MARKET · JULY 13, 2026

Monday Market Update: What the Housing Act Left Out

A bipartisan housing act became law on July 11. For the market, the omissions matter more than the provisions: no forced institutional selloff, no build-to-rent ban, and a supply effect that will be gradual at most.

The Signal

A federal housing act crossed the finish line this week. After significant amendments, both chambers agreed on final language with support from Republicans and Democrats, and the act became law on July 11 without the President's signature. For anyone following the housing market, what was left out is more significant than what stayed in. The final version contains no ban on build-to-rent development, no requirement for institutional investors to sell their existing homes, no ban on institutions buying new builds, no forced sale of build-to-rent properties after seven years, and no prohibition on institutions trading with each other. Institutions may still buy homes to renovate and rent in some circumstances, and may buy resale homes where they operate rent-to-own programs for residents. Each of those is a walk-back from at least one earlier draft of the legislation.

The practical read for Arizona is simple. Institutions stopped buying resale homes here long ago, so the resale restrictions, loopholes and all, change almost nothing in this market. The bullet dodged is the bigger story. As originally proposed, the act could have forced institutional investors to dispose of their holdings on a short timeline. A forced liquidation like that would have landed much like a fresh wave of foreclosures, pushing excess inventory into the lower end of the market all at once. That scenario is now off the table. What remains is mostly encouragement for planning and building more housing at the affordable end, which is a slow and steady process. Expect the supply effect to be gradual and gentle, not a step change.

The Numbers

Active listings excluding under-contract sit at 24,399, down 3.2% from a year ago. Under contract counts moved to 7,560, up 5.1% year over year. Pending listings hit 4,344, up 2.8%. The Cromford Market Index eased to 80.7, down from 81.7 last month but up 11.6% from a year ago. Months of supply rose to 3.9 from 3.2 last month, exactly level with a year ago. Listing success rate slipped to 66.4% from 71.7% last month as the seasonal trough deepens. Sale-to-list ratio firmed to 97.29%, its third straight improvement. Average sale price climbed to $628,819, up 8.4% YoY, while the median held at $450,000, up 1.1%; that spread is the price segmentation still widening. Monthly dollar volume reached $3.96B across the metro.

What This Means for the High End

The forced-liquidation scenario that died in committee was never a luxury-market provision, but it was a luxury-market risk. Institutional holdings sit overwhelmingly at the entry level, and a mandated selloff on a short clock would have dropped foreclosure-style inventory onto the bottom rungs of the ladder. Falling comparable values at the bottom eventually tug on move-up pricing and on sentiment all the way up the chain; it is the same mechanism we walked through during the FHA delinquency scare in June. With that scenario off the table, the largest policy-driven downside risk to Phoenix pricing this year quietly disappeared, and the equity ladder that protects high-end values stays intact.

Meanwhile the weekly indices delivered a changing of the guard: Scottsdale rose 8% and passed Chandler for the number two spot in the metro, while Chandler fell 9%. Paradise Valley also climbed 8%, and Fountain Hills holds first place at 176.3. The rate-sensitive middle kept sliding, with Gilbert and Avondale each down 7% and Tempe down another 11%. Layer on the price data, where the average sale price is up 8.4% year over year against a median up just 1.1%, and the picture is unchanged: strength keeps concentrating in the equity-driven submarkets while the financed middle absorbs the pressure.

The practical read for a high-equity owner is that Washington just confirmed the status quo. Supply-side help for the affordable end will arrive slowly, over years, and nothing in the act touches how the top of the market functions. That keeps the decision framework local and specific: your tier, your submarket, your home's condition and presentation. With luxury inventory seasonally thin until the late-September relist wave, the act removing tail risk simply firms up the backdrop for anyone positioning a well-prepared home this fall.

What to Watch

This is a heavy data week. The June CPI reading lands Tuesday morning, PPI follows Wednesday, and roughly a dozen Fed officials speak in between, all ahead of the Fed's July 28 and 29 meeting. CPI is the number that matters most: a cool print gives rates room to ease, while a hot one, especially with oil creeping back up, would push the 10-year Treasury higher and mortgage pricing with it. After last month's soft jobs report, markets still lean toward a hold at the late-July meeting.

Rates start the week firm rather than falling. Freddie Mac's weekly 30-year average sits at 6.49%, daily quotes are running in the low to mid 6.5s, and the 10-year Treasury has climbed back toward 4.59%. For Phoenix, the policy story and the rate story now point the same direction: the new housing act changes supply only slowly, and financing costs are holding rather than helping. The market's near-term path runs through Tuesday's inflation number, not through Washington's housing bill.