Metro Phoenix housing market's turnaround creates new issues

"More than 100,000 houses stood vacant across metro Phoenix barely three years ago — roughly one of every 10. Today, it’s more like one out of every 100. Where have all the empty houses gone?"

Now, buyers and renters live in those places — in properties re-floored, repainted and relandscaped. The number of empty houses in the Phoenix area today stands at about 10,000, according to an Arizona Republic analysis of housing data. 

In 2009 and 2010, houses were vacant for months. Now, properties generally are vacant because they are in transition between owners. The turnaround is credited to investors, who streamed in to buy dirt-cheap properties for cash. In many cases, these houses were turned into rentals for those who had lost properties to foreclosure or otherwise couldn’t afford to own. Once some of the massive amount of housing inventory was absorbed, it helped win back the confidence of some traditional buyers.

In three years, Phoenix has gone from having too many inexpensive, vacant houses to not having enough. Although the lack of available houses is driving up prices and enticing more homeowners to sell, prospective buyers face a lot of competition for the relatively few properties on the market.

"In part three of Homes for the Taking, The Washington Post's Debbie Cenziper, Mike Sallah and Steven Rich found the District's tax office has risked 1,900 houses to foreclosure by mistakenly counting property owners as delinquent even after they paid their taxes, forcing them to fight for their homes in grueling legal battles that persisted for years. One mistake for $44.79 cost a 95-year-old woman her home. City leaders have offered up emergency legislation."

The series references a 2007 series of work by Fred Schulte. You can read more of Schulte's work on the topic below:

"This man owed $134 in property taxes. The District sold the lien to an investor who foreclosed on his $197,000house and sold it. He and many other homeowners like him were left with nothing."

"Managers of Homeless Recovery said they do not have the staff to inspect properties where the agency pays to house its clients. Brown is one of dozens of landlords they deal with. The managers said the agency does not refer clients to specific properties, and they've never gotten a complaint about Brown's property. Neither is true, according to hundreds of emails reviewed by the Times."

"Last week’s hearing on sexual assault allegations against three U.S. Naval Academy football players highlighted a little-known problem at the school: off-campus rental houses that violate academy regulations but have been the scene of alcohol-and sex-fueled parties for years. The Sun found that the houses, nestled in quiet suburban neighborhoods, have been the focus of residents’ complaints and the scene of other alleged sexual assaults."

"Aiming to save neighborhoods from blight and to ease burdens on the police, municipalities have adopted ordinances requiring landlords to weed out disruptive tenants," The New York Times reports.

"From Maine to Oregon, local floodplain managers say FEMA’s recent flood maps — which dictate the premiums that 5.5 million Americans pay for flood insurance — have often been built using outdated, inaccurate data. Homeowners, in turn, have to bear the cost of fixing FEMA’s mistakes," according to a ProPublica report.

"Despite Minnesota’s crackdown on 'deceptive and dishonest' loan modification schemes, the state Commerce Department has allowed many of those involved to retain their real estate licenses a Star Tribune report has found."

"Since 2010, the department has taken enforcement action against 36 individuals for violating mortgage modification laws. Ten of them held some kind of license with the department that enabled them to engage in real estate activity. Five of them still have those licenses, including two of the former owners of a company handed a record $1 million for “scamming” 200 desperate homeowners."

"Sutton ended up with a series of installment loans from World -- renewed one after the other -- that dragged her ever-deeper into debt, and made getting her bills paid and getting back on her feet a whole lot harder. It is a repeated pattern for low-income borrowers with low or no credit, which an investigation by Marketplace and ProPublica was able to verify from interviews with World borrowers and former World employees." Read the full investigation by Marketplace and ProPublica here.