Economist expects rise in Arizona population, homes in next few years

PHOENIX — An economist said Friday that he believes Arizona’s population will continue to rise and construction companies will be kept busy building homes for them to live in.

Elliot Pollack, who runs Elliot D. Pollack and Company in Scottsdale, said about 22,000 homes will be built in the Valley next year, with an additional 20,000 to come the following year.

The economist said he expected to see an uptick in millennials entering Arizona’s housing market, but that some of them could face affordability issues.

“Millennials, as they get older, will follow their parents to the suburbs so there’s a lot of pent-up demand for housing that will come over the next decade,” Pollack said.

“Since there are so few listings in the greater Phoenix area relative to history, we’d have more housing if new home builders were able to build less expensive housing, but that’s not in the cards.”

Despite the housing builds, Pollack said Arizona has not returned to pre-Great Recession population growth. However, that may not be a bad thing.

“In some ways, that’s bad because it kept more people unemployed longer, but it did allow the economy to go for longer periods without getting overheated,” he said.

“There’s nothing on the horizon that suggests if there is a recession a year or two down the road that it will be anything like the last one.”

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