Downtown Phoenix at dusk.
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If you bought a home before the pandemic hit, you probably have spent the last several years tracking your home value with varying levels of glee. After COVID-19 hit, housing prices seemed to go only up, up, up. And that meant tens of thousands of dollars in potential profit — if you could afford to buy a new home after selling your current one.
Though it was great for sellers (and absolutely brutal for buyers), the housing market has come back to earth since then. Now, according to a report from Zillow, the vast majority of homes in the Phoenix metropolitan area actually lost value over the last year. Specifically, 86.9% of homes in the Phoenix area have decreased in value from November 2024 to October 2025. That’s fourth-most of any major metro area in the country, just ahead of Dallas (86.7%) and behind Denver (91%), Austin (89%) and Sacramento (88%).
Nationally, 53% of homes have lost value in the past year, the most since the housing market bottomed out after the recession more than a decade ago. The South and West have been hit particularly hard, Zillow’s report showed. In Arizona, the only communities tracked by Zillow that didn’t see the majority of homes lose value were Nogales (43.9%) and Safford (36%).
By comparison, a year ago, only 16% of homes had lost value across the U.S. Here’s a look at how many homes were losing value in 2024:
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And here’s what it looked like as of October 2025:
Just because there was a dip, though, doesn’t mean disaster is looming. “It’s important to consider that the peak for most homes was fairly recent,” Zillow’s report reads, going on to add that “most homes were purchased well before this and for quite a bit less. That means the majority of owners are still sitting on sizable gains.” Most Phoenix homes losing value doesn’t isn’t the same as those homes now being worth less than their original sale price.
Zillow has data on that, too. “In September, 5.9% of homes were valued lower than the last time they sold,” the report reads. “This share is rising quickly, up from 2.8% last year, but is still lower than the 7.9% of homes in the same position before the pandemic.” In this sense, the Phoenix housing market doesn’t look so dire. Only 2.2% of homes sold in 2025 have gone for less than what sellers paid for them in the first place. In 2019, before the pandemic supercharged the housing market, that number was 3.4%.
By contrast, Austin — which has a similar number of homes losing value as Phoenix — has seen 11.9% of homes sell for a loss.
“Though a cooling labor market and high prices continue to challenge household budgets, for now most homeowners are well able to weather short-term financial turbulence,” the Zillow report says. “Those who either bought or refinanced at historically low mortgage rates have stable, low payments and most home owners have significant equity amassed in their homes.”
So, while it still may be rough out there for those looking to buy a home, you’re still probably in the catbird seat if you bought one before 2020. Even if your home’s value has recently taken a little dip.