Census figures are in (Phoenix, Maricopa: job market, schools, calculator)

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by locolife

The next Denver? Has there been more then a few years over the last 3 decades that the Denver MSA has outpaced Phoenix? If anything I'd say these numbers are still kind of disappointing compared to where we used to be at over 100K a year in the early 2000's.

I'm not talking about influx, per se, but rather skyrocketing home prices and outrageous traffic. Denver has never outpaced PHX in growth.

[gbpakrfan]

Originally Posted by sh9730

Pinal County was 32 per day last year.

Judging from the construction around here, 31 of them are probably in Merrill Ranch.

[locolife]

Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64

More like Denver was briefly us.

Exactly.

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by locolife

Exactly.

No. Quite the opposite, unless PHX attracted tons of high-paying jobs, and home prices and rent became nearly unaffordable to most. Not to mention LA-style traffic.

[asufan]

When I was in college here in the late 1990's, studying Real Estate Development at ASU (Undergrad), the numbers reported to us were 120,000/year moving here and we edged out Atlanta for the top spot. At the time it was a much larger percentage gain than today, and obviously this was the place to be for my career goals. It remained steady and increased through the building boom, but in the subsequent bust, it went to negative in my opinion, with a lot of the development industry people moving on to other cities such as areas in the Southeast. Now that we are moving back in the direction where we were 15-20 years ago, there is a huge lack of labor to keep up with the demand, this is something that will keep us in check as we see a lot of building all over town, but I see the construction creeping by at a much slower pace than before (not necessarily a bad thing IMO). If demand continues in this direction, we will see the upward pressure in resale prices continue or intensify

[thinkalot]

Many of those people will not need a job. They will not have children in schools. They will however make restaurants crowded at 4pm and create more jobs in healthcare.

[locolife]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

I'm not talking about influx, per se, but rather skyrocketing home prices and outrageous traffic. Denver has never outpaced PHX in growth.

Yeah, that's what I thought, we've always added a lot more more people than Denver and last year we nearly doubled Denver.

I don't know about traffic, I'm setup for limited driving, 6 miles to work by car 8 if I pedal, which happens quite a bit now that the mornings are a bit warmer and they've made some extensions to my main commuting bike path, getting under the 202 on a 100% car free route is a little slice of heaven!

As far as skyrocketing home prices, I'm not really seeing that either. It seems to be a healthy increase but nothing like we saw in the previous boom where people were camping out at new neighborhoods waiting for lots to be released. In that time you could see home prices increase $10,000 in a few weeks, doesn't appear like that's happening now.

Phoenix seems pretty well positioned to handle more growth, I think it's well entrenched in our DNA to manage 100K to 120K new residents a year, looking at raw land available to develop plus the opportunity for adding infill/urban housing, I don't see a lot of strong limits that would cause supply of homes to suddenly be a problem. It could temporarily be an issue if suddenly hordes of people start moving here and nobody is ready to build for it.

[asufan]

Originally Posted by locolife

Yeah, that's what I thought, we've always added a lot more more people than Denver and last year we nearly doubled Denver.

I don't know about traffic, I'm setup for limited driving, 6 miles to work by car 8 if I pedal, which happens quite a bit now that the mornings are a bit warmer and they've made some extensions to my main commuting bike path, getting under the 202 on a 100% car free route is a little slice of heaven!

As far as skyrocketing home prices, I'm not really seeing that either. It seems to be a healthy increase but nothing like we saw in the previous boom where people were camping out at new neighborhoods waiting for lots to be released. In that time you could see home prices increase $10,000 in a few weeks, doesn't appear like that's happening now.

Phoenix seems pretty well positioned to handle more growth, I think it's well entrenched in our DNA to manage 100K to 120K new residents a year, looking at raw land available to develop plus the opportunity for adding infill/urban housing, I don't see a lot of strong limits that would cause supply of homes to suddenly be a problem. It could temporarily be an issue if suddenly hordes of people start moving here and nobody is ready to build for it.

That's the problem I mentioned in my previous post. You may see a new home community take 12 sales in a week, but there's only one concrete crew assigned to that subdivision, for instance. Or the concrete crew splits time with a nearby subdivision. That's what I'm seeing going on in the valley right now, you see construction when you drive by, but you can't see the backlog. I know there was a very recent shortage of framers as well, so you'd see houses sit at the slab stage for 6 weeks, instead of the framing happening the following day or two. You also see framers working on weekends (they are piece workers and there is enough supply to keep them busy 80 hours a week). The availability of land is also an issue in some areas. For instance in Chandler all that is really left is smaller infill parcels, although there is land if you drive off towards the edges of the valley, there's not really a lot of land where most of the demand lies. If someone moves here and lands a nice job in the Price corridor, they aren't going to be looking in San Tan Valley, for example. They're going to want a nicer home closer to work. This demand (if it continues, which is a big "IF"), will drive up prices in the more centrally located areas where the jobs are.

[locolife]

Originally Posted by asufan

That's the problem I mentioned in my previous post. You may see a new home community take 12 sales in a week, but there's only one concrete crew assigned to that subdivision, for instance. Or the concrete crew splits time with a nearby subdivision. That's what I'm seeing going on in the valley right now, you see construction when you drive by, but you can't see the backlog. I know there was a very recent shortage of framers as well, so you'd see houses sit at the slab stage for 6 weeks, instead of the framing happening the following day or two. You also see framers working on weekends (they are piece workers and there is enough supply to keep them busy 80 hours a week). The availability of land is also an issue in some areas. For instance in Chandler all that is really left is smaller infill parcels, although there is land if you drive off towards the edges of the valley, there's not really a lot of land where most of the demand lies. If someone moves here and lands a nice job in the Price corridor, they aren't going to be looking in San Tan Valley, for example. They're going to want a nicer home closer to work. This demand (if it continues, which is a big "IF"), will drive up prices in the more centrally located areas where the jobs are.

Yeah, good point. And the new jobs also want to be in the Price Corridor, Tempe or Central Phoenix based on where the employees are. Maybe a perfect storm is brewing but like you said it's a big IF. No sooner did I post what I did then I see this article regarding labor shortages.

I can only imagine how the tough stance on immigration will continue to drive labor shortages for the foreseeable future.

Labor Shortage Driving Up Prices Of New Homes | KJZZ

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

No. Quite the opposite, unless PHX attracted tons of high-paying jobs, and home prices and rent became nearly unaffordable to most. Not to mention LA-style traffic.

How is Phoenix simultaneously the next Denver and quite the opposite?

Is it just the negative converse of any positive post, or is there any reasoning?