Phoenix Home Prices Lag Behind as National Housing Market Trends Upward

The latest S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Index® offers a fresh look at the housing market, though the data lags real-time conditions. The newly released figures, covering February through April 2025, reflect transactions that typically closed around mid-March, making the data over three months old at the time of publication. Still, this national benchmark offers valuable insight into longer-term pricing trends and city-level performance across the U.S.

Of the 20 major cities tracked, 18 reported price increases over the month, while only Phoenix and Los Angeles showed declines. Several cities posted substantial gains, with Detroit, Boston, and New York leading the way, each with monthly increases above 1.2%. Nationally, the average monthly increase was +0.61%. Phoenix underperformed significantly, recording a slight -0.04% dip and slipping from 18th to 19th in the national ranking, narrowly beating only Los Angeles, which dropped -0.13%. LA’s weakness has been partly attributed to insurance fallout from devastating wildfires earlier in the year.

The year-over-year view paints a slightly better picture for Phoenix, which posted a +1.3% gain and moved up from 16th to 14th place among the 20 cities. However, this still lags behind the national average of +2.7% annual appreciation. Cities like New York (+8.0%), Chicago (+6.0%), and Detroit (+5.5%) are seeing much stronger growth. At the bottom of the list are Tampa, which fell by 2.1%, and Dallas, down by 0.2%, making them the only cities in negative territory year-over-year.

Overall, while much of the nation continues to see strong home price growth, Phoenix is struggling to keep pace. This underperformance may reflect local market pressures such as increased inventory, cooling demand, or affordability concerns. While Case-Shiller data has its limitations due to the reporting delay, it still signals Phoenix's relative weakness in a market that, broadly speaking, remains on an upward trajectory.

"Quality is not an act, it is a habit."
-Aristotle

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