By Anita Snow
Aspen Day-Flynn and her boyfriend, Travis Tolin, were thinking of moving back to her native Washington state this fall when their Phoenix landlord helped give them the push.
The monthly rent on their twobedroom house jumped from $1,000 to $1,500 because the owner planned to renovate.
“It really pushed us out the door faster,” said Day-Flynn, a 23-year-old hairstylist.
She and Tolin, a 25-year-old tattoo artist, found an apartment that’s similar in size to their 986-square-foot (110-square-yard) Phoenix house for $1,600 in Ballard, outside downtown Seattle. While it’s among the priciest US areas to live, the couple is earning more money there.
Phoenix long has been considered an inexpensive place to live, but that may be changing. Even some middleclass people are struggling to make ends meet as the desert city experiences some of the nation’s fastest-rising rents, jumping as much as 7% over the past year.
The metro areas of Miami; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as Washington, DC; Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado, are among others with rapidly soaring rents.
Now the fifth-largest city in the US, Phoenix has become a victim of its own success as Californians seek cheaper housing and snowbirds fleeing winter weather buy homes or rent apartments that sit empty during the scorching summers.
Advocates say more initiatives are needed to create affordable housing, like a nonprofit financial institution that provides loans to build apartments for working families along the city’s light rail.
Better funding of the state’s housing trust fund also would help, said Joan Serviss of the nonprofit Arizona Housing Coalition. The fund that once provided $40 million to help with housing issues was capped at $2.5 million after the recession. She said that although state lawmakers this year approved a one-time injection of $15 million, it’s far from enough.
While it’s more expensive to live in Seattle, San Francisco and other cities known for a housing crisis and homelessness, Phoenix rents are outpacing salaries.
A worker in Arizona’s capital must earn nearly $20 an hour to afford an average two-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The nonprofit says the average Arizona renter now earns about $17 an hour. The state’s minimum wage is $11.
“We are one of the least affordable places in the United States” for housing, said Mark Stapp, executive director of Arizona State University’s master’s degree program in real estate development. “It’s not only a social issue, it’s an economic issue. Employees need places where they can afford to live.”
Tenants have few options, with Arizona law largely favoring landlords. Rent control, like the 7% cap in annual increases that Oregon lawmakers approved this year, seems unlikely in a state largely controlled by Republicans.
A new luxury apartment complex with a pool and gym facing Phoenix’s light rail asks about $1,600 a month for a one-bedroom apartment and $2,330 for three bedrooms. Older single-family homes for rent nearby include an 890-square-foot (99-square-yard) historic house with two bedrooms priced at $2,300.
A $600 studio can still be found to the west or the south, but in older buildings without amenities.
Metro Phoenix has hovered near the top of several commercial real estate databases for fastest-growing rents over the previous year.
Yardi Matrix ranked metro Phoenix No. 4 nationally, with a 6.1% increase in apartment rents over a year. REIS by Moody’s Analytics put it at No. 2, saying monthly average rents in the Phoenix market surged 7% from the third quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2019. Only metro Miami saw a larger jump, at 7.5%, while the nationwide increase was just over 4%. Home prices also are rising. September figures from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices showed metro Phoenix leading the way – at 5.8% – in the highest year-over-year