I talk to a lot of people and 2024 was not the best year for most of them. In fact, it seems most people didn’t like it much at all! So, here’s to a much better year in 2025!
I like to look at the year over year stats and for the past 30 days vs a year ago and the overall average price in the MLS is up over 7%. The 85383 zip code didn’t do as well and ended the year with pretty much the same average sales price that we started with from $772,437 to $768,328. We are definitely looking forward to a better year here in our area!
We did have the National Association of Realtors (NAR) list Phoenix as one of the Top 10 Housing Spots for 2025. It was the only city listed in the Western United States! This is good news if you are a homeowner as the values are likely to increase with more demand but you will have to live with more and more traffic (kind of like when we hit the winter months here).
Another interesting stat was where people are moving to when they leave Arizona. I’ve had a few clients move to North Carolina so I wasn’t surprised that NC was number 9 on the list. What did surprise me was the number one state Arizonans were moving to was… California! What?! I know people from California were moving here but I haven’t had sellers this past year who left to go to California so it did shock me a little.
The ‘experts’ are mostly thinking our interest rates will finally drop some this upcoming year but even without that I am seeing buyers use concessions from the seller to buy down their rate instead of waiting for it to happen. It has been much easier this past year to get sellers to contribute to the buyers fees and getting the rate down has been the top request.
I’m seeing new home builders offer some great incentives as well since they aren’t selling as quickly as they would like. A few builders are currently offering a 3.99% rate for some of their quick-close homes. You aren’t getting to pick out all of your options but the builders are doing a really good job of choosing good color schemes.
I took a drive through Vistancia up the dirt road where they are developing more land and it was crazy to see how big that area is going to be! It will someday connect up with SR74 and will be called Saddleback (after Saddleback Mountain)! SR74 is also known as Carefree Highway which is the inspiration for Gordon Lightfoot’s 1974 song by the same name(great song by the way!).
So, buckle up for 2025 as I think it will be a much better year! And if you need a real estate professional, I hope you will give me a call to discuss what we do for our buyers and sellers. We really are so grateful for the people who have chosen to work with us as we look forward to meeting and working with even more of you!
Frank May grew up in the Valley, graduating from Northwest Christian School and Northern Arizona University. He is a real estate agent with RE/MAX Fine Properties and has been helping both buyers and sellers for over 20 years. He has been a Dave Ramsey Endorsed Local Provider (ELP) since 2003. Learn more at mayteam.com.
