PHOENIX — The Valley housing market saw nearly a decade of growth, changing the makeup of some ZIP codes.
Nationally and here in Phoenix, the number of new rental units far outpaced the building of single-family homes.
According to Rent Cafe's analysis of U.S. Census data, five metro area ZIP codes "flipped" from having a majority of residents being homeowners to a majority of residents being renters.
The 85054 ZIP code at Desert Ridge saw nearly a 90% increase in the number of rental units.
“Not a big surprise. This region is changing, this region has evolved,” said Anubhav Bagley, the regional analytics director at the Maricopa Association of Governments. “Since the housing market downturn, the entire Phoenix market, and the entire national market, has changed.“
Bagley lives in that 85054 ZIP code. After the recession, Bagley said many millennials rented instead of owning a home. The number of multifamily builds increased.
“Case in point. For this metro area, we are building 35-40% less single-family and 11% more multifamily,” said Bagley.
Fifteen ZIP codes in Maricopa County had rental properties account for more than 80% of their new construction. Many of them are in the major metro areas.
“I would not be surprised that as our economy evolves, for certain, more ZIP codes to have more rental property,” Bagley said.
The change also means new burdens. The price of housing across the board has gone up and renting is often no longer an affordable alternative.
“Apartment rent in the last 10 years is up some 80%,” Bagley said.
According to Bagley, nearly a quarter of all renters in the metro area spend more than 50% of their income on housing.
With all the growth—Bagley said the metro area needs to find flexible and affordable solutions to help some of the workers our city relies on to have a place to call home.
“We need enough housing to provide options for people to stay here, work here and live here,” Bagley added.
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