Psst! There’s a Real Estate Boom (Yes, a Boom) in Phoenix, Arizona

After the big real estate bust in Phoenix, Arizona, a new trend is afoot: a boom in the market for foreclosed homes, where investors buy properties then lend it back to the (former) owners turned renters:

With this sweltering desert city enduring one of the largest tumbles in housing prices for any urban area since the Depression, there is an unrelenting stream of foreclosures to choose from. On some days, hundreds are offered for sale at the auctions that take place on the plaza in front of the county courthouse.

There is also a large supply of foreclosed families who can no longer qualify for a loan. And that is prompting a flood of investors like Mr. Jarvis, who wants to turn as many of these people as possible into rent-paying tenants in the houses they used to own.

Real estate got just about everyone into trouble in Phoenix, and the thinking seems to be that real estate is going to get everyone out.

The low end of the real estate market here — and in some equally hard-hit places like inland California and coastal Florida — is becoming as wild as anything during the boom.

David Streitfeld of the New York Times has more: Link

(Photo: Joshua Lott / NY Times)