I had two conversations last week that were almost identical, except they came from opposite directions.
The first was a buyer who had read a headline about Arizona home prices falling and wanted to know how much room she had to negotiate in Gilbert. The second was a Chandler seller who had read the same kind of headline and wanted to know if he had already missed his window.
They were both reacting to the same national story. The problem is that the story is not true in the same way in all five cities I work in. And if you make a decision in Gilbert based on what is happening in Mesa, you are going to be surprised.
So here is the honest version, city by city, as of the middle of August 2026.
THE COUNTERINTUITIVE PART FIRST
Gilbert homes are taking a median of about 63 days to sell right now. That sounds slow. It is slower than 2021 and it is slower than 2022.
But it is roughly 14 percent faster than August of last year.
Meanwhile Chandler and Mesa have gone the other way. Chandler’s average home value is sitting around $521,000 and is down close to 2 percent over the past year. Mesa is running near a $436,000 median list price and down around 3 percent, with days on market in the mid 60s and climbing.
So the East Valley is not one market having one experience. Gilbert is stabilizing. Chandler and Mesa are still adjusting. Both of those things are happening at the same time, twenty minutes apart.
Nobody is talking about this because it does not fit into a headline. It is much easier to write “Arizona prices drop” than it is to explain that Gilbert firmed up while Chandler softened.
GILBERT: BALANCED, NOT FALLING
Here is where Gilbert actually sits.
Median list price is running around $639,000. Inventory is sitting near 1.6 months of supply, which is still tight by any historical standard. A balanced market is generally considered four to six months. Days on market improved year over year.
What that adds up to is a market where a correctly priced Gilbert home still sells in a reasonable timeframe, and an overpriced one sits for two months and then reduces.
The gap between median list price and median sale price in Gilbert is the whole story. Sellers are asking numbers that some buyers are not paying, and the homes that close near list are almost always the ones that were priced right on day one instead of chasing the market down in three reductions.
If you are buying in Gilbert: you have more leverage than you did in 2022, but you do not have unlimited leverage. Bring a real offer on a well priced home. Save the aggressive number for the listing that has been sitting 70 days, because that seller is finally ready to have a conversation.
If you are selling in Gilbert: your neighbor who listed high and sat is not your comparison. Your comparison is the six homes a buyer tours the same weekend they tour yours. Price to that group and Gilbert is still a market that rewards you.
CHANDLER: SOFTER PRICES, BUT ONE REAL ADVANTAGE
Chandler prices have come down somewhere in the 2 to 8 percent range depending on which source you read and what property type you are looking at. Inventory has been building. Chandler sellers are, in my experience, the most anxious group in the East Valley right now.
Here is the part almost nobody says out loud: Chandler is essentially land locked.
There is very little room left for large scale new construction inside Chandler. Which means Chandler resale sellers are not competing against a builder down the street offering a rate buydown and $20,000 in closing costs. In Queen Creek and San Tan Valley, that builder is absolutely part of the competition. In Chandler, it mostly is not.
That is a structural advantage and it does not show up in a price chart.
If you are selling in Chandler: you are competing against other resale homes, not against a sales office with an incentive budget. Your job is to be the best value in your specific price band, not to hold out for a 2022 number.
If you are buying in Chandler: this is the East Valley city where the combination of softer pricing, established neighborhoods, and proximity to the Price Corridor employers is quietly lining up in your favor.
MESA: THE VALUE STORY RIGHT NOW
East Mesa is the last place in the East Valley where a buyer can find a median under $500,000 across most zip codes, and that matters enormously for two groups of people.
The first is the relocation buyer who priced themselves out of Gilbert. They come in with a Seattle or Chicago or Los Angeles budget, fall in love with Gilbert, do the math, and then need somewhere that gives them the same lifestyle with a different number attached. East Mesa answers that.
The second is the multi generational family that needs square footage per dollar. When you are housing three generations, the difference between $436,000 and $639,000 is not a preference. It is whether the plan works at all.
Mesa is taking a little longer to sell and prices have come down. If you are a Mesa seller, that is real and you should plan for it. If you are a Mesa buyer, that softness is exactly why your money goes further here than anywhere else in the East Valley right now.
QUEEN CREEK AND SAN TAN VALLEY: THE BUILDER FACTOR
These two are their own conversation because new construction changes the entire calculation.
Queen Creek is holding in the $640,000 to $665,000 range with homes closing around 97.5 percent of list. There are roughly 490 new construction homes available across about 18 builders. San Tan Valley new build pricing is running from the high $300,000s into the mid $600,000s.
Builders in both areas are running the most aggressive incentives of the year, including rate buydowns and stacked closing cost credits, and several of those programs are set to expire October 31.
If you are a resale seller in Queen Creek or San Tan Valley, you are competing with that. Directly. A buyer sitting in a builder’s office with a below market rate on the table is doing math you need to account for in your pricing.
If you are a buyer, that deadline is real, and I would rather walk into that sales office with you than have you go in alone. Incentives are sometimes a genuine discount and sometimes a repackaged price increase, and the difference is worth about $30,000.
WHAT THIS ALL MEANS PRACTICALLY
If you are buying anywhere in the East Valley, the concession conversation is the most useful thing to understand. More than half of transactions in the $200,000 to $600,000 range are closing with some form of seller concession right now. That is not a rumor. It is the normal shape of a deal in this market, and if you are not asking, you are leaving money in the room.
If you are selling, the flip side of that same fact is the one that matters. That concession number is already baked into what your neighbor netted. When you look at their sale price and anchor to it, you are looking at a gross number that had money handed back at closing. Pretending that did not happen is how a good Gilbert home sits for 63 days.
And if you are waiting on rates, they have been running in the 6.4 to 6.9 percent band. Every time that band moves a tenth of a point, my phone lights up. I understand the instinct to wait for a number. Just be clear with yourself about which number you are waiting for and what you will do when it arrives, because the buyers who did nothing in 2024 while they waited are the ones competing with everybody else now.
THE REAL ANSWER TO "IS IT A BUYER'S MARKET?"
It depends on which of these five cities you are standing in.
Gilbert is close to balanced and improving. Chandler and Mesa favor buyers more clearly. Queen Creek and San Tan Valley depend almost entirely on whether you are looking at new construction or resale.
That is not a dodge. It is the actual answer, and it is exactly why a national headline is not a strategy.
If you want to know what your specific street is doing, or what your home would realistically sell for this fall, I am happy to pull the numbers and walk you through them. No pressure attached to it. Sometimes the right answer is to wait, and I would rather tell you that than talk you into something.
Cheri Smith
REALTOR® | eXp Realty
480-298-5551
cherismithrealtor.com
@cherismith.azrealtor