Are There Still Buyers in the Metro Phoenix Market?

By Rebecca Durfey

Rebecca Durfey brings over 20 years of experience in real estate transactions within Maricopa County. Despite managing multiple clients simultaneously, her primary focus is to provide a personalized experience that makes you feel like her sole priority. Rebecca and her team are dedicated to efficiently achieving the desired outcomes for each client they serve.

It’s the question I hear more than any other right now: are there still buyers out there? With 30-year mortgage rates now above 7%, affordability has tightened considerably, and many sellers are finding their listings aren’t drawing the showings they expected. In response, the market has begun to soften on price, because that affordability gap has to be closed somewhere.

Every market still has buyers. This is a difficult market, and I won’t pretend otherwise. Yet in almost 25 years as a Realtor, I’ve worked through many different markets, and one constant has held true in every one: there will always be a buyer. Conditions shape how people buy, but they don’t stop life from moving forward.

Life events don’t wait for rates. I often describe these moments as the D’s: diamonds, diplomas, diapers, downsizing, and distance. An engagement, a graduation, a growing family, an emptier house, or a move across the state or the country all arrive on their own schedule, regardless of what the market is doing.

For many households, those milestones create a genuine need to buy. Prepared, financially able buyers often choose to move forward now, knowing they can refinance to a better rate in the future, and we’re all hoping that future comes soon.

First-time buyers are leading the way. What I find most interesting about this market is how many first-time buyers are active, and I’ve given real thought to why. Timing may be part of the answer. We’re now roughly four years into higher rates, and the 2.5% and 3% rates so many people grew accustomed to are increasingly distant. For anyone who’s watched the housing market for only the past few years, today’s rates are simply all they’ve known.

Perspective plays a role, too. Those of us with years of experience remember the rates we could have had, and that memory can make a sound decision feel harder than it should. First-time buyers don’t carry that comparison. They know what’s in front of them, know their goal, and are determined to make it work.

Creative financing can close the gap. Practical tools can also make a home more affordable, including fixed-rate buydowns, 2-1 buydowns, and assumable loans. Whatever approach fits the situation, the goal is the same: help people get into a home as affordably as possible.

The bottom line never changes. Homes will always be selling, and homes will always be bought, no matter the market. Life keeps creating reasons to move, and those reasons open doors to opportunity for buyers and sellers alike.

If you’d like to know how this market affects your specific situation, please call or text me at 623-297-4536, email me at rebeccadurfey@kw.com, or visit rebeccadurfey.com. Every client receives my CANE client care, where I communicate, advocate, navigate, and educate in every market, because you deserve my very best.