By Will Parker | Wall Street Journal
Eviction filings over the past year in a half-dozen cities and surrounding metropolitan areas are up 35% or more compared with pre-2020 norms, according to the Eviction Lab, a research unit at Princeton University.
This includes Las Vegas, Houston, and in Phoenix, where landlords filed more than 8,000 eviction notices in January. That was the most ever in a single month for the county that includes the Arizona capital. Phoenix eviction-court hearings often run for less than a minute. One judge signed off on an eviction after the tenant admitted to missing two rent payments.
“How long until I have to move out?” the tenant asked during a publicly available broadcast of the hearing this month.
“It could be Tuesday,” the judge responded, suggesting she should try to work out a deal with her landlord before then.
Overall, eviction notices were up 15% or more compared with the period before the pandemic for 10 of the 33 cities tracked by the Eviction Lab, which looked at filings over the past 12 months.
