Once affordable, Phoenix facing soaring rents
PHOENIX — Aspen DayFlynn 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 DayFlynn, a 23yearold hairstylist.
She and Tolin, a 25yearold tattoo artist, found an apartment that’s similar in size to their 986squarefoot Phoenix house for $1,600 in Ballard, outside downtown Seattle. While it’s among the priciest U.S. 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 fastestrising rents, jumping as much as 7% over the past year.
The metro areas of Miami; Knoxville, Tenn.; and RaleighDurham and Charlotte, N, C., as well as Washington, D.C.; Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo., are among others with rapidly soaring rents.
Now the fifthlargest city in the U.S., 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.
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 twobedroom 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.
Phoenix, like many other places, faces a shortage of affordable housing going back a decade to the Great Recession.