Verdict grades housing conditions; buyer-timing, investor cash-flow, supply-tightness and county macro scores answer different questions — each in its own section.
Buyer / sellerbuyer-timing lens
Seller's Market
DOM: 75d (stable) · Market Dynamics rolling median · hourly
Score Components
Payment Burden (25%)0
Valuation Gap (25%)40
Supply & Demand (20%)20
Buy vs Rent (15%)50
Cancellation Rate (10%)100
Days on Market (5%)75
Seller-favored market in 85326. Expect to pay at or near list price. Payment burden: 24.7% of median income. Median days on market: 75. Renting is approximately 34% cheaper than buying (price-to-rent ratio: 16.1).
Buyer Caution
Seller's market. Be prepared to pay near list price.
Competitive market similar to 2021-2022 — limited inventory driving prices above fundamentals.
STABLESELLER SLIGHT
Market is holding steady with balanced conditions. Sellers hold a slight edge. Prices down 1.5% YoY.
Turnover Index · Live in this ZIPBacktest: 30% of later sellers were already in the top 20% (random = 20%, 50 held-out sales) · 24,998 parcels scored nightly
A single median rises whenever expensive homes become a bigger share of what sells, even if no tier got more expensive. These are the tiers underneath it, computed from recorded arms-length deed transactions in Maricopa.
Aggregate median +2.0% YoY in Maricopa, AZ (county), but the under-$500k tier is +0.0% — the aggregate and the entry tier are moving together. Over the same year the under-$500k share of sales moved from 55.5% to 53.5% (-1.9pp) and the $1M+ share from 9.6% to 10.6% (+1.0pp).
Current tiers · 12 months to Aug 25floor 10 sales/tier
3 tiers had too few sales in this ZIP and are shown at county or metro level — see the stamp on each row.
Tier
Median
$/sqft
Sales
Share
Source
Under $250k
$165k
$149
26
1.5%
ZIP
$250k–$500k
$390k
$217
1,556
90.6%
ZIP
$500k–$750k
$546k
$233
101
5.9%
ZIP
$750k–$1M
$826k
$316
23
1.3%
ZIP
$1M–$1.5M
$1.19M
$397
2,883
—
COUNTY · Maricopa, AZ
$1.5M–$2M
$1.69M
$500
1,202
—
COUNTY · Maricopa, AZ
$2M+
$3.10M
$686
1,907
—
COUNTY · Maricopa, AZ
All sales (the headline median)
$391k
$218
1,717
100%
ZIP
ZIP-level history was too thin to draw the tiers; served at county level (Maricopa, AZ), by quarter.
Share of sales by tier (quarterly)
If the upper tiers widen over time, the headline median rises on composition alone.
Under $250k
$250k–$500k
$500k–$750k
$750k–$1M
$1M–$1.5M
$1.5M–$2M
$2M+
Median within each tier, against the headline median (quarterly)
The blue line is the single number NAR-style reporting quotes. The gold lines are what each tier actually did. Log scale — the tiers span an order of magnitude, and on a log axis equal slopes mean equal percentage moves, which is the comparison being made.
Under $250k
$250k–$500k
$500k–$750k
$750k–$1M
$1M–$1.5M
$1.5M–$2M
$2M+
All sales (headline)
National context — not local
NAR's aggregate existing-home median for the United States and the West census region. This is the figure the tiers above are a check on. It is national/regional and says nothing about 85326.
United States
West
Copyright, National Association of Realtors. Reprinted with permission. Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED publishes a rolling 13-month window for these series.
Tiers computed from Lotvox parcel and deed substrate through Aug 25 (10 later months withheld as partially loaded). Sample floor 10 sales per tier; below it a figure is drawn from the county or metro and labelled, or left blank. Multi-parcel bulk deeds and duplicate records are excluded.
Maricopa County contextmacro · jobs · debt · migration
ZIP score grades housing; county score adds macro distress (jobs, debt, poverty). They answer different questions.
ZIP 85326→Maricopa County, AZ
12-Month Direction
-7Stable
Confidence
100%
DeterioratingStableImproving
BuildersLens Market Intelligence
Market Score
41· Weak
Market Score grades housing-market conditions (affordability, valuation, supply). The county Healthy/Moderate/Distressed badge measures economic distress (jobs, debt, poverty) — the two can read differently.
Payment Burden45
33.2%
stretched
Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15
Buy vs Rent6
1.915x
rent advantage
Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15
Valuation11
+70.4%
overvalued
Source: Lotvox comps · Updated 2026-05-15
Supply/Demand17
3.5 mo
balanced
Source: Lotvox MLS · Updated 2026-05-15
Insurance Risk
32/100
moderate
Source: FEMA/NFIP · Updated 2026-04
County distress indicators
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Economic indicators are mixed relative to comparable U.S. counties.
Unemployment Rate
4.8%
AZ 4.5%US 4.4%
Near national averages
Source: BLS LAUS · 2026-0667d ago
Poverty Rate
11.1%
AZ 12.7%US 12.6%
Near national averages
Median Household Income
$85,518
AZ $77,970US $82,006
Higher than most U.S. counties
Cost of Living (RPP)
99.3
AZ 99.3US 100.3
Near national averages
Home Value (ZHVI)$460,378
County data: BLS, Census ACS, CDC, FBI UCR, Federal Reserve, USDA
