Biggest obstacle to Arizona housing recovery is lack of jobs.
One of the biggest obstacles to an Arizona housing recovery is the lack of jobs. I have heard that the Metropolitan Phoenix housing market is not expected to recover until 2014. People are saying that without jobs to draw more residents, there will not be enough people to fill the almost 80,000 area homes that were left empty by the latest recession. This will lead to home prices remaining depressed.
The other biggest reason for a delayed housing recovery is that the Phoenix Metropolitan area is still experiencing high foreclosure rates. New jobs would help curb the foreclosure rate. Experts in real estate trends say home building is at its lowest since the 1970's, which I guess I feel is a good thing. If there are 80,000 vacant homes, who needs to build new homes?
Arizona lost more than 210,000 jobs in 2008 and 2009 according to Elliott Pollack, a Scottsdale-based economist. He doesn't see the demand for homes meeting the supply of homes until 2014. The latest data shows that Arizona's population growth has leveled off, or even declined over the past two years. An example of this is new utility hookups are at their lowest level in Phoenix since the 1950's. Many so-called experts tend to believe we will continue to see more bankruptcies and foreclosures over the next two years, as we pull out of this recession.
Pollack forecasts that "Arizona will add 250,000 new jobs and 550,000 new residents by the end of 2014." That growth would create demand for about 180,000 homes, and take care of the current 80,000 vacant homes and then some. Sounds like the Phoenix Metropolitan housing recovery will be slow, but perhaps that is a good thing.
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