But for people who have lived in Arizona for years, the state is getting more expensive, not less. Starter homes bought pre-pandemic, when interest rates were incredibly low, have become forever homes because the cost of getting into a bigger house is prohibitive. And those looking for their first home now face prices and interest rates that are way higher than they were five years ago. “What we’re seeing is that the market can’t produce, really, housing for anybody who makes, let’s say, 80% of the area median income and below,” Newhouse said. Possible solutions That’s the problem. But what’s to be done about it? Newhouse and Hipple both agree that the issue is with the popular notion of housing abundance. Simply put, that philosophy holds that as long as you keep increasing the housing stock, the housing crisis will lessen. More supply, less demand. But, as the Georgetown study demonstrates, “you can’t just leave this to the market and think that’s going to meet people’s affordable housing needs,” Hipple said. Fixing that requires leaning on the market so it produces every kind of housing, not just the housing that it’s most profitable to build. “We need all of the supply,” Newhouse said. “All of the supply.” And that means making it worth a builder’s while to build middle- and lower-income housing. Arizona has already taken some steps in that direction. In 2024, the Arizona Legislature passed several bipartisan bills that preempted local zoning ordinances. One allowed for the construction of casitas, or accessory dwelling units, on lots zoned for single-family homes. Another allowed for multi-family housing — duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes — to be built in single-family- home neighborhoods. A third allowed for empty commercial buildings to be rezoned for adaptive reuse as apartment complexes. Those bills have not been without contro- versy. Residents of Phoenix’s historic neigh- borhoods have railed against the middle-housing law before the Phoenix City Council, which could do nothing but shrug its shoulders and change its zoning rules to comply with state law. Whether those laws make a dent in the housing crisis remains to be seen, but Hipple called them a sign of forward progress. “It’s definitely a step in the right direc- tion,” she said. “With a crisis as severe as the housing shortage in communities across the United States, you’re going to have to take an everything-and-above approach.” It’s likely not enough, though. Those zoning changes allow for middle-housing units to be built, but they stop short of incen- tivizing developers to build them. Newhouse feels that if cities and the state are serious about making housing affordable again, they could be doing much more. For one thing, they could streamline the permitting process, which can throw wrenches in the gears of a housing development. Newhouse remembers touring a subsidized housing development built by Catholic Charities in Phoenix. “It took them 16 years to get it built” because of all the bureaucratic boxes they had to check, she said. “A lot of other developers would have walked away from the project.” And a lot of developers won’t even start an affordable housing project unless it makes financial sense for them. That’s why Newhouse says the state also needs to put money where its mouth is. Congress expanded the Federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit last year as part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Arizona’s program, created in 2021, set aside $4 million a year to spend on affordable housing. One report found that the credit has resulted in the construction of at least 1,500 homes across the state. But Arizona’s legislature declined to renew the program. At the end of 2025, it expired. That made Arizona the first state with a low-income housing tax credit to also ditch it. Efforts are underway to bring the program back — Newhouse said she is “exhausted trying to renew that thing” — but it faces opposition from some Republicans. In partic- ular, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen said last year that he prefers tax cuts that help everyone — though, as Georgetown’s study shows, that won’t do much to increase affordable housing stock in Phoenix. Clearly, more needs to be done, because whatever is being done already isn’t working. “We are short,” Newhouse said. “And we are short middle- and low-income housing across the board. It makes things really unaf- fordable.” So as you see all the new homes, townhouses and complexes you can’t afford, know you’re not crazy. Yes, the Valley is building housing. It’s just not for you. Phoenix is building more new housing than most American cities. But unless you’re rolling in dough, YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT. An aerial view of a housing development in Buckeye. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) (Georgetown University Center on Poverty and Inequality)
