Tempe, Arizona is home to the first and largest campus of Arizona State University. Around 660 acres in size, this campus has more than 70,000 students enrolled in at least one class. As a result, Tempe’s economy is largely college-driven; it benefits from a healthy flow of students into and out of the city each year. Unsurprisingly, this impacts the local housing market.
According to Katie Walsh of The Walsh Team, the strength of the Tempe real estate market is a constant demand for housing. In an interview with Commercial Café’s Expert Insight, she said, “As students come to ASU, their parents purchase housing for them as an investment, opposed to renting off-campus housing.” When these students graduate, they often find a new place in the area for a home upgrade. The constant movement between renting, purchasing, and upgrading benefits the real estate market.
This, according to Walsh, creates a challenge: “there is never enough inventory between the student housing mentioned above and the families that move to Tempe for good schools in the area.” Even after kids graduate, families often refuse to leave their established neighborhoods. The combination of established households and a consistent influx of new residents creates competition, making for a healthy housing market. If you are planning to sell your Tempe home, bidding wars are likely. If you are planning to purchase real estate in the area, you will be investing in one of the nation’s most interesting housing markets.
Competition, combined with the lack of single-family home development, makes Tempe’s real estate market very exciting. Walsh noted that some Baby Boomers and Generation Y-ers are beginning to downsize, moving closer to ASU and fixing up older homes. Luxury apartments are popping up all over downtown, and Arizona State recently opened a retirement community near campus. No matter the generation or demographic, residents and newcomers alike are moving all over Tempe.