April 10 Real Estate Update

Here is our latest table of Cromford® Market Index values for the single-family markets in the 17 largest cities

(A Cromford Market Index score below 80 indicates a Buyer's Market, 80-120 represents a Balanced Market, and over 120 is a Seller's Market)

The market continues to improve for sellers with the average CMI up 9.7% over the last month. The improvement has started accelerating again, having been 9.0% last week.

Only one city, Paradise Valley, saw a decline in its CMI over the past month, but Paradise Valley has also started to improve for sellers over the past 2 weeks, with a significant and sudden rise in demand.

The positive trend is more widespread now, but not quite so intense, with only Gilbert showing a monthly CMI increase of 20% or more. However the pace of improvement is still impressive given the affordability constraints we are facing. Chandler, Maricopa, Goodyear, Peoria, Glendale, Phoenix, Mesa, Surprise and Scottsdale have all risen by 12% or more over the past month.

We have 14 cities that are seller's market, 0 balanced and 3 buyer's markets.

It is clear that, in contrast to the COVID years, more remote locations are easier to buy than more central ones. Competition among buyers is getting stiff in the most affordable central locations and supply is quickly dropping to extremely low levels. Examples include El Mirage, Tolleson,

Upward pressure on pricing is starting to build. Bargains are getting harder to find and are mostly confined to the outer areas such as Casa Grande, Buckeye and San Tan Valley.

The general public appears to underestimate how quickly the housing market is recovering from the brief correction of 2022. Buyers need to come to terms with this or they will be left in the dust