PHOENIX — Data from the Maricopa County Justice Courts reports there were 7,142 eviction filings last month.
This is a 15-year high only surpassed by the months leading up to the Great Recession housing crash. It is the 5th highest number of evictions reported in July, but 24th overall.
Eviction filings for the first seven months of 2023 are hitting numbers not seen since just before the Great Recession. Slightly over 46,000 eviction filings are recorded so far this year. The highest seven-month period for any year in the past two decades was 2006 with just over 47,000 filings.
Although the numbers are high, they are coming just after the COVID-19 pandemic years when eviction filings cratered due to moratoriums put in place. The 12-month rolling average of monthly eviction filings went from 5,000 before the pandemic to 3,000 just after March 2020.
The average did not surpass pre-pandemic numbers until this past January, so in many ways the increased filings are a pressure valve from the COVID-19 pandemic being released.
Raw monthly filings from 2019 to 2023 show a similar pattern.
July eviction filings this year were over three times higher than they were in July 2020. Compared to that eviction filings were only 20% higher this July than in 2019 or 2022. Still a significant rise, but an indicator of the impact of COVID-19 era eviction moratoriums.
