The Market Is Cooling, But Your Equity May Still Be Working

For Phoenix-area homeowners, today’s market may still offer more opportunity than it feels like. 

The appreciation many Phoenix homeowners saw over the last few years didn’t disappear just because the market feels slower. For many owners, that appreciation became equity, and that equity does a lot of heavy lifting. 

That matters right now because a lot of homeowners are sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the market to “feel” better. Mortgage rates have been volatile. Buyers are more selective. Homes are taking longer to sell. The market no longer has that insane 2021 energy where a decent listing could draw multiple offers almost immediately. 

But a cooler market is not the same thing as a bad market, especially if you own a home with meaningful equity. For many Phoenix-area homeowners, the real question is not whether they missed the peak. They probably did. So did almost everyone who didn’t sell into the frenzy. The better question is what their current position is worth now, and whether waiting is likely to improve it. 

According to the Cromford Report, the Greater Phoenix median sales price was $458,000 as of March 2026. In early 2021, it was roughly $340,000. That is about a 35% increase, even after the market cooled from its most overheated years. Put more plainly: for many homeowners, the market may feel slower, but the equity created during that run-up may still be very real. 

ATTOM’s Q4 2025 Home Equity & Underwater Report tells a similar story from another angle. Nearly 45% of Arizona homeowners with a mortgage were considered equity-rich, meaning they owed no more than half of what their home was worth. ATTOM also notes that the national equity-rich share was only 26.5% in early 2020, before the pandemic housing boom reshaped home values. Serious underwater situations remain rare too, with only about 3% of mortgaged homes nationally owing far more than they are worth.  

That doesn’t mean every homeowner is in the same position. Timing matters. Loan balance matters. Condition, location, and neighborhood competition matter. But it does mean this: for many Phoenix-area owners, the idea that they “missed the market” is too simple. They may have missed the frenzy. They may not have missed the opportunity. 

The equity picture, however, is not quite as strong as it was at the peak. According to ATTOM’s reporting, just over half of Arizona homeowners with a mortgage owed no more than half of what their home was worth in Q4 2024. By Q4 2025, that had slipped to 45.4%. That is not a crash. It is not even close. But the direction matters.  

A market can cool without falling apart. A homeowner can still have strong equity while that equity becomes less useful than it was a year earlier. Those two things can be true at the same time. 

That is why waiting deserves a closer look. Waiting for the market to “get better” assumes your position will improve on its own. Maybe it will. But that is not guaranteed in a market where inventory is rising, days on market are longer, and buyers have more choices than they did a few years ago. Public summaries of the March 2026 Cromford Report put Greater Phoenix active inventory up 13% year over year, which means sellers are facing more competition than they did before.  

And waiting has a cost, even when the market is not falling apart. Every month you hold the home, you keep carrying the costs that come with it: mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance, repairs, and the small surprises that come with homeownership. 

There is also the market-position cost. Inventory is rising, and buyers now have more choices. That doesn’t make selling impossible, but it does change the balance. A buyer who has five decent options doesn’t look at your home the same way a buyer with one decent option does. 

That doesn’t mean your home won’t sell. It means the strategy matters more. In a faster market, sellers could sometimes get away with imperfect pricing or light preparation. In a cooler market, those choices show up faster. A home that is priced a little too high can sit. A home that needs obvious updates can become a negotiation target. A listing that launches without a clear plan can lose momentum before the seller realizes what happened. 

So the question isn’t, “Should I panic and sell now?” Absolutely not. The better question is, “What is my current equity position, what would my home realistically sell for today, and what might waiting change?” 

A cooler market does not erase the equity many Phoenix-area homeowners have built. It just makes that equity worth measuring more carefully. If you bought before prices climbed, paid down your mortgage, or have owned your home for several years, you may have more options than the current market mood suggests. The important thing is not to assume either extreme: that you missed your chance, or that waiting carries no cost. 

Your equity may still be working. The question is what you want it to do next. 

If you own a home in the Phoenix area and you’ve wondered whether this is still a smart time to sell, let’s look at the numbers before you assume the answer is no. I can help you understand your likely equity, your competition, and what a realistic selling strategy would look like in today’s market. 

No pressure. Just clarity.