MARKET · SEPTEMBER 21, 2026

Monday Market Update: Demand Fades in 15 of 18 Cities

Paradise Valley gave back 13% in a month and Fountain Hills 8%. The buyers thinned out, not the listings, and the 30 year fixed crossed 7% the week the Fed hiked for the first time since 2023.

The Signal

The high end stopped carrying the market this week. Paradise Valley, which read 207.8 two weeks ago and 196.1 last week, fell to 182.3, down 13% over the past month, and Fountain Hills dropped 8% to 169.5 after the two of them led the table all summer. Scottsdale is the exception, up 6% to 159.1 and now a little over ten points behind Fountain Hills. Across all eighteen cities the average index is down 4.6% from a month ago, the softest it has been since February and the fourth straight week the direction has worsened; on August 27 the same average was still rising 1.2%. The valley-wide Cromford Market Index, which measures the balance between supply and demand rather than prices, reads 78.4 against 80.5 a month ago and 81.7 a year ago.

What changed is demand, not supply. Measured against a month ago, buyer demand is weaker in fifteen of the eighteen cities and stronger in only two, Avondale and Scottsdale, while the supply side is close to flat everywhere but Tempe and Maricopa. In August the top of the table was tightening because listings were being pulled, not because buyers were showing up; this month the buyers themselves thinned out. Paradise Valley's demand reading is down 11% over the past month and Surprise's is down 10%. Three cities are moving in a seller-favorable direction, down from five last week, and the other fifteen are moving toward buyers, with Tempe at minus 14%, Paradise Valley at minus 13%, Maricopa at minus 12%, and Surprise at minus 11% posting the largest declines. The count of seven seller's markets, three balanced, and eight buyer's markets is unchanged from last week, though Avondale moved up a place past Glendale, and Mesa and Phoenix now sit level at 111.5. The least movement is at the bottom: Queen Creek is flat and Buckeye is down 1%.

The Numbers

Active listings excluding those under contract stand at 25,145, up 2.2% from a year ago and 6.4% from a month ago. Listings under contract fell to 7,007, down 5.7% from a year ago and 7.0% in a month, and pending listings dropped to 4,192, down 3.6%. Sales per month came in at 5,623, down 9.0%. Days on market for sales held at 87, level with both last month and last year. Months of supply excluding under contract rose to 4.5 from 4.0 a year ago and 3.9 a month ago.

The average sale price finished at $591,366, up 3.2%, while the median came in at $450,000, flat against $449,900 a year ago. The average sale price as a share of list improved to 97.48% from 97.25%. Monthly dollar volume was $3.33B, down 6.1%. Monthly appreciation per square foot ran at 3.0% against a negative 3.0% reading a year ago, a swing of 6.0 points, and up from 2.7% last month. The listing success rate rose to 66.7% from 65.7% a month ago, still short of last year's 69.2%. Across the eighteen cities tracked, seven are seller's markets, three are balanced, and eight favor buyers, the same split as last week; Avondale passed Glendale into eighth, and Mesa and Phoenix are tied at 111.5.

What This Means for the High End

Two things are true at once at the top of the market. Paradise Valley at 182.3 is still the tightest market in the metro by a wide margin, and it just gave back 12% in two weeks. The summer run to 207.8 was built on listings coming off the market rather than on more buyers, so it was always going to depend on what happened when the fall inventory arrived. It arrived, and the buyers did not come with it: Paradise Valley's demand reading is down 11% over the past month. A seller in Paradise Valley or North Scottsdale pricing off a July comp is pricing off a market that no longer exists. The comps that matter are the last thirty days, and the honest read is that a well-presented home is still selling near list, at 97.48% of asking valley-wide, into fewer buyers who have more to choose from.

The pipeline argues against panic. Listings under contract carry a median list price of $255.45 per square foot, up 0.8% from mid August and the first monthly gain since May, which is why closed prices look set to run roughly flat into mid October. The luxury segment's share of closings normally builds from October onward as the season turns, and that is the part of the calendar that favors the top of the table. The top is also the least rate sensitive segment in the valley. A buyer at $3 million is not deciding between 6.95% and 7.01%; a buyer at $450,000 is. So the read on Paradise Valley and Fountain Hills is a pause in a market with more choice, not a repricing, and the read on the middle is that this is where a 7% mortgage does its work first.

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What to Watch

The Fed did what the market expected on Wednesday and raised the funds rate a quarter point to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%, the first hike since 2023, on a unanimous vote after three members had pushed for one in July. The statement added that domestic spending has stayed resilient, the committee's median projection points to one more hike this year, and Chair Warsh said too many categories are still posting price increases above 3%. The two year Treasury closed the day at 4.74% and the ten year at 5.02%. Freddie Mac's survey, published the next day, put the 30 year fixed at 6.95%, up from 6.76% the week before and from 6.26% a year ago, and daily rate surveys had the 30 year at 7.01% by Monday. This week is light on data: flash PMIs Wednesday, new home sales Thursday, durable goods Friday, and the next inflation report not until September 30.

For Phoenix, the price data is holding up better than the demand data. For the month ending September 15, the median price per square foot on closed sales was $249.80, down 0.9% from a month earlier and now 0.8% below the same period last year after running 0.4% ahead in August. The median sale price itself held at $450,000. The more useful number sits in the pipeline: listings under contract carry a median list price of $255.45 per square foot, up 0.8% from mid August and the first time it has risen month over month since May, which points to closed prices roughly flat through the middle of October rather than falling further. Distress is the thing to keep an eye on. Normal sales make up 94.7% of listings under contract, against 97.4% a year ago; the rest is 1.5% bank owned and 3.8% pre-foreclosure, almost unchanged from last month, still low by any historical measure and still creeping. With the 30 year above 7%, the segment that just gave back its summer gains, Paradise Valley and Fountain Hills, is the least rate sensitive one in the valley, which says this pullback is buyers pausing rather than buyers priced out. The middle of the market is the most rate sensitive part of the valley, and it has no such cushion.

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Source: Cromford Associates LLC