Phoenix’s housing inventory is being significantly overstated by media reports that conflate different property types, according to veteran real estate agent Chris Dunham of Brokers Hub Realty, who says this misrepresentation creates unnecessary market confusion.
“There was a story in the Arizona public not too long ago, there was all 26,000 property or houses for sale in Phoenix Metro,” Dunham says. “I researched it. It wasn’t the case. There’s only at that time 13,000.”
According to Dunham, the inflated numbers came from combining disparate property categories. “The reporter lumped in condos, townhouses, patio homes, manufactured homes and mobile homes into that entire aspect,” he explains. “But if you took just Phoenix Metro, Maricopa County, at that time, three bedroom, two bath, single family homes, there was only 13,000 some odd properties for sale.”
This kind of reporting, which Dunham calls “that bait-the-switch headline,” can create false impressions about market conditions. “Oh, panic, panic, panic. You read it, and then you go and research their data, and their data is completely wrong, because they’re taking this little piece over here and applying it to their need down here.”
Despite misleading headlines suggesting market weakness, Dunham points to Phoenix’s remarkable long-term stability. “Arizona’s housing markets never slowed down since World War Two,” he says. “We may have been outside. We’ve never stopped since World War Two. We’ve slowed down during the market ebb and flows, but we’ve never completely come to a stop when it comes to building homes.”
Current development suggests continued strength. “We have so much building going on in metro Phoenix, it’s nuts,” Dunham notes. “We have a big computer chip plant north of Phoenix that’s going up, it’s still building, that’s going to bring hundreds of thousands of jobs, there’s another meta coming out here, Amazon’s popping up everywhere.”
Rather than seeing signs of market weakness, Dunham argues the data shows persistent undersupply. “Our inventory is actually less than it should be because of what’s being built,” he says, pointing to continued population growth and commercial expansion.
The migration patterns further support market stability. “So many covers are coming here from other countries, from other states. We’re still, California is coming over here in droves,” Dunham explains. This sustained demand, combined with careful tracking of actual market metrics, suggests a much stronger foundation than some headlines indicate.
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