By BEX Staff for AZBEX
Arizona’s housing inventory and historically low production volume has put the state ninth in the U.S. for housing underproduction.
While production has increased since 2021, a report by housing research group Up for Growth found Arizona had a shortage of 120,306 units that year, the most recent for which full data are available.
While shortages are most extreme in the country’s coastal areas and large cities, the 2023 Housing Underproduction™ in the U.S. report found underproduction becoming more common in suburbs, towns and rural areas as well.
Up for Growth CEO Mike Kingsella said in news reports there is no state in the union providing sufficient housing for residents.
Housing shortages and underproduction negatively impact affordability, diversity and dynamism, according to Kingsella.
Underproduction is up 3% from 2019 numbers and hit 3.9 million homes in 2021. Migration fueled by the pandemic caused an 11% spike in the housing shortage in urban areas between 2019 and 2021. The number of counties experiencing an increase in underproduction increased 32%.
The study found underproduction worsened from 2019 to 2021 in 256 U.S. markets, making up 83% of markets in the country.
“Policymakers must make the straightforward but difficult choice to prioritize new funding sources that allow for diverse housing types, to invest in construction innovations, and to bolster infrastructure funding despite the risks posed by NIMBY opposition,” Kingsella said. “Only then will we slow the pace of housing underproduction and, over time, begin to reverse it.”