Millennials changing face of Phoenix-area housing market
May 6, 2014, 7:02 AM | Updated: 7:02 am
PHOENIX — A Valley Realtor said millennials are good and bad for the local housing market.
Home prices kept climbing last year and a Wall Street Journal report based on Deutsche Bank statistics said renting a home in the Valley has become cheaper than buying a home.
Austin, Texas and Sacramento, Calif., join Phoenix in that category. Realtor Diane Brennan, host of “That Real Estate Show” on 92.3 KTAR, disagrees with the notion metro Phoenix is a renter’s market.
“Rents will keep going up, which will only make owning a home more affordable and you get the bonus of building equity in your own home,” Brennan said.
But she also said the millennial generation was having an impact.
“They’re smart, they don’t want to take on more debt on top of student loans. They are one of the most educated generations that we’ve seen,” Brennan said. “A lot of them aren’t in the jobs they want so they want to be mobile if the get that dream job in San Francisco or wherever. They want to be able to pack up and move.”
Brennan said millennials may not be buying homes but they have reignited the downtown Phoenix area.
“They don’t want to live in the suburbs, they want to live in the urban area. That will help revitalize businesses downtown.”
