There are thousands of house rentals in Phoenix.
>>>I have some friends who just rented a house in Phoenix, AZ and they said there were not that many vacant rentals with 30 miles of Phoenix.
You got a source for that, or is that anecdotal?
The friends I was talking to in Phoenix were not looking for a run-down low rent house. There are probably quite a few of those for rent in central Phoenix. So I guess they were not counting anything that rents for less than $900 per month.
Now that I think about it a little more, there probably are a few thousand vacant rental houses within 30 miles of Phoenix. IIRC, those folks were looking to rent a single family house in the Tempe/Chandler area that didn't cost too much and they ruled out townhouses and condos. So they were looking in a small sector of the Phoenix market and that's probably why they didn't find too many vacant houses that interested them. They did find a place after a few weeks.