Million-dollar deals soar in Phoenix area
High-end home listings attract plenty of buyers
A lot more millionaires are buying metro Phoenix homes.
Sales of homes priced at $1 million or more in the Phoenix area have jumped 36% during the past six months, according to the Cromford Report.
In 2019, a record 2,132 houses with seven-figure price tags changed hands Valley-wide. That’s up 7.6% from 2018.
And the pace isn’t slowing down. “So far in January, sales priced at $1 million or more are already 50% higher than in early 2018,” said Tina Tamboer, senior analyst with Cromford. “And prices are up too.”
Who’s buying metro Phoenix’s priciest homes?
Business owners, doctors, lawyers and second-home buyers from California and other states are some of the biggest groups of million-dollar homebuyers in the Valley.
Of course, there are many mansion buyers who don’t want their names known. We’re seeing more limited
liability companies purchase houses priced at $1 million or more in metro Phoenix.
Some use fun names like Hippo Boy LLC, which bought a $4 million Scottsdale condo in August, and Happy Golfers LLC that purchased a $2.3 million house in Scottsdale last October.
Those who pay to form a Delaware LLC can hide their names from property records because that state doesn’t require disclosure.
To see who is buying million-dollar homes, check out azcentral.com’s five priciest home sales each week.
Recently, an ESPN play-by-play commentator bought a Scottsdale mansion for $5.8 million, the wife of a former Wells Fargo CEO paid $9.5 million for a Paradise Valley estate and a California man snagged a Paradise Valley home for $3.9 million.
The average price per square foot for Valley houses has climbed from $168 in August to $189 now because of these bigger and pricier home sales, according to Cromford.
Bargain mansions for some buyers
Metro Phoenix’s mansion prices are deals for East- and West Coast buyers.
Many of those buyers sell much pricier houses outside of Arizona and then pay cash for their million-dollar houses in the Valley.
Buyers really don’t have to be millionaires to purchase a house with a sevenfigure price tag, but most are wealthy.
The average monthly payment on a $1 million mortgage is about $5,000.
Paradise Valley and Scottsdale have most of metro Phoenix’s million-dollar mansions. But houses and condominiums from north Phoenix to Peoria and Chandler are now fetching prices above $1 million.
The Valley’s median home price is $285,000, so the million-dollar market is still far out of the reach of most of the area’s residents. But it can be fun to look.