A mid year read on the Paradise Valley residential market
Drive Mockingbird Lane from Tatum to the Camelback Country Club and count the chain link fences. Go ahead, I will wait. They line virtually the entire stretch, each one marking a construction site where a raw lot or a tear down is becoming something new. At an average projected price of $14 million. That image, more than any statistic I could give you, is the story of this market right now. It is gorgeous and it is complicated, and it is the reason we are calling this one what it is.
The Beauty and the Beast.
The Beauty
Let’s start where it’s easy to start. Arizona is no longer the quiet state that people flew over on the way to Colorado ski trips or California coastlines. Massive job growth in advanced manufacturing, technology, and medical services has been pulling a serious class of buyer into the Phoenix metro for several years now, and a meaningful portion of them are landing in Paradise Valley. The McCune Mansion, all 52,000 square feet of it, has finally traded hands to a Florida development group reportedly committing $40 million to its renovation. In April, a nine acre estate near McDonald and Saguaro closed at $32.5 million. The sustained average sales price across the market is approaching $5 million, the highest in recorded history for this zip code. If you’ve been watching the Phoenix Business Journal lately, you already know the records have been falling on a fairly regular basis, and it has felt, at times, genuinely electric.
We live in the best city in Arizona. That part hasn’t changed.
The Beast
Here’s where the movie gets interesting.
At the end of 2021, heading into Spring of 2022, there were approximately 78 homes available to buyers in the Paradise Valley market. Today there are 281. That is a 260 percent increase in options, and buyers are acting like it. The average days on market for properties priced under $5 million is currently 80 days. Many of these are remodel or land development opportunities, and buyers are taking their time with them. For homes priced above $5 million, average days on market has crossed 180. Six months. That is not a number we are used to seeing here, and it is not going to normalize quickly.
More inventory is coming. The chain link fences on Mockingbird don’t lie. Raw land and tear down properties are trading in record numbers, and when that new construction delivers, it is going to arrive at the top of the market. The beast is not a threat to the long term story of this place. But it is a real factor in the immediate one, and pretending otherwise doesn’t serve anyone.
So What Do You Do With This?
If you own your home and love it, keep it, love it, and cherish it. The equity story here remains intact for patient owners, and the lifestyle return on a Paradise Valley address has never been higher.
If you are considering buying, the summer season has historically been the best window. Inventory reaches its annual peak as residents retreat to their secondary homes, which means more options and less competition from other buyers. The buyers who show up in August are serious. The casual shoppers have already gone somewhere cooler.
If you are considering selling, the days of putting a sign in the yard and waiting for the phone to ring are behind us for now. Strategy matters more than it has in a decade. That might mean an off market or pocket approach to reach the right buyer without the exposure of sitting on MLS. It might mean targeting out of state buyers specifically. We know where they are coming from and how to get in front of them. It almost certainly means committing to presenting the best physical version of your home before you go to market, and being intentional about timing.
The End of the Story… For Now.
Every great story has both. The beauty is real, the records, the demand, the transformation of this market into something the rest of the country is paying serious attention to. The beast is real too, the inventory, the days on market, the new construction wave that is coming. Neither one cancels the other out.
Paradise Valley remains one of the most stable and compelling luxury markets in the country. We expect the equity and lifestyle returns to reflect that as we move into 2027. The movie isn’t over. It just got more interesting.
The Gallery represents buyers and sellers across Paradise Valley. If you want a more specific conversation about where you fit in this market, you know where to find us.
Adam Bowman • Brian North • Nancy North
The Gallery • Paradise Valley, Arizona
