| NEWS | A Renter’s Tale Trapped in Phoenix’s crisis of sudden rent hikes feels like ‘homelessness breathing down my neck.’ BY KATYA SCHWENK O nce, Nancy Lake worked as a social worker, a counselor for Phoenix families in crisis. She saw how prob- lems would pile up, how quickly people could find themselves on the street. But, at 70 years old, Lake never thought she would find herself facing homelessness, trapped in the kind of “devastating situa- tion” she had seen her clients face for years. At the beginning of June, Lake’s land- lord taped a letter on the door of her apart- ment in east Phoenix. If she wanted to renew her lease when it expired in August, the letter said, she would face a monthly rent increase of $462. For three years, Lake had paid around $1,350 a month for a modest two-bedroom apartment for herself and her adult son, who is disabled. Now, that monthly rent was jumping to more than $1,800. “I’m pretty scared right now,” Lake told Phoenix New Times. She doesn’t have that kind of money. Moving is expensive, and affordable apartments are hard to find. Every morning since that letter arrived, Lake said, she wakes up and thinks: “What can I do today to get out of this?” Lake’s story is a common one these days in Phoenix. Rising rents are the result of a white-hot real estate market, in turn propelled by an influx of new residents to Phoenix. Figures from Rent.com, which aggregates rental price trends in markets, show that in the last year, the average price for a one-bedroom apartment in Phoenix has increased by nearly 40 percent. Investors have rushed into the Phoenix market, buying up not just luxury rentals but trailer parks and affordable housing. Ascent at Papago Park, Lake’s apartment complex, is located at Van Buren and 51st streets. The rush of development is pronounced in this slice of Phoenix. Cranes stretch over empty lots nearby. New, modern developments loom over shabby convenience stores and auto shops. In March, Ascent at Papago Park sold for $107.5 million. The buyer was Decron Properties, a real estate investment firm based in Los Angeles. Decron, as one industry newswire put 10 it, has gone on an “acquisition spree” in Phoenix over the last year. The firm bought its first property in the state in May 2021 — a 276-unit apartment building in Tempe. Now, one year later, Decron owns eight properties — and more Katya Schwenk Nancy Lake worries she will be left homeless after her rent was hiked $500. than 2,100 units — across the Valley. Decron did not return multiple calls and emails from New Times seeking comment. For its residents, for years, Ascent provided relatively affordable housing. For a real estate tycoon, though, the apart- ments looked like a good investment. The complex is gated, with 270 units. From some vantage points, the red sandstone buttes of Papago Park jut out on the horizon. After Decron bought the apart- ments, they added a new tagline: “Luxury apartment living.” Phoenix, Decron Properties wrote in a press release after the sale, was a lucrative place for such investments. There was “pent-up demand for living space” with the influx of new residents into the city, which meant that rents could rise rapidly, yielding “as much as 20 percent in rent premiums.” For Lake, it’s closer to a 40 percent rent hike. In the release, Decron outlined its plan to quickly jack up the value — and income — of its new acquisition. First, it would fix up landscaping and amenities. Then, it would renovate each unit. “We’re confident,” CEO David Nagel wrote, that the Phoenix market would ensure “our ability to meet or surpass our investment goals.” Decron is perhaps the archetypal bogeyman in Phoenix’s housing market: an investment firm in California buying up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of multifamily housing. Such firms have inspired slogans like “Don’t LA My PHX” (coined by one local Realtor). They are easy scapegoats. David Leibowitz, spokesman for the Arizona Multihousing Association, >> p 12 JULY 14TH–JULY 20TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
