Why are homebuyers flocking to Arizona’s housing market?

Today’s HousingWire Daily interview features an interview with Caliber Home Loans’ Brandon Bialkowski and Vanessa Accra. In this episode, the loan consultants discuss Arizona’s hot housing market, which is experiencing a significant uptick in homebuyer migration.

Here is a preview of the interview with Bialkowski and Accra, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Alcynna Lloyd: Arizona’s growing housing market reminds me of Austin’s thriving tech hub. Similarly to Austin’s market, I imagine as demand ticks up, it’s made inventory and affordability a top concern. What are some of the challenges homebuyers or sellers are facing in the market?

Brandon Bialkowski: I think that’s a great question. I want to touch on both the out-of-state buyers as well as kind of the local buyers here in Arizona. So, the out-of-state buyers are coming in from higher-priced areas like California, Oregon, Washington, even the Chicago area. They have more money and availability, they just sold their home in California, their net proceeds are a lot higher, so they have more money in purchasing power. It’s creating a big challenge for the local buyer here in Arizona as they’re looking to either move up or purchase their first property. So, we’re seeing the number of cash transactions increase substantially. It’s also putting the first-time homebuyer in a bit of a bind as they generally don’t have a ton of cash to put down. We’re seeing people offer $30,000 to $40,000 over on $350,000 homes right now. So, with them being limited in their down payment, we’re seeing that become a huge issue because they don’t have the cash reserves to make up the appraisal difference. We’re also seeing some appraisal concerns, as well as these buyers are coming in and offering substantially over the market price.

HousingWire Daily examines the most compelling articles reported from the HousingWire newsroom. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories coming across our newsroom that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Victoria Wickham.