Phoenix City Skyline
Home prices are dropping in cities that were hot spots a just a few years ago. The Phoenix metropolitan area is one of those spots — where prices are down compared to last year.
  • Phoenix was a pandemic boomtown, but home prices there are falling, according to a Realtor report.
  • As of August 2023, the median home price in Phoenix was $537,900, down 1.2% compared to last year.
  • But there are homes much cheaper than that, of course. We took a look through listings to find five.

Real estate prices in certain cities went through the roof in the wake of the pandemic. But now some of these pandemic boomtowns are seeing home prices fall: Phoenix is one.

The median home price in the Phoenix metropolitan area was $537,900 in August, according to the report from Realtor.com — down 1.2% from the same month in 2022. It's one of 10 areas where home prices are falling the most, the report said.

Although the decline was modest from 2022, it's a concerning echo from the Phoenix market's real-estate crash in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Some people are bracing for sharper drops.

But for now, it's also a good opportunity for people looking to move to potentially scoop up a home as prices fall. Yes, Phoenix is hot, concerns about wildfires and droughts aren't stopping Americans from moving into the Sunbelt

We combed through real estate listings to find five of the lowest-priced homes right now in the Phoenix area. We screened out raw land, mobile homes, and houses that were massive fixer-uppers. Here's an idea of what you can get in the Phoenix area as of October.

1. Three bedroom, one bath — Phoenix: $309,900
The exterior of 2435 W Papago St.
The driveway has a shaded portion, which is great for people who don't like burning their hands on a hot steering wheel in the summer.

Starting the list is this smaller home, which is well under the area's median home price.

According to Realtor.com, this house was a flipped property. It was originally back in 1946 before its recent update, according to Realtor.com. It's about 3.5 miles from downtown Phoenix.

The spartan living area connects to the kitchen.
the entryway to 2435 W Papago St that could serve as a living area
This property is just west of downtown Phoenix, right next to Interstate 17.

The Realtor.com description of this home describes it as a "charming flip home nestled in the heart of Phoenix." 

The kitchen has bright white walls and cabinets — showing the obvious updates after a flipper purchased the older home.
A kitchen with white cabinets and a gray floor
The fixtures appear sleek and modern, with white walls and cabinets and gray wooden floors.

This home comes with a decent-looking kitchen, but you might end up not using it very much. The area has a noted dining scene — and here's some of the best places to eat in Phoenix, according to a local.

The bathroom has a marble-clad bathtub area and the same muted flooring as found in the rest of the home.
A bathroom with a gray cabinet and marble tiles on the wall next to the bathtub.
The house has three bedrooms and one bathroom.

The Phoenix metro area's unemployment rate was 4% in August, according to federal statistics. That's slightly higher than the nation's unemployment rate of 3.8% for August.

It's the US's fifth-largest city, recently eclipsing Philadelphia, with more than 1.6 million residents in the city itself and nearly 5 million people in the metropolitan area.

Mayor Kate Gallego says Phoenix is ready to prove itself as one of the world's great global cities — especially with its continued push into semiconductor manufacturing. 

2. Three bedroom, two bath — Glendale: $255,000
The exterior of this home has its own flowerbed.
The outside of 4942 W Ocotillo Road in Glendale, just outside of the city of Phoenix.

The suburb of Glendale is just outside of Phoenix. You might recognize it as home of the 2023 Super Bowl.

In its roads of strip malls and tidy homes is this three-bedroom, two-bath home for well below the area's median home price.

Contemporary homes are very popular in Arizona these days, but 4942 W. Ocotillo Road is charming and has a vintage feel.

The home's living room has tiled floors and a ceiling fan.
The white walls and large window make the living room feel bright.
The white walls and large windows appear to make this living room feel bright and open.

"The ceiling in the living room has a design on it that's really creative," the house's broker, Deanette "Dee" Bloom said. "It's workmanship that they just don't do anymore."

The kitchen has dark wood cabinets and a tiled floor.
The kitchen has a gas oven.
This kitchen does come with a gas stove, according to its Realtor.com listing.

One person moved from Long Island, New York, to Glendale in 2022. He told Insider he bought a home for $204,000 — something he wouldn't have been able to do back on the East Coast.

This home has plenty of ceiling fans, a must for anyone living in sweltering Phoenix.
This home has plenty of ceiling fans, a must for anyone living in sweltering Phoenix.
This bedroom is perfect for anyone who's a fan of the color green, but there's of course the option to paint it any color.

Glendale may seem like just another satellite city to Phoenix, but the State Farm Stadium had the city making headlines. The stadium not only hosted the 2023 Super Bowl —it also was the first stop for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.

The home's bathroom
This house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, ideal for a small family.
This is one of the two bathrooms in the house. It has a window and a decent-sized vanity area.

Glendale rebranded itself to "Swift City" in March 2023, in honor of Taylor Swift's Eras tour stop.

The Glendale home also have a substantially sized backyard — something that will be nice in Phoenix-area winters (but maybe not so much in the summer).
In a few pictures, you can see that this backyard has its own well.
The backyard comes with a bench swing and ceiling fans above the patio.

This house comes with its own vintage telephone box, according to Realtor.com.

3. Three bedroom, two baths — Glendale: $309,900
3. Three bedroom, two baths — Glendale: $299,900
Here's another home for sale in Glendale, this one with nice curb appeal.

There are plenty of nice hotels in Glendale, great for Super Bowl season, or if you have friends or family in town.

The living room is pretty bare-bones, but it offers a blank slate with its neutral colors.
This home is 1,096 square feet.
The white walls and tile flooring in the living area leave you with endless choices for decorating.

It's uncommon to find a home in the Phoenix area with a basement. That's because some of the dirt in the state has a compound called caliche, which is made of calcium carbonate, according to ABC 15. Caliche is very hard, like concrete, so it makes digging very difficult, labor-intensive, and expensive.

This kitchen comes with laminate countertops and a window above the sink.
This home is a bit of a fixer-upper but it's price and financing options make it accessible to buyers.
According to real estate investor Nathaniel Tanner, the seller of this home is offering financing for those who can't get a bank loan.

The Phoenix area has 10 companies on the Fortune 500 list of the US's biggest companies

They include, with a top showing at No. 163, Avnet, which is an electronic components company.

 

One of two bathrooms in the home has a window in the bathtub and has walls covered in tile squares.
This home comes with two bathrooms, but you might need to bring your own shower curtains.
This home is less than a mile from a shopping center that has a Walmart, a Lowe's and many dining options.

Other Fortune 500 companies in the Phoenix area include:

  • No. 171: Freeport McMoRan, which is a mining company
  • No. 242: Reliance Steel & Aluminum
  • No. 266: Opendoor Technologies, which buys and sells residential real estate
  • N0. 308: Carvana, the used-car dealer known for the high-rise car displays
One of the home's bedrooms, which appears to have two closets and a laminate floor.
One of the bedrooms.
The Realtor.com listing describes this property as also having lots of yard space.

Still, it wouldn't be a story about Phoenix without mentioning its extreme heat: Phoenix's heat is something to be mindful of for anyone considering a move to the area.

Half of the Phoenix population would need to be hospitalized if the city suffered from a blackout, according to a recent study. That's 800,000 people. And the study estimated 3,000 people would die from heat-related health complications.

4. One bedroom, two baths — Chandler: $380,000
5. One bedroom, two baths — Chandler: $380,000
This looks like a typical home you'd find in the Phoenix suburbs with its warm beige exterior.

Chandler is about 25 miles east of Phoenix. The east side of the Phoenix metro area is home to popular municipalities like Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Temp — home of Arizona State University — and Scottsdale. 

This home has a connected kitchen and living area.
This home has a connected kitchen and living area.
The large windows in the living room help open up the space.

Intel has a major presence in the Chandler area, where it has "fabs" or factories to build its chips.

One woman in the area took a 10-day crash course on how to be a semiconductor processing technician, Insider reported in August.

Arizona is considered the hub of semiconductor manufacturing in the US, meaning there are good-paying jobs to be found in the Phoenix area in the tech field. 

It's in Sunbird Golf Resort, which is a community for people 55 and older.
It's in Sunbird Golf Resort, which is a 55+ community.
This home is complete with high ceilings and oak cabinets, according to Realtor.com

Though Arizona is a popular state for millennials, it's also possible for older adults to thrive in the state; 18.3% of the state's population is above the age of 65. 

 

5. Three bedroom, Two bath — Phoenix: $324,900
4. Three bedroom, Two bath — Phoenix: $324,900
The home in Phoenix has a gated driveway — and it's way below the median home cost for the metro.

Driving is the most popular way to get around Phoenix, and the area's sprawling roads and freeways certainly prove that point.

But Phoenix has a growing number of options for public transportation through its Valley Metro.

Gallego, Phoenix's mayor, is looking to strengthen the city's public transport, with a 35-year plan to expand it.

The living room has a sea green wall and tan-colored tile flooring.
Most of this house is painted a sea foam green, but you can always play around with different colors,
Of course, the typical Phoenix ceiling fan is in place: It gets hot here, after all!

A so-called anti-lawn movement in Phoenix is challenging homeowners to change their grass lawns to things more desert-friendly, like rocks and desert plants.

The kitchen has granite countertops and is also painted in the rest of the home's sea green.
This kitchen comes with a gas stove.
The kitchen has a gas stove, which is black in color, contrasting with the white microwave oven.

And because of the state's lack of groundwater, Arizona's governor unveiled a plan earlier this year to limit development in the Phoenix area.

Regulators are expected to no longer approve new developments that rely solely on groundwater.

"We have to close this gap and find efficiencies for our water use, manage our aquifers wisely and increase our utilization of renewable supplies," Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said in July.

The home's bedrooms give us a break from the sea green color with a more neutral tone.
The archway leads to a private bathroom, which you can see in the next slide.
The tan tiles apparently are continued throughout — a nice touch as opposed to carpet, which can feel hot in warm climates.

One of the only downsides about living in Phoenix is that it might skew your perception of hot and cold.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures in Phoenix rarely dip below the upper 50s between the months of April and October.

It's also a great city for those looking to work on their tan, as it's sunny on 85% of the days of the year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

6. Three bedroom, one bath — Buckeye: $215,000
1. Three bedroom, one bath — Buckeye: $215,000
This home is 1,044 square feet, according to its RedFin listing.

This home looks like a fixer-upper from the outside, and at just above $200,000, it's way below the area's median home price. But it does apparently need some work. That's why it will be a hot target for home flippers or other investors.

"Properties like this, especially in the Phoenix market, are harder to find," the property's broker, Nicholas Caro, told Insider. "There's lot less of them because, typically, when a house like that goes onto the market — you know — they're snatched up pretty quick by investors."

Here's the property's kitchen, which is large and full of windows.
Here's the property's kitchen.
It's not the most polished look, but it appears to have a lot of potential.

Caro says this home is ideal for a "lower qualified buyer." For Caro, it's important that this house goes to someone who actually needs it, rather than just selling it to an investor. 

"I would love to honestly get this house sold to someone who is a first-time homebuyer, rather than an investor," Caro said. "I've got a lot of investor offers and most of them are, you know, they're gonna make a ton of profit." 

With interest rates going up nationally, first-time homebuyers need to make at least $64,500 a year generally, Redfin said in a report earlier this summer. (That's not speaking specifically of this home.)

The living room has a wall air conditioning unit, two windows, and a tile floor in a neutral color.
The living room offers lots of potential.
Buckeye is a community that's about 40 minutes west of Phoenix.

Caro calls the property a "good little starter home," with lots of potential for personalization. It's not too far from downtown Buckeye. 

The median price nationally for starter homes in August was an at all-time high of $243,000.

"The most affordable homes for sale are no longer affordable to people with lower budgets due to the combination of rising prices and rising rates," Sheharyar Bokhari, a senior economist at Redfin, said in a statement. "That's locking many Americans out of the housing market altogether, preventing them from building equity and ultimately building lasting wealth." 

This home could help buck that trend.

The bathroom includes a window in the shower, which is also tiled.
The bath comes with a handheld shower head.
The bath comes with a handheld showerhead and continues the muted-colored tile floor.

Phoenix and Las Vegas are two of the most popular cities for homebuyers, according to a Redfin report this summer.

Even climate risks aren't stopping homebuyers from looking at homes in these cities with high average temperatures, a Redfin economist said.

Why? "That's because even though Sun Belt home prices soared during the pandemic, those metros remain a bargain for people relocating from expensive coastal cities," Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said at the time.

 

The Buckeye listing comes with a relatively raw yard, but it's ready to be turned into your desert oasis in the sun.
The RedFin listing describes this home as ideal for first time buyers.
The cheapest home on our list, this Buckeye property is a fixer-upper, built in 1955.

Pandemic-era boomtowns do indeed face some possible issues when it comes to climate change.

But that's not stopping people from moving to Phoenix in droves.

Read the original article on Business Insider