.6% over August to 23,674, and once the Sedona and Verde Valley listings that migrated into ARMLS last year are stripped out, their like for like read lands in the same place. Two different counts, one conclusion. Days of inventory eased to 126.0 from 127.1 a month ago and 133.4 a year ago. Fewer sellers walked away, too, with East Valley expirations and cancellations falling to 592 from 661 and the Northeast Valley dropping to 353 from 573. Supply is rebuilding into the fall off a base no larger than last year's, which keeps a correctly priced home competitive even as buyers take longer to commit.
September 2026
Market Intelligence
4 Facts You Need To Consider
01
For the first time this year the forward indicators and the completed ones have swapped places. Pending listings at 4,336 are 4.5% above a year ago, listings under contract at 7,307 are up 0.6%, and the contract ratio has firmed to 30.87. Closed sales and monthly dollar volume have both dropped below last August.
02
Distress is quietly building. Among listings under contract, 94.6% are normal, 1.5% are lender owned and 3.9% are pre-foreclosures. Twelve months ago normal listings made up 97.5% of that pool. The level is still low by historical standards, but the trend has reversed, and Cromford now calls it amber rather than green.
03
Builders posted their first real gain of 2026. New home closings rose 4.4% from July, better than 9% per working day once the shorter month is accounted for, lifting new construction to 19.5% of the Maricopa market from 16.3%. The new home median gave back July's jump, falling 4.3% to $512,000.
04
Size, not price band, explains who kept their value. Adjusted for inflation since August 2022, homes under 2,000 square feet are down 16% to 17% per square foot, while 4,001 to 6,000 square foot homes are up 1.8% and the 6,001 to 10,000 range is up 15.6%. Starter homes got materially cheaper in real terms.
What The Heck Is Going On
August is last month photographed in a mirror. In July the completed numbers looked healthy while every forward gauge was sliding. In August the completed numbers fell and the forward gauges recovered. Pending listings, listings under contract and the contract ratio all climbed back above where they stood a year ago, while closed sales at 5,606 came in 5.6% below last August and dollar volume at $3,317 million was off 1.4%. One caution belongs on every annual comparison right now. The Sedona and Verde Valley board joined ARMLS during 2025, and that migration still flatters the year over year figures by roughly half a point on listings and closer to a full point on closings.
Prices are soft rather than falling apart, and the measure you pick changes the story. Average price per square foot at $291.53 is down 1.9% on the month, yet Cromford's median price per square foot, which strips out the luxury distortion, landed at $252.12, a fall of only 1.1% and still 0.4% above the same month last year. Case-Shiller, working from sales that closed around mid May, put Phoenix 0.10% down on the month against a national average 0.37% higher, and 0.88% down on the year against a national gain of 1.52%. Phoenix slipped from sixteenth to seventeenth among the cities reported.
Financing is where the squeeze shows. The 30-year fixed sat at 6.89% on September 4, one basis point under its 52-week high of 6.91% and 44 basis points above a year ago, so nothing in the rate picture is helping the payment math. Underneath it, distress is inching up, with pre-foreclosures now 3.9% of listings under contract while the normal share has fallen from 97.5% to 94.6% in twelve months. The offsetting signal is that fewer sellers gave up. The listing success rate recovered from July's low of 59.6% to 64.7% in August, and the market is heading into fall with buyers moving earlier than the calendar usually allows.
September 2026
Property Movement
Under Contract
6,215
1mo −3.3%
1 Month Ago: 6,429 units
3mo −21.2%
3 Months Ago: 7,886 units
6mo −27.6%
6 Months Ago: 8,585 units
12mo −7.2%
12 Months Ago: 6,695 units
Sold Homes
5,053
1mo −13.3%
1 Month Ago: 5,826 units
3mo −27.2%
3 Months Ago: 6,943 units
6mo −7.3%
6 Months Ago: 5,450 units
12mo −6.4%
12 Months Ago: 5,399 units
Avg $/SqFt
$291
1mo −1.7%
1 Month Ago: $296.20/sqft
3mo −2.9%
3 Months Ago: $299.75/sqft
6mo −8.5%
6 Months Ago: $318.19/sqft
12mo +4.2%
12 Months Ago: $279.45/sqft
Listing Success Rate
67%
1mo +0.0%
1 Month Ago: 67% success rate
3mo −6.9%
3 Months Ago: 72% success rate
6mo −10.7%
6 Months Ago: 75% success rate
12mo +0.0%
12 Months Ago: 67% success rate
Market Snapshot Click to expand
Paste imgur image URLs into snapshotImages[ ] in the JSON config to activate gallery
September 2026
Seller Reality Check
Fewer Sellers Are Giving Up.
A home in the East Valley now takes 76 days to close, two days longer than in July, but the listings that actually went under contract got there six days faster, at 71 days against 77 a month ago. What really changed in August is who walked away. Expired and cancelled listings in the East Valley fell to 592 from 661, and the Northeast Valley dropped harder, to 353 from 573. Cromford's listing success rate recovered from July's low of 59.6% to 64.7%, and through the first six days of September it has been running near 70%. Sellers are finding buyers again. What they are not finding is room to test a price.
The evidence for that last point sits in the supply columns. Months of supply rose in every single East Valley price band in August, from 7.47 at the entry level to 5.40 above $1 million, because active listings climbed in all seven bands while sold counts fell in all seven. Average price per square foot settled at $291.10, and sold volume held nearly flat in only two places, between $600K and $800K and above $1 million. The concession picture is easing, with 56% of closings carrying a seller concession through September 7, down from the 59% August finished at, but a clear majority of sellers are still paying something to reach the table. Entering at the right number is what keeps that payment small.
The Northeast Valley tells the same story with a longer clock. Months of supply rose in all seven bands there as well, a closing now takes 100 days, and the cash share of sales fell to 32.76% from 35.32%, which means even the buyers who need no financing are moving more slowly. Above $2 million the months of supply reading jumped to 6.25 and the $5 to $10 million band sits at 15.80. Those are seller markets by Cromford's index and buyer markets by the calendar, so the pricing conversation at the top end is about how long an owner is willing to wait, not whether the demand exists.
September 2026
Hyper Focused Market
East Valley
Ahwatukee · Chandler · Chandler Heights · Gilbert · Tempe · Mesa · Apache Junction · Queen Creek · San Tan Valley
Cash: 32.76% ↓2.56% of Northeast Valley August Sales
353↓ 220 Northeast Valley Listings Expired or Cancelled in August
September 2026
Market Share Comparison
Keller Williams
Office
Active
Coming Soon
New Listings
Contracted
Closed
Mkt Share
MoM Chg
KW All Offices
975↑ 7
44↑ 8
354↓ 56
378↑ 31
466↓ 45
8.30%
+0.37%
KW Sonoran Living
97↓ 7
2↓ 3
46↓ 7
57↓ 3
74↓ 6
1.32%
+0.08%
Non-Conventional & Discount Brokerages
Brokerage
Active
Pending
Closed
Mkt Share
MoM Chg
Opendoor
186↑ 3
70↑ 5
59↓ 10
1.05%
-0.02%
Offerpad
56↑ 23
12↓ 4
17↑ 8
0.30%
+0.16%
Citiea
209↑ 13
51↓ 17
85↓ 7
1.51%
+0.08%
Redfin
130↑ 8
20↑ 7
105↓ 16
1.87%
-0.01%
Homie
5↓ 2
2↓ 1
3↑ 1
0.05%
+0.02%
Flat Fee / Other
138↑ 37
21↑ 12
18↓ 20
0.32%
-0.27%
KW Sonoran Living
Full-service representation, negotiation expertise, and market intelligence that flat-fee models cannot replicate. When months of supply rose in every East Valley price band last month, having the right advocate in your corner is not a line item: it is the outcome.
The Discount Broker Reality
Concessions are easing but they have not gone away. 56% of closings still included a seller concession through September 7, down from the 59% August finished at. When a majority of deals still move on the seller's dime, the agent you hire to protect your equity matters more than ever, and discount representation becomes a compounding cost rather than a savings.
September 2026
Economic Development
Capital Keeps Landing.
KTAR
Clark Pacific breaks ground on a 110-acre Coolidge plant
Clark Pacific broke ground September 3 on a 110-acre plant in Coolidge, phased through spring 2027, that will triple its capacity for prefabricated systems used in parking structures, data centers and advanced manufacturing. Thirty engineering and manufacturing jobs are already filled, with 70 more expected by year end, and the work reaches across Pinal and Maricopa counties.
AZ Big Media
Arizona Athletic Grounds lands a seven-year PepsiCo partnership
Arizona Athletic Grounds named PepsiCo its official soft drink partner in a seven-year, multimillion-dollar founding deal covering the full 275-acre Mesa campus. The complex drew nearly 3 million visitors in 2025 and 1.8 million so far this year, up 6%, and served as a 2026 World Cup base camp. Its CEO said the money keeps amenity pricing competitive.
ABC15
Waymo adds 55 square miles across Gilbert and Chandler
Waymo expanded its driverless service by 55 square miles on August 13, reaching Gilbert, more of Chandler and the San Tan Ranch area, and pushing its Valley footprint past 350 square miles. Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport pickup is coming next, joining Sky Harbor and Scottsdale Airpark. Inside the Chandler and Ahwatukee footprint that is a real connectivity gain.
September 2026
Interest Rates
6.89%
30-Year Fixed · As of September 4, 2026
52-Week Range: 5.99% to 6.91%
Year-Over-Year: +0.44%
Source: Mortgage News Daily
15-Year Fixed
6.49%
+0.68% YoY
30-Year FHA
6.44%
+0.41% YoY
30-Year VA
6.46%
+0.41% YoY
Market Context
The Federal Reserve's July 29 hold at 3.50% to 3.75% was its fifth in a row, and the hawkish guidance that came with it, that the committee would not hesitate to raise if inflation stayed elevated, has kept the bond market from pricing meaningful relief. With no meeting on the calendar in August, yields were left to drift on data alone, and they drifted higher. Mortgages went with them. At 6.89% on September 4 the 30-year fixed sits one basis point under its 52-week high of 6.91% and 44 basis points above where it stood a year ago, the widest that annual gap has been all year. The rest of the board moved the same way, with the 15-year at 6.49%, FHA at 6.44% and VA at 6.46%, each within a basis point or two of its own 52-week high. For a Greater Phoenix buyer in the core $350K to $550K range, the practical read is that the rate relief many waited out the summer for has not arrived, so the leverage worth chasing this fall is in price and concessions rather than in financing.
