Tempe, Arizona.
Typical home $458,515 (-0.5% in a year), asking rent $1,623 (+0.8%). Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,258 (+110%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,081 -0%
- $460,595$458,515 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $33,152 +8%
- $425,363$458,515 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Tempe$2,407
- Arizona$2,187
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 46 years.
Typical home values in Tempe, AZ fell 0.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Tempe, AZ rose 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Tempe runs $1,442/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,645 in May 2024.
That is $3,065 a month against $1,623 rent: a $2,407 mortgage payment, plus $167 property tax and $491 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Tempe
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$3,065
- Renting$1,623
- Mortgage only$2,407
Property tax · $167/mo 0.44% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Maricopa County, AZ
Insurance & upkeep · $491/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Tempe, Maricopa County, Arizona
Tempe is a city of 180,587 people in Maricopa County. Half its households earn more than $79,663 a year and half less, against $89,300 across Maricopa County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 42% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 58% are rented. Unemployment in Tempe was 4.8% in August 2026, and Maricopa County had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Tempe is a young city, with a median age well below what is typical for older homeowners elsewhere, and a good many adults hold a four-year degree. Most households rent rather than own, and incomes run below the county's, though rents and home values are both well above what many Arizona towns see. Winters are mild and almost never bring snow, while summers are among the hottest in the country, and rain is scarce through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and shops. Arizona State University is the largest workplace in town, and the Salt River Project and the City of Tempe are also among the biggest employers. Commutes are fairly short, and a good number of people work from home, though joblessness has crept up a little over the past year.
Things to do. In or beside town, Mountain America Stadium hosts college football, and the Arizona State University Art Museum is close by. A short drive away are the Desert Botanical Garden, the Phoenix Zoo and the Phoenix Art Museum. For a longer outing, the Heard Museum and the Salt River are farther afield.
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- 78,279households
- 50%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 21%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Maricopa County had 2,289,324 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 69° and lows near 38°; warmest in July, with highs near 106° and lows near 76°. About 9 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tempe Asu weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Tempe
- Arizona State University Campus ImmersionUniversity or college14,448
- IES CommunicationsLow voltage electrical work8,143
- Salt River Project DistrictElectric power generation, fossil fuel5,524
- City of TempeExecutive offices, federal, state, and local3,087
- Carvana HQ5aMotor vehicle dealers2,135
- Automatic Data ProcessingAutomated data processing services1,814
- Kyrene Elementary District (4267)School district1,715FTE
- Tempe School District (4258)School district1,574FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 265 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 58,185 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Heat wavesVery high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of TempeRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Tempe’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Maricopa County and the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ metro.
Tempe home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Tempe$458,515
- Arizona$416,733
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Tempe listings, and the typical home goes pending in 32 days — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Tempe37.02%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Tempe32
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Tempe584
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Tempe156
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Tempe$453,543
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Tempe97.83%
Zip codes with a Tempe address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Tempe — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Tempe
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85281 | Tempe | 72,762 | $1,616 | $390,150 |
| 85282 | Tempe | 53,624 | $1,540 | $456,769 |
| 85283 | Tempe | 47,459 | $1,574 | $446,828 |
| 85284 | Tempe | 19,492 | $2,807 | $705,540 |