By Catherine Reagor, Kunle Falayi | Arizona Republic
Metro Phoenix’s red-hot housing market abruptly started slowing in the summer and in most neighborhoods quickly shifted toward buyers for the first time in years.
Many potential homebuyers who had been shut out of the market by investors and rapidly rising prices are thrilled.
More sellers are dropping prices or offering other concessions, including mortgage rate buydowns.
It’s a fast reversal of 2021 and early this year, when bidding wars were the norm, prices climbed higher than listings and appraisals, few open houses were held, and sellers regularly said no to paying for repairs. Metro Phoenix’s median home price jumped 30% in 2021 and climbed another 9% during the first half of this year before the slowdown started.
Rapidly rising inflation, mortgage rates and listings as well as fears of a recession started to propel the housing market downward in June. Home sales and prices started to fall then and are projected to keep slipping for the rest of 2022 and into January 2023.
