MARKET · JUNE 22, 2026

Monday Market Update: Luxury Up 17%, Entry-Level Down 7%

The 3.5-year price trend depends entirely on tier. Homes over $3M are up 17% per square foot since 2023 while sub-$500K homes are down 7%. This is four markets, not one.

The Signal

There is no single Phoenix price trend right now. There are four, and they could hardly be more different. Looking at the twelve-month moving average of price per square foot since January 2023, homes under $500,000 are down about 7%. The $500,000 to $1,000,000 band is down a slight 1.5%. From $1,000,000 to $3,000,000, values are up roughly 4%. And above $3,000,000, they are up about 17%. The further up the price ladder you go, the better the last three and a half years have treated owners.

That split showed up again this week. The unweighted average of the city indices rose 1.0%, an improvement on last week's 0.5% and the second straight week tilting toward sellers. Paradise Valley, Fountain Hills, and Scottsdale led the seller-side moves, with Fountain Hills up 15% and Paradise Valley up 17% in a single week. Tempe led the other way. But the whole-market index sat essentially flat at 81.5, because that volume-weighted figure is dominated by the softer middle where most sales happen, while the city average is pulled up by a handful of surging luxury submarkets. Part of the high-end strength is also seasonal: expensive-area inventory gets pulled off the market for summer, which tightens supply and lifts the index.

The Numbers

Active listings excluding under-contract sit at 25,032, down 4.6% from a year ago. Under contract counts moved to 8,460, up 6.8% year over year. Pending listings hit 4,871, up 2.9%. The Cromford Market Index sat at 81.5, down from 82.1 last month but up 13.0% from a year ago. Months of supply rose to 3.5 from 3.3 last month, still below the 3.8 of a year ago. Listing success rate fell to 68.8% from 73.1% last month. Average sale price jumped to $631,619, up 6.5% YoY, while the median rose only to $457,000, up 1.6%. That widening gap between average and median is the same segmentation showing up in the aggregate. Monthly dollar volume reached $4.48B across the metro.

What This Means for the High End

When someone says "the Phoenix market is up" or "the Phoenix market is down," the honest answer is to ask which market. A sub-$500,000 condo and a $3,000,000 estate have been on opposite trajectories for three and a half years. The entry level has given back ground while the top has compounded. For an owner in Arcadia, Biltmore, Paradise Valley, or North Scottsdale, the data says the segment your home sits in has been the strongest part of the metro, not the weakest, and that strength is widening rather than fading.

The mechanics behind it are worth understanding because they affect how you should price and time a move. High-end demand is driven more by equity and the stock market than by mortgage rates, so when financing costs climb, the luxury tier feels far less of it than the financed middle. That is why Fountain Hills, Paradise Valley, and Scottsdale all posted double-digit weekly index gains while the rate-sensitive suburbs softened. A meaningful piece of the recent high-end strength is also seasonal, as sellers pull expensive listings off the market for the summer and tighten supply. Both forces favor a prepared seller at the top, and both argue against reading a single metro-wide headline number as if it described your specific home.

There is a practical takeaway for high-equity owners weighing a sale or a renovation. In a segmented market, the spread between an average property and a sharply presented one widens, because buyers at the top are paying for finish and condition, not just square footage. Targeted improvements that move a home from average to exceptional tend to return more in exactly this kind of market. If you are thinking about a move in the next year, the question is less about timing the metro and more about positioning your specific home in its specific tier.

What to Watch

The Fed held rates on June 17, Kevin Warsh's first meeting as chair, but the message turned hawkish. Nine of the eighteen committee members now project at least one rate hike before year-end, and the Fed stripped the rate-cut language out of its statement entirely. The pivot follows May CPI at 4.2%, the hottest reading since 2023, driven largely by Iran-related oil. A 2026 rate cut is essentially off the table; the live question now is whether the next move is up.

Mortgage rates show the whiplash. The Freddie Mac weekly survey sits near 6.48%, but daily quotes jumped after the hawkish dot plot, with some readings back near 6.9% by the weekend. For Phoenix, this is the rate backdrop that keeps the financed middle of the market under pressure while the equity-and-cash luxury tier pulls away. The price segmentation in this week's data is the direct result of that gap.