Cromford Market Update - What’s Happening in Phoenix Real Estate?
The Cromford Market Index is a reliable way to track short-term real estate trends in Greater Phoenix. It measures the balance between supply and demand, which makes it one of the clearest indicators of whether current conditions lean toward buyers or sellers. When the Index rises, sellers gain leverage. When it falls, buyers see leverage.
The trend over the last week has again been favorable to sellers, with demand rising and supply falling sharply. This has resulted in green circles outnumbering red circles by 13 to 5. The average change in CMI over the last month is +3.6%, up from 1.3% last week.
Leading the charge for sellers are Fountain Hills and Chandler at the top of the table like last week, but Queen Creek and Tempe also also moving up by 10% or more. Paradise Valley is the leading city improving for buyers with its CMI down 17% in the last month. Avondale is down 7% but all others in that group favoring buyers declined by 2% or less. It is particularly encouraging to see the bottom 3 cities all moving substantially in favor of sellers.
We now have 7 cities in the seller's market, 4 balanced and 7 in buyer's markets.
Cromford® Market Index values for the single-family markets in the 18 largest cities. Date: 11/27/25
What’s driving the shift? Demand is strengthening in the lower price ranges, while recent softness in cryptocurrency and the stock market may be cooling activity at the top end of the market. Both Paradise Valley and Scottsdale are trending slightly toward buyers, though Scottsdale’s shift is minimal. Notably, Fountain Hills is bucking the luxury trend - its market remains strong due to steady demand from out-of-state purchasers and second-home buyers.
After a slower year for sellers, the last two months have shown meaningful improvement. The short-term outlook?
More of the same through the end of the year.
CMI decode:
Green up arrow = month-over-month improvement for sellers, meaning the Cromford Index is above 110
Red down arrow = month-over-month improvement for buyers, meaning the Index is below 90
90–110 = balanced
≥110 = sellers market
≤90 = buyers market
