MARKET · OCTOBER 5, 2026

Monday Market Update: Scottsdale Takes First as All 18 Cities Fall

Every one of the eighteen cities in the table is weaker than it was a month ago. Scottsdale took the top spot by losing the least, Paradise Valley and Fountain Hills each gave back 30%, and the 30 year fixed reached 7.28% in a week when the economic data argued for lower rates. Also this week: what the county recorder's September closings say about prices in real dollars.

The Signal

Scottsdale is the tightest market in the metro this week, and it got there by standing still. It reads 154.0 on the Cromford Market Index, down 1% over the past month, while Paradise Valley fell 30% to 146.2 and Fountain Hills fell 30% to 136.1, the two largest moves in the table. Four weeks ago Paradise Valley read 207.8 and Fountain Hills 193.4; both have given back roughly 30% since, and Scottsdale over the same stretch moved from 156.0 to 154.0. Every one of the eighteen cities is weaker than it was a month ago, the first time in this stretch that not a single city improved, with Tempe at minus 20%, Maricopa at minus 17%, Surprise at minus 15%, and Mesa at minus 12% behind the two luxury towns. The count holds at five seller's markets, five balanced, and eight buyer's markets, though Glendale at 100.8 now sits less than a point above the line. The valley-wide index, which measures the balance between supply and demand rather than prices, reads 74.9, its fifth straight weekly decline, from 80.1 five weeks ago, against 80.2 a month ago and 80.4 a year ago.

September's monthly numbers explain the table. The three leading indicators that had climbed back above year-ago levels at the start of September all gave way: pending listings fell 10.9% during the month to 3,864 and listings under contract fell 10.2% to 6,565, leaving them 9.6% and 11.2% below a year ago, the sharpest September decline in contracts since 2022 after gains in each of the two prior Septembers. Supply moved the other way, up 8.3% in the month to 25,647 active listings excluding those under contract, more than twice the 3.8% September rise of a year ago, and the ratio of contracts to supply dropped from 30.9 to 25.6. Closings looked better, up 4.5% to 5,868, but those were July and August contracts closing, and they still ran 4.8% below September 2025. Cancellations of signed contracts are also running at a three year high, which tracks the mortgage: the 30 year fixed went from 6.75% in late August to the mid 7s, about $200 a month added to the payment on a $450,000 home with 20% down, a payment that is up 8.5% in five weeks. Prices held anyway. The average price per square foot rose 0.8% to $293.61, the median sale price rose 1.0% to $450,000, level with a year ago, and sellers took 97.36% of list, the same as last September.

The Numbers

Active listings excluding those under contract stand at 26,127, up 4.3% from a year ago and 8.1% from a month ago, a gain of nearly 2,000 homes. Listings under contract fell to 6,174, down 9.8% from a year ago and 11.6% in a month, and pending listings dropped to 3,598, down 9.0%. Sales per month came in at 5,360, down 13.8%. Days on market for sales eased to 84 from 88 a month ago and 85 a year ago. Months of supply excluding under contract jumped to 4.9 from 4.0 a year ago and 3.9 a month ago.

The average sale price finished at $605,210, up 2.8%, while the median came in at $450,000, down 1.1% from $454,900 a year ago. The average sale price as a share of list was 97.35%, level with last year's 97.33%. Monthly dollar volume was $3.24B, down 11.4%. Monthly appreciation per square foot ran at 3.1% against 0.4% a year ago, a gain of 2.7 points, and up from 2.8% last month. The listing success rate held at 67.2%, unchanged from a month ago and below last year's 69.7%. Across the eighteen cities tracked, five are seller's markets, five are balanced, and eight favor buyers; Glendale at 100.8 is the one closest to crossing into buyer's territory.

What This Means for the High End

First place in this table means something different in October than it meant in July. Scottsdale leads at 154.0 because it lost 1% while everyone else lost more, not because buyers showed up in greater numbers. That still matters for a seller in North Scottsdale: the buyers who were in that market a month ago are, by this measure, still there, and a finished home priced to the last thirty days still meets more buyers than competing listings. Paradise Valley at 146.2 and Fountain Hills at 136.1 are a different situation. Both remain seller's markets on paper, and both have given back 30% in a month, which means a list price set off an August closing is pricing a market that no longer exists. The two have swung more than any other cities in the table since Labor Day, and a seller there should expect the next comp to be set by the buyer in front of them, not by the summer.

The number that should change how both sides behave is the cancellation rate. More signed contracts are coming apart than at any point in the last three years, and the reason sits in the mortgage: a buyer who was approved at 6.75% in late August is looking at a payment 8.5% higher today, so more deals are dying at the financing stage, and more are dying at inspection as buyers look for a reason to walk. For a seller, that argues for taking the inspection away as an exit: a pre-listing inspection, repairs done before the photos, and a hard look at the buyer's lender and lock before accepting. It also argues for keeping the back-up offer warm. For a buyer, especially in the segment over $1M, a failed contract puts a house back on the market with a seller who has already moved once on price, and the second negotiation tends to go better than the first.

That is also the practical case for finishing the work before the listing goes live. When more contracts fail at inspection, the house with nothing left to find has fewer places to fail, and when buyers have more choice than at any point this year, the finished house is the one that gets the showing. Every buyer and seller who works with me gets My Exclusive Renovation Offer: I cover the labor for the renovations, and materials are the client's responsibility. For a seller it means the kitchen, the flooring, or the paint is done before the photos instead of being negotiated away at the inspection table. For a buyer it means the dated house on the right street becomes the one nobody else is competing for. Sellers walk out with more money. Buyers walk in with more equity.

What to Watch

The data went soft and the bond market did not care. August PCE landed Wednesday with headline inflation at 3.4% and core at 3.0%, both below the 3.7% and 3.3% forecast, helped by a methodology revision that trimmed about three tenths off core. The September jobs report landed Friday at 29,000 new jobs against roughly 90,000 expected, with unemployment up to 4.2%, July and August revised down a combined 60,000, and wages up 3.0% over the year. Odds of a second Fed hike at the October 28 meeting fell to about one in three. Mortgage rates rose anyway: Freddie Mac's survey hit 7.28% on Thursday, up from 7.03% the week before and 6.34% a year ago, daily surveys finished the week between 7.4% and 7.6%, and the ten year Treasury closed Friday at 5.28%, a basis point under its one year high, with the spread between mortgages and Treasuries out to about 210 basis points. The next read is CPI on October 14, then the Fed on the 28th.

Closer to home, the county recorder's September numbers put a real-dollar frame on the price data. Maricopa County closed 5,628 sales in September, 5.1% fewer than a year ago, with new homes down 15.6% and resales down 2.2%. The overall median was $475,000, up 1.1% from August but 2.8% below last September, and the resale median was $455,000, down 3.2%; with consumer prices running about 3.4% higher than a year ago, both are down roughly 6% in real terms. New homes took 19.7% of the county's closings, the highest share this year but still below the 22.1% of a year ago. One calendar note for the next report: October has 21 working days against 22 last October, so the year-over-year closing count will start about 4.5% behind before the market has said anything. For the two months ahead, the September contract numbers point to fewer closings than a year ago in October and November and more negotiating room for buyers, with the luxury segment's growing share of the mix the main thing holding up the average price per square foot.

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Source: Cromford Associates LLC