MARKET · JULY 20, 2026

Monday Market Update: Paradise Valley Surges, Southeast Valley Slips

Paradise Valley vaulted past Chandler and Scottsdale into second place metro-wide while the Southeast Valley kept sliding. The market drifts gently toward buyers overall, with strength concentrating where the equity is.

The Signal

The average of the city market indices fell 1.3% from a month ago, matching last week's pace: a slow, steady drift toward buyers rather than a lurch. Supply has stabilized and is no longer falling, while demand keeps weakening gently, so the overall balance feels much like it did a month ago. Eleven cities are moving in a direction that favors buyers, one more than last week, against seven favoring sellers, and the mix is unchanged at eight seller's markets, four balanced, and six favoring buyers. The movers tell the real story. Paradise Valley improved the most for sellers, up 14% in a single week, with Cave Creek a distant second at 7%. In the other direction, San Tan Valley fell 12%, while Tempe and Chandler each dropped 9%. The Southeast Valley remains the weak spot in Greater Phoenix, while the Northeast and Northwest Valleys are holding up better.

The mid-month pricing update adds detail. Sales price per square foot for the month ending July 15 came in at $304.32, up 0.4% from mid-June, though below the forecast midpoint; the model got the direction right and the size wrong. The monthly median sits at $451,000, down from $457,500 last month but ahead of $445,990 a year ago. Looking forward, the average list price per square foot among pending listings fell 1.3% from mid-June, which points to closed prices dipping over the next month. That would be seasonally normal; third-quarter softness is the usual pattern, and the forecast midpoint for mid-August is $300.36. One honest caveat: among pending listings, 96.1% are normal sales, 1.7% are lender-owned, and 2.3% are pre-foreclosures. Distress remains low against the 25-year average, but the trend in pre-foreclosure activity and lender-owned listings is distinctly upward, and it is worth watching without alarm.

The Numbers

Active listings excluding under-contract sit at 24,171, down 2.7% from a year ago. Under contract counts moved to 7,419, up 2.3% year over year. Pending listings slipped to 4,297, down 0.4%, the first negative year-over-year reading in months. The Cromford Market Index eased to 80.5, down from 81.7 last month but up 10.6% from a year ago. Months of supply held at 3.9, level with a year ago after rising from 3.2 last month. Listing success rate dropped to 60.0% from 71.1% last month, a sharp seasonal slide worth watching. Sale-to-list ratio held at 97.29%. Average sale price came in at $619,330, up 6.7% YoY, while the median held at $450,000, up 1.1%. Monthly dollar volume reached $3.86B across the metro.

What This Means for the High End

Paradise Valley just did something it has not done all cycle: it vaulted past both Chandler and Scottsdale into the number two position metro-wide, landing at 147.0 after a 14% one-week jump. Scottsdale holds third at 143.2, up 5%, and Fountain Hills still leads at 173.5. Two weeks ago Chandler held second place; it has since fallen 9% in consecutive weeks and now sits fourth. The top of this market is no longer a mixed group. The three strongest cities in Greater Phoenix are now its three most affluent, and the gap below them is widening.

The weakness is just as concentrated. San Tan Valley, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, and Queen Creek, the Southeast Valley spine, account for most of the deterioration, while the Northeast and Northwest Valleys hold firm. For an owner in Arcadia, Biltmore, Paradise Valley, or North Scottsdale, the metro index easing to 80.5 is not the number that describes your market; the 14% Paradise Valley jump and Scottsdale's steady climb are. The same divergence shows in pricing, where the average sale price is up 6.7% year over year against a median up just 1.1%.

Three practical notes. First, the pricing model expects a normal third-quarter dip of about 1.3% into mid-August, with the outcome partly depending on how many ultra-luxury homes close escrow; a soft patch in the metro average is not a luxury-market signal. Second, pre-foreclosure and lender-owned activity is trending up from a very low base; it deserves honest tracking, and it is concentrated far from the equity-rich corridors. Third, the fall setup is unchanged: luxury supply stays seasonally thin until the late-September relist wave, so a well-prepared home listed ahead of that wave meets the least competition of the season. The market is not uniform, and this week it became less uniform. Position for your submarket, not the metro average.

What to Watch

The June CPI, released last Tuesday, was one of the largest downside misses on record. Prices fell 0.4% on the month, the biggest one-month drop since April 2020, pulling annual inflation down to 3.5% from 4.2%. Core was flat on the month, its weakest reading since 2020, and even shelter cooled to a 0.1% gain. The odds of a hike at the Fed's July 28 and 29 meeting collapsed from roughly 42% to under 20% in a single session, and markets now put about an 85% probability on a hold.

The relief comes with an asterisk. The Iran ceasefire has broken down, oil is back above $80, and traders still price roughly 60% odds of a hike by September. Gasoline falling nearly 10% did much of June's work, and that tailwind has already partly reversed. The 10-year Treasury sits near 4.58% and the weekly 30-year average is holding near 6.5%. The Fed decision lands July 29; that outcome, plus the path of oil through August, will decide whether the summer's rate ceiling finally cracks or holds.