Taylor Tucker
Taylor Tucker is the Real Estate Editor for Arizona Ascent and a licensed Realtor with Keller Williams Sonoran Living. She helps buyers and sellers cut through the noise, understand the real story behind the Phoenix market, and make moves with confidence.
With a background in forensic psychology and Special Investigations at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Taylor reads patterns, analyzes data, and guides clients to smart, strategic decisions. Ready to make your next move? Contact Taylor today and turn market insight into action.
The chaos is gone. Here’s what that means for buyers and sellers right now.
By Taylor Tucker, Real Estate Editor, Licensed Realtor
The question I get more than any other right now at open houses, at dinner parties, and is some version of the same thing: “So, is the market bad?” And honestly, I get why people are asking. Rates are higher than they were. Some neighborhoods have softened. The frenzy of 2021 feels like a different era entirely.
But here’s what I actually see when I look at the data every week: homes are selling. Buyers are active. And the market, far from being broken, has done something I wasn’t sure I’d see this quickly: it’s found its footing again. It just looks different than it did before, and that’s tripping people up.
What Actually Changed
During the frenzy years, the market had one setting: chaos. Buyers were waiving inspections. Sellers were fielding fifteen offers in a weekend. Homes were closing tens of thousands over ask on properties that hadn’t been updated in years. It was thrilling if you were selling and genuinely exhausting if you were trying to buy.
That version of the market is gone. What replaced it isn’t a crash — it’s a correction back toward something normal. We have 29,889 active listings right now and about 3.5 months of supply.
That’s more inventory than buyers had two years ago, but nowhere near the kind of oversupply that signals real trouble. What it signals is balance. And balance, honestly, is something Phoenix hasn’t seen in a long time.
The City You’re In Matters More Than Ever
Here’s something worth sitting with: Chandler and Buckeye are both Greater Phoenix. Both part of what people loosely call “the Phoenix market.” And right now, they could not be more different.
Chandler is sitting at a Cromford Market Index of 154.5. A strong seller’s market. Fountain Hills is at 146.4. Tempe just hit 128.5, up 12% in a single month. Meanwhile, Buckeye is at 53.1 and Maricopa is at 57.9. Those are buyer’s markets, where you can negotiate, ask for concessions, and actually take your time making a decision.
Two areas, thirty miles apart, playing by completely different rules. Which is why when someone asks me “is it a good time to buy or sell,” I always come back with the same question: where? you can negotiate, ask for concessions, and actually take your time making a decision.
Two areas, thirty miles apart, playing by completely different rules. Which is why when someone asks me “is it a good time to buy or sell,” I always come back with the same question: where?
Why Some Homes Sell & Others Just Sit
The listing success rate right now is 75%. That sounds solid and it is; but it also means one in four homes listed is not selling. What I keep seeing is homes that hit the market at a price that made sense two years ago, get a handful of showings in the first two weeks, and then just drift.
The price eventually drops, the days on market climb, and the seller ends up closing at a number they could have gotten right away with a sharper strategy from day one. Buyers right now are not being difficult. They’ve done their homework; and are tracking comparables.
They are watching what’s sitting versus what’s moving. Buyers know within a few minutes of looking at a listing whether it’s priced honestly or not.They have real options. 29,889 of them; and they don’t feel pressure to talk themselves into something that doesn’t feel right.
The homes that are moving quickly are the ones where sellers came in with a clear-eyed read of where the market actually is today. Not where it was. Not where they hoped it would be. Where it is.
Negotiations Are Back, And That’s A Good Thing
Something I genuinely didn’t expect to see return this soon: buyers asking for things. Closing cost help. Rate buydowns. Repair credits. These conversations are happening again, even in some of the stronger submarkets, when sellers want to keep a deal moving forward.
For buyers, that shift matters. It’s not the anything-goes environment of 2020 and 2021, but you have room to ask. You have room to negotiate. That alone changes the math on transactions that might not have worked eighteen months ago; and it makes a real difference for buyers who felt completely shut out during the peak.
What I want people to walk away understanding is this: the Phoenix market isn’t crashing, and it isn’t frozen. It’s just asking more of everyone involved. More strategy. More patience. More honesty about where things actually stand.
The sellers who come in priced right and presented well are still getting their homes sold. The buyers who do their research and show up prepared are finding real opportunity. More than they’ve had in years. That’s not a broken market. That’s a grown-up one. I’ll take that over chaos any day.
