Affordable Arizona Homes Vanishing

Affordability in Arizona is vanishing.Why? :

Another big part of the problem, housing advocates say, is that there is little available land for development around many of Arizona's smaller cities and rural areas. Most of the land is owned by the government or is part of Native American reservations. Only about 13 percent of Arizona's land is privately owned.

Metro Phoenix has had one of the most affordable housing markets in the West for decades because of its abundance of developable land. People have long been able to drive farther out to find housing they can afford. Home builders call it "driving until you qualify."

The Valley's boundary to the southeast jumped into Pinal County as homebuyers went farther out to find housing they could afford. The same trend played out in the West Valley.

But home prices in the Phoenix area jumped 55 percent in the past year, and incomes climbed less than 3 percent. It hasn't been this hard for a Valley resident to afford a home since the mid-1980s.

You have to wonder why the federal government needs so much land.