Housing market stabilizes, Goodyear and Litchfield Park sell at different speeds

The West Valley real estate market is presenting a mixed landscape for summer homebuyers, as neighboring communities show starkly different paces of activity amid a stabilizing trend across the Phoenix area.

According to June data from Phoenix Realtors, single-family home sales in the Greater Phoenix metro area rose 8.1% year-over-year, more than doubling the national growth rate of 3.2%. A 2.8% bump in the housing affordability index is slowly expanding the pool of prospective buyers.

“There’s a difference between how people believe the real estate market is moving and what the data is showing,” said Sammy Glassman, board president of Phoenix Realtors. “Home sales were very strong in June, and even the pending sales slight decline was significantly smaller than what we’ve seen in previous months.”

However, individual West Valley cities are operating at different speeds.

In Litchfield Park, the market has shifted into a more balanced, slower-paced territory. Data from Zillow indicates the typical home value settled at $526,815, hovering virtually unchanged with a slight 0.2% tick upward over the past year. Realtor.com designated the local market as "cool," noting that median days on market for active listings jumped nearly 18% year-over-year to 65 days.

Just next door in Goodyear, single-family housing tells a story of resilient pricing structure despite a contraction in forward contract volume. The median sales price for a single-family home in Goodyear climbed 2.9% year-over-year to reach $481,600. However, pending sales plummeted 22.9% in June compared to the same month last year.

Goodyear properties are also lingering on the market longer, requiring an average of 88 days to land a completed sale, a 20.5% annual increase. Total available inventory contracted slightly by 1.1% to 657 homes for sale, leaving the city with a tight 3.8-month supply of housing inventory.

"With steady prices, increasing affordability and leveling of pending sales, we might have a better-than-expected summer,” said Glassman.