4 Arizona Housing Markets That Have Plummeted in Value Recently — Will They Recover?
Written by
Daria Uhlig
Edited by
Zuri Anderson
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The last several years have been a rollercoaster ride for Arizona homebuyers. In markets throughout the state, prices that had been trending slowly upward for several years suddenly surged when low rates and pandemic relocations to Arizona drove a level of demand that inventory couldn’t meet, according to the Common Sense Institute Arizona.
Prices rose to record levels, peaking in mid-2022. However, the frenzy was short-lived. Home prices plummeted over the next nine months as high mortgage rates and inflation pushed would-be buyers out of the market.
Although every Arizona housing market experienced declines from 2022 to 2023, some have regained those losses and then some. Safford (Graham County) prices, for example, are up 8.17% compared to the 2022 peak. But several markets are still trailing their mid-2022 prices, according to data from Zillow, and prices in four have plummeted since then.
These Arizona markets have seen the largest price drops over the last three years.
Greenlee County
Greenlee County falls outside of Arizona’s metro markets. As a rural county whose economy is rooted in agriculture and mining, its housing market has seen the most significant declines over the past three years.
- July 2022 average home price: $209,422
- July 2025 average home price: $166,485
- 3-year change: -20.50%
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale (Pinal County)
Pinal County is one of two counties in the Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale metropolitan area, but it’s listed separately here because its recovery lags that of Maricopa County by a considerable margin.
- July 2022 average home price: $426,920
- July 2025 average home price: $370,589
- 3-year change: -13.19%
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale (Maricopa County)
Maricopa County is home to all three cities that make up the Phoenix metro area. The market is struggling, with prices down 3.5% in the last year.
- July 2022 average home price: $511,096
- July 2025 average home price: $463,560
- 3-year change: -9.30%
Lake Havasu City-Kingman (Mohave County)
Despite its position as a resort area with a strong short-term-rental market and its proximity to Las Vegas, the Havasu City housing market has trended downwards.
- July 2022 average home price: $510,421
- July 2025 average home price: $465,541
- 3-year change: -8.79%
Will Arizona’s Plummeting Housing Markets Recover?
The term “recovery” is somewhat of a misnomer when it comes to markets that were as frenzied as Arizona’s were during the earlier part of the pandemic.
Take Maricopa County, for instance. Despite prices having fallen more than 9% from their 2022 peak, they’re still up nearly 43% from early 2020, when the pandemic surge began. That’s over 8% per return per year, which is about average for historical returns annualized over 10 years, according to Bluerock, an institutional alternative asset manager.
Arizona home prices could drop further because demand is still low and inventory is on the rise, per JVM Lending. But experts in that market say high mortgage rates are holding buyers back. Should rates fall, demand could pick up, and with that, prices could rise, as well.
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