According to Wilcox’s report:​

• The median sale price for a single family resale ended at $308,000 in May 2019.  This is now the new monthly record high for the median sale price.  The month with the previous highest median sale price was March 2019 when it was $297,000.  Before this time, the record month was June 2018 at $295,000 and before that time we have to go all the way back to the pre-real estate recession month of June 2006 when it was $287,500. 

• For the second month in a row, the year-over-year slow-down for sales of single-family resales has ended.  Sales of single-family resales in Maricopa County (Greater Phoenix) in May 2019 were 7,562.  This was 430 more or 5.1% higher than May 2018.  Sales were also higher in April 2019 over April 2018.  Previous to April 2019, sales were down year-over-year for eight consecutive months starting in August 2018.  See Table one.  Another highlight for May 2019 is that 7,562 sales is the highest number of sales for a month since June 2011 when there were 7,790 sales.  But in June 2011 the median purchase price for a single family resale was $126,500 compared to $308,000 in May 2019.      

• New monthly listings of single family resales were up year-over-year in both May and April.  They were down year-over-year in February and March.

• When comparing sales of single-family resales in May 2019 to May 2018 we see a substantial decrease in sales under $200,000.  In this price range, there were 350 fewer sales in May 2019.  A reason for this decrease is that since purchase prices keep going up there are just fewer homes for sale in this price range compared to last year at the same time.  In almost every sale price range at $250,000 or above, we see a year-over-year increase in the number of sales.  There were 721 more sales at $250,000 or above this May over last May.  Sales in the $200,000 to $249,999 price range were almost breakeven, there were seven fewer sales this May compared to last May.  ​

Summer is a season best spent outdoors—and preferably by the water. But conventional pools are laden with chlorine, which smells nasty and can irritate eyes and damage hair. Fortunately, there's a growing trend towards natural swimming pools, which are treated with aquatic plants and other biological filters instead of chemicals. These chlorine-free pools offer a serene back-to-nature experience that's hard to beat. Check out the pros & cons of natural pools at the end of the post. ​

The natural pool trend began in Europe several decades ago. Since then, they’ve been slowly gaining popularity in the United States, Australia, and other regions with sunny climates. Unlike a traditionally rectangular, chlorine-filled swimming pool, a natural pool is often designed to imitate pools, ponds, or other bodies of water in the wild—they can have irregular shapes, along with rocks, waterfalls, and boulders. Naturally, not every pool built to look like a natural body of water with realistic rocks and boulders is a natural pool.
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Unlike most sparkling blue swimming pools, natural swimming pools or ponds (NSPs) are filtered organically rather than by chemicals. Another pool called a regeneration zone is built nearby, which is where the water enters either a gravel filter or a constructed wetlands made of plants that clean the water. This resembles the process by which aquatic plants clean ponds in nature and results in a pool no less clean than one with chemically filtered water. The natural pool and its regeneration zone actually build a small ecosystem that changes over time, and animals or insects often are attracted to the zone (but not the pool, thankfully—it doesn’t contain the environment they’re looking for).
These organic ponds are gaining popularity across the U.S., but there are some pros and cons that you should carefully consider before deciding to install a natural rather than a conventional pool:

Pros

• Natural pools are very adaptable. Though their description conjures up an image of a brown pond with mud at the bottom, most are actually filled with concrete and if you wish to make your natural pool look almost precisely like a traditional pool, you can—the gravel filter can be placed underground and hidden. Or you can go the other direction and design a pool that looks just like the type of pond or pool you might find in the woods, complete with rocks and boulders. Generally, these are more flexible in design than a traditional pool.
• They work fine in all ranges of climates—during the cold winter months, they’ll freeze over just like a pond in the wild.
• Natural pools also have the advantage of being green or environmental—the chemicals required for traditional pools, on the other hand, can damage the environment.
• Organic or natural pools require much less maintenance than a conventional pool, and their year-to-year costs are lower after construction is finished. They don’t require chlorine, chemical filtration, pH balancing, or any of the other side costs and numerous daily and weekly chores that go with keeping a normal pool clean. They should still be kept well-skimmed and free from debris, but that’s really the extent of the maintenance you’ll need to do with your pool.

Cons

• The flip side of those low maintenance costs is a higher initial investment. Building a natural pool can get quite expensive—remember, a natural pool requires an entirely discrete pool right by it for filtration. Because they’re more unusual than traditional pools, it may also be difficult to find a good contractor to build one. For an NSP that looks good and will last, hire a pool and pond builder who specializes in this kind of environment and who can show you pools they have designed and built.
• Over the long run, they are cheaper than a traditional pool due to their lower maintenance costs, but if you think selling the property within a few years is a possibility, then you risk spending more on your natural pool than you would have on a traditional one.
• The regeneration zone also means that it requires more land to build a natural pool; the zone should generally be as big as the pool itself. If space is a factor, you may be better off building a traditional pool, like a lap pool, rather than a natural one-half as big.

• The aesthetics of a natural pool can put off some swimmers who are used to perfectly clear, blue, chemically filtered water. Organic water can take on a brownish tint depending on the presence of algae, and it’s impossible to completely remove sediment and some life from the pool. Though the water is perfectly safe to swim in, your natural pool may not look as nice as a Grecian, sparkling blue traditional pool.