By Nicole Friedman | Wall Street Journal
PHOENIX—Once a poster child for the foreclosure crisis, Phoenix’s housing market is booming again, boosted by robust population growth and relative affordability.
Phoenix was a hot market before the pandemic, and it has been a major beneficiary of new remote-work policies, as workers in expensive cities decided to move for cheaper housing.
Even as home prices in Phoenix soar, housing in the area is still cheap compared with many other big cities in the West.
The Phoenix-area median existing-home price was $399,900 in June, up 31.1% from a year earlier, according to the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. That’s more than $100,000 below the median home prices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Denver.
“When people come here from Seattle and Portland, they are thrilled at what they can buy,” said Alan Jones, division president for home builder Lennar Corp. “And from California, they go beyond being thrilled.”
