This piece includes a link to a piece about the housing crisis in Arizona. TLDR: they need to build a lot more housing and bureaucratic requirements for things like garages are a factor in the crisis.
The cost of building a house is the problem. Suitable land is hard to come by, and everything is expensive. One has no choice except to build high-end homes. Nothing else is financially practical. The cost is driven by unrealistic inflationary expectations, and I don't see any possibility of relief.
They also did a bunch of ‘condo conversions’ back in the real estate bubble which took inventory off the rental market and (from my non-scientific survey from driving a cab around the Phoenix metro area for nine years) they haven’t been putting any effort into affordable housing but just build massive, block sized, luxury apartments.
After the real estate bubble unless you want an hour commute all new housing is ‘infill’ and there’s a reason that a lot of that land wasn’t snapped up before. Now it’s super expensive, needs rezoning and quite often they’re tearing down multiple buildings to get a large enough lot size to make it worth their while.
Plus, they need a lot more water before they build a lot more housing. Phoenix is in the middle of the desert after all.
I wasn't criticizing your comment, more like clarifying mine. I've studied housing issues and homelessness. This is a nationwide issue in the US currently.
However, if excess supply is being bought up by wealthy landlords, this is a problem because they will be able to drive the price up.
Unless population grows faster than prices can decrease keeping demand high.
And apparently it is the second fastest growing state.
This does not make any economic sense whatsoever.
From your sibling comment:
> Unless population grows faster than prices can decrease keeping demand high.
Isn’t it the population growth that’s causing rent increases? Not luxury apartments, unless you think luxury apartments are the cause of this population growth. I suppose that wouldn’t be impossible, but it’s more something you’d expect to see in places like Jackson Hole.