Arizona’s housing shortage is making for higher home prices

Arizona’s housing shortage is making for higher prices for multi-family homes and higher rents for new apartments. The situation can be blamed on everything from lumber and labor shortages to neighborhood resistance to new apartment construction. We talked about it with Catherine Reagor, senior real estate reporter at the Arizona Republic.

There is a housing shortage in the real estate market like we have never seen.

“Absolutely. I mean you just start with our apartment vacancies are lower than its been in 50 years, and the number of homes listed for sale are historically low… It is so difficult to build apartments right now, because we have this backlash.”

What are we facing here?

“It’s two fold, what we are facing here. Construction costs are way up, lumber costs, steel costs are way up and labor costs and even finding labor is so difficult, and land costs are up. The median price of a new home is at 30%, $100,000 from last year. But the number of new home we are building is down from the year before, and we need more. But builders just can’t.”

How can the rental prices be so high when so many new apartment complexes are being built?

“We are like second in the nation for increasing rental prices for both single family and apartments. So they are getting a great return… There are a lot oh high rise apartments being built and those rents are higher… 30-50 apartment complexes across the valley got stymied or shelved last year.”

What is nimbyism?

Essentially when people or a neighborhood do not want something built. “They go to the city counsels and march against that. They have signs, they rally other neighbors. Again, California, Seattle as you said you have seen that there. We have not seen that here. And for this group to form and for other groups to try to address this, because it’s a crisis.”