Affordability is 2026’s buzzword. Gas prices are reaching record highs. Grocery prices are on the rise. Consumers are feeling the weight of inflated costs. But a new study found that home price inflation is even worse.
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Over the last 15 years, Phoenix home prices have outpaced inflation by 177%, making the Valley’s home price growth the second highest in the country, according to a study by the educational housing website Clever Real Estate. Only Miami, whose home-price growth rate is 201% higher than inflation, has it worse than Phoenix.
Clever Real Estate determined housing growth rates by tracking historic median sale prices of newly built U.S. homes from the U.S. Census, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Reserve Economic Database. The study also analyzed Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to rank the top 50 metros. All median sale prices came from the online real estate marketplace Zillow.
Fifteen years ago, Phoenix was an affordable paradise. A median home cost a potential homeowner $109,000. If the city’s home prices today matched the nationwide inflation rate — which has been 47.17% nationwide since 2011 — a median home would cost nearly $170,000.
A single-family home at that budget today would be hard to come by. To buy a home for that amount in Phoenix today, buyers would generally be limited to properties, including townhouses, condominiums and apartments, between 1,800 and 600 square feet and empty lots, according to a Zillow search.
As of January 2026, the median home price in Phoenix is $445,000. That’s $284,059 more than a median home would cost if it matched inflation, and more than a 308% increase over the last 15 years. Orlando, Florida, and Tampa, Florida, trail Phoenix, with median home prices up more than 295% and 293% over the last 15 years, respectively.
Highest home-price growth isn’t a list a city wants to lead. But given frequent policy conversations regarding Phoenix’s housing crisis — as well as Arizona at large — it isn’t a surprise Phoenix tops this list.
Over the last several years, Valley and state leaders have pushed for rapid home building and expanded zoning options through accessory dwelling units and by allowing “middle housing” in neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes. That work is ongoing.
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As recently as mid-September, the Arizona Finance Authority launched the State Affordability Infrastructure Districts program after Gov. Katie Hobbs signed the bipartisan legislation. The program’s tax-exempt bonds can fund infrastructure projects like roads and water and sewer lines over time — rather than all up front — which aims to accelerate statewide housing development opportunities.
“We are cutting red tape and lowering the cost of housing for Arizonans,” Hobbs said in a statement. “Giving builders and property owners the ability to use this funding mechanism to pay for public infrastructure is their communities helps make homes in those communities more affordable, particularly for first-time buyers.”
This rapid increase in home prices is also a nationwide problem. Phoenix might lead the country, but home-price growth in every one of the 50 largest U.S. cities has outpaced inflation over the past 15 years. In 13 of those cities, home prices have at least tripled, including Phoenix, where home prices more than quadrupled during that time.
However, over the last year, Phoenix’s housing price trend seems to be going in the opposite direction. Nationwide, inflation rose 2.4% between January 2025 and January 2026, while home prices rose 1.4%, a full point behind inflation, according to Clever Real Estate.
During that same period, Phoenix home prices actually dropped 2.2%, with the city’s median home price at $455,000 in 2025. Phoenix had the third-largest drop in housing prices in the county over the last year. Only Portland, Oregon, and San Antonio had bigger drops, with 3.9% and 3.3% drops in housing prices over the last year, respectively.
Phoenix’s home growth still tops inflation over the last 15 years, but all that housing policy work appears to be moving the city’s market in the right direction — at least in the short term.
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