Report details ongoing affordability challenges Arizona renters face

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Housing affordability has been a growing challenge across the Valley. Despite reports showing rent prices have cooled off, Arizona remains one of the toughest states for renters.

When it comes to finding a place to live in the Valley, renting can be as competitive and expensive as buying. A new report found renters must work 76 hours a week, making the minimum wage, to pay for a one-bedroom apartment in Arizona.

Skyrocketing rent is a matter of inventory and demand.

“Between 2021 and 2023, rents went up 32%,” said Rick Merritt, president and co-founder of Elliott D. Pollack & company, a real estate and economic firm. “The state of Arizona believes it has a shortage of about 200,000 housing units.”

A non-profit housing report found that a one-bedroom in Arizona costs, on average, $1,417 a month, while a two-bedroom costs about $1,700.

“Wages are increasing and they have increased, but they haven’t kept up with the rate of inflation,” Merritt said.

He said rents shot up after the pandemic, and although rent prices are stabilizing, many tenants across the state are still struggling.

“If you’re a single person and you’re working minimum wage jobs, you’re going to have difficulty finding a place to rent,” said Merritt. “A lot of people are doubling up with roommates to share the rent; maybe if you’re in your 20s, you’re going back to live with your mother and father.”

Last year, the Arizona Auditor General listed the average teacher salary as $58,000. Based on the rule that renters shouldn’t spend more than 30% of their monthly income on rent, teachers are barely making enough for a one-bedroom.

“It is very common for most educators to have second and third jobs,” said Marisol Garcia, President of the Arizona Education Association. “These things are being quickly taken away from this generation of educators, whether or not they can buy a home, or have children or go on vacations.”

Garcia says it forces teachers to make difficult decisions.

“Hearing that educators can’t afford rent or move into properties is something we have heard up and down the state from districts where teachers have to make decisions to stay in Arizona because of the living situation,” she said.

She worries about the impact this has on the industry.

“What happens when we can’t pay teachers what they need to get paid, as well as the housing crisis impacting them? We’re going to continue to see the retention issue hit the state,” said Garcia.

Police departments are also listed in the report and have seen retention issues.

Earlier this year, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a price-fixing lawsuit accusing a property management software company and nine of the state’s largest landlords of conspiring to raise rent costs. She blames them for the 30% increase in rent across Phoenix and Tucson over the past two years.

Tuesday, President Biden called on corporate landlords to cap rent increases at 5% and announced the administration’s plan to take action to make more public land available for housing by:

• Calling on Congress to pass legislation giving corporate landlords a choice to either cap rent increases on existing units at 5% or risk losing current valuable federal tax breaks
• Repurposing public land sustainably to enable as many as 15,000 additional affordable housing units to be built in Nevada
• Rehabilitating distressed housing, building more affordable housing, and revitalizing neighborhoods, including in Las Vegas, Nevada

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