Homeowners need fewer years to save for a down payment on a home in Maricopa than about 90% of other American cities in a new study. 

According to the financial experts at Upgraded Points in Austin, Texas, Maricopa residents need just over six years to save the 20%, or $71,000 on average, needed for a home down payment. 

That’s not bad, considering Arizonans overall must save significantly more over a longer period to keep their mortgage payments affordable, according to the same study. “Long saving timelines are common in mountain states,” said Alex Miller, who headed the analysis. 

Miller and other researchers analyzed 611 cities with complete data from the ZHVI, the ACS, Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. On years to save, Maricopa ranked 536th, lower than any other Arizona city.

Among 268 small cities, characterized as having a population of fewer than 100,000, Maricopa ranked 231st on years to save. This is true despite Maricopa home prices climbing an eye-watering 60% since the pandemic. The price of a single-family home in the city sits at $365,605 — in the first quarter of 2025, the average American home sale closed at $503,800. 

For a home down payment, saving 20% has been the norm for years. But consumers have increasingly found it difficult to hit that mark with rising home prices and high mortgage rates in recent years. Although the rates eased last week, the $2,868 median mortgage payment in the four weeks that ended May 4 was an all-time high, Redfin reported this morning. 

Upgraded Points’s data showed the average Arizona resident would need to save money for roughly 16 years to be able to afford a down payment that would keep their mortgage affordable, a decade longer than the average Maricopan. 

Two major factors play in the favor of Maricopans: home prices and household income. 

The city’s median tag of roughly $357,000 checks out when comparing the prices of last month’s highest and lowest home sales — the priciest home sold for $749,000 in The Lakes and the least expensive sold for $262,000 in Rancho Mirage. 

Depending on the source, the median household income for Maricopa residents ranged from $83,000 to $99,000. Simple math shows that saving 10% in that income range makes it easier to hit the target for most would-be homeowners.  

The next comparable housing market was San Tan Valley, where residents earned a similar median household income — but with the median home price at $407,000, most would spend more than 8½ years saving $106,000.