Deals dwindle in Arizona’s exclusive Paradise Valley mansion market

Despite some soaring deals in the exclusive Paradise Valley outside Phoenix, the cost and number of homes sold within Arizona’s richest enclave have declined.

Paradise Valley, home to the state’s priciest zip code, had price reductions in 15.1 percent of the 162 homes seeking $5 million or more in March, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing figures from Realtor.com. 

For comparison, the average percentage of March price reductions over the past three years was 7.5 percent. In March, 3.7 percent of home sales in Paradise Valley traded above their listing prices, down from a pandemic high of 36.4 percent in April 2022. 

As for transactions, there were 55 homes sold in Paradise Valley in January and February, down from the pandemic peak of 142 during the same period in 2021.

The median price for a home is $5.05 million, down 2.1 percent since a year ago, but still “the country’s priciest desert residential real estate,” the Journal said.

Recent headlines point to some high-priced real estate deals, including a sale by the Teets family of 27 acres for $42 million, or $1.56 million per acre. In May last year, an 18,500-square-foot mansion in Paradise Valley sold for an area-record $23.5 million.

Last month, the town posted two home sales that rank among its most expensive, according to agent Joan Levinson of Realty One Group.

A Spanish Revival-style house sold for $14 million, while an 8,500-square-foot home fetched $13.1 million. Levinson said another home under construction is slated to close for $16 million this spring. 

The 10,700-square-foot Spanish Revival estate that sold for $14 million, however, had been on the market for more than a year — and initially listed for $19.95 million before dropping  to $14.95 million, according to Andrew Beardsley of Silverleaf Realty, who shared the listing with Caroline Van Arsdale.

The sale at $14 million — more than double its last traded price of $5.5 million in 2020 — suggests strong demand for trophy homes. 

The 8,500-square-foot spec home that sold for $13.1 million had been listed for as much as $14 million at 6126 East Joshua Tree Lane, according to Zillow. The 1-acre property, built by Tim McCormac of Temac Development, has a gym, home theater and yoga room.

The house first hit the market preconstruction in 2021 for $10.1 million, according to listing agent Joe Bushong of Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty.

As in nearby Phoenix, tempered demand for homes in Paradise Valley has given some buyers more leverage, allowing them to wait on the sidelines for inflated prices to come down. 

“COVID raised listing prices and sale prices drastically. After the boom, some kept going up,” Levinson, who represented the buyers in the sale, told the WSJ. “But you can only go up so much, so fast. 

“A lot of these homes are now aspirationally priced, which is partially to blame for the slower market.”

Paradise Valley’s priciest deals are now on par with some of the country’s best-known luxury markets, such as Boca Raton, Fla. Though demand isn’t as strong since the pandemic, Beardsley said, the recent high-priced deals moved the valley permanently into that echelon. 

— Dana Bartholomew

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