By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
Key Points:
- Arizona lawmakers propose restricting corporate home buying
- Corporate investors buy 1,000 homes yearly in Arizona
- Arizona developers’ home permits have declined by more then 80% since 2008
Arizona lawmakers are making a bipartisan push to restrict the ability of corporations and investors to buy up single-family homes in Arizona. The move comes as a bid by the Arizona Legislature to make housing more affordable across the state.
But the methods proposed by Nick Kupper, R-Surprise, and Oscar De Los Santos, D-Laveen, do differ.
Both involve giving individuals preferential selection of homes when they hit on the market. They would both also impose an absolute limit on the number of single-family homes that any company could control.
“If all the housing gets bought up over time by investment firms and they turn them into rentals, because it’s more profitable for them long term, you won’t have anything to buy,” he said, adding that the four largest firms with such practices are buying up a combined 1,000 homes per year in the state.
