MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. — As rent continues to climb in the Valley, so do evictions.
On Thursday, Maricopa County released new numbers showing a 12-year high in the number of eviction filings.
"It's noticeably higher now," said Anna Huberman, the presiding Justice of the Peace for Country Meadows Justice Court. "You can feel the difference."
On any given day, her court hears more than 100 cases regarding evictions.
"Not only have we gone up to pre-pandemic levels, we are actually higher than that now," she said.
The data shows that close to 6,700 people received eviction notices on their doors in September. That is an increase of over 2,000 from 2021 and even higher than was reported in 2019.
That's not the only increase the data shows.
Landlords who take their renters to court for not paying are receiving the highest judgments ever, averaging $3,300 this year. That's close to double what it was ten years ago.
Maricopa County officials say some of those cases are from landlords catching up on past amounts due, but a lot of them are people missing just one month's rent.
"On the cases with just one month of rent, just the one month of rent is higher than it's ever been," Huberman said.
Rent is also another daily cost also continues to skyrocket.
12News spoke with Renee of Mesa who says for the past six years she's lived here, rent has gone up about five to ten percent.
This year though, "My rent is actually going to increase about 30 percent with my new lease. I just didn't expect it to go up so dramatically," she said.
Now, she and her family are trying to figure out how to come up with the money. Given all these evictions now happening in the county, Renee hopes it doesn't happen to them.
There is one positive trend the courts mentioned.
A new law in effect since September is allowing some renters to seal evictions if the case is in their favor or they work out a deal with their landlord. So far, the courts report they've sealed nearly 250 cases in just two weeks.
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