By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
Two bills working their way through the Arizona House of Representatives could harm renters in the Grand Canyon State, which currently is at its lowest rental vacancy rate since before the Great Recession.
Rental vacancy rates are defined by the United States Census Bureau as the percentage of the rental housing market that is currently unoccupied or vacant.
The most recent data, which does not include 2018, shows that Arizona’s rental vacancy rate sat at around 7.5 percent in 2017. That’s only slightly above the national average of 7 percent.
In the Phoenix metro area, rental vacancies are around 6 percent.
But vacancy rates for rentals used to be much higher in Arizona.