GUIDE / DATA
Twenty-two cities,
ranked by how many
roofs are coming due.
Census figures on when every home in the valley was built, read against how long a roof lasts here. About 700,000 of the 1.8 million homes in the communities we serve went up between 1990 and 2009, which makes their roofs seventeen to thirty-six years old in 2026: past the typical life of shingle, and of the underlayment that keeps a tile roof dry.
THE SHORT VERSION
“Nine of the twenty-two have more than half their homes from that twenty-year window. Anthem has nine in ten.”
01 / HOW TO READ IT
A building date is
the closest public
thing to a roof age.
Nobody publishes when roofs were replaced. The Census Bureau does publish when homes were built, for every city and census-designated place, and in this climate that is most of the answer.
THE REASONING
Two numbers
do the work.
Concrete tile lasts fifty years or more, but the underlayment beneath it, the layer that actually keeps water out, typically lasts fifteen to twenty-five years in Arizona heat. Asphalt shingle typically manages fifteen to twenty-five years here too, whatever the package says.
So a home built between 1990 and 2009 is seventeen to thirty-six years old in 2026. Unless the roof has already been redone, it is in the window where the original shingle, or the original underlayment under tile, is at or past the end of its expected life. That window is the column this page ranks by.
The figures count every housing unit inside each community’s official boundary: houses, apartments, condominiums and mobile homes. They say when homes were built, not whether a roof has since been replaced, so read them as the size of the question in each place rather than a count of failing roofs.
02 / THE RANKING
Where the
1990 to 2009
homes are.
Sorted by the share of homes built between 1990 and 2009. The other columns show how young or old the rest of the housing is.
| Rank | Community | Median year built | Built 1990 to 2009 | 2010 or later | Before 1980 | Homes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthem | 2004 | 92%±6 | 6% | 2% | 9,481 |
| 2 | Surprise | 2005 | 71%±2 | 22% | 3% | 62,098 |
| 3 | San Tan Valley | 2007 | 64%±3 | 32% | 3% | 37,001 |
| 4 | Avondale | 2002 | 63%±3 | 17% | 12% | 31,547 |
| 5 | Gilbert | 2003 | 62%±2 | 24% | 4% | 100,336 |
| 6 | Fountain Hills | 1994 | 57%±6 | 8% | 12% | 13,177 |
| 7 | Chandler | 1997 | 53%±2 | 17% | 10% | 112,800 |
| 8 | Goodyear | 2007 | 53%±3 | 40% | 4% | 42,159 |
| 9 | Peoria | 1999 | 52%±2 | 21% | 10% | 79,085 |
| 10 | Cave Creek | 1998 | 47%±10 | 25% | 16% | 2,859 |
| 11 | Apache Junction | 1994 | 46%±4 | 13% | 20% | 21,961 |
| 12 | Buckeye | 2011 | 41%±2 | 52% | 4% | 35,276 |
| 13 | Carefree | 1988 | 41%±11 | 5% | 32% | 2,315 |
| 14 | Scottsdale | 1991 | 40%±1 | 12% | 29% | 139,168 |
| 15 | Queen Creek | 2012 | 36%±3 | 58% | 3% | 23,569 |
| 16 | Mesa | 1989 | 34%±1 | 13% | 29% | 222,992 |
| 17 | Glendale | 1986 | 33%±2 | 9% | 35% | 93,736 |
| 18 | Phoenix | 1985 | 30%±1 | 12% | 42% | 653,065 |
| 19 | Paradise Valley | 1985 | 29%±6 | 14% | 42% | 5,985 |
| 20 | Litchfield Park | 2003 | 28%±7 | 32% | 34% | 2,868 |
| 21 | Tempe | 1984 | 23%±2 | 14% | 41% | 86,182 |
| 22 | Sun City | 1973 | 4%±1 | 2% | 89% | 26,626 |
Scroll the table sideways for the other columns.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 five-year estimates, tables B25034, B25035 and B25001, by city or census-designated place. Shares are of all housing units, rounded; ± is the Bureau’s 90-percent margin of error for the 1990 to 2009 share, in percentage points. Small communities carry wide margins.
03 / WHAT STANDS OUT
Five things
the table
says.
Read across the valley rather than down one city.
01
One decade, one clock.
Anthem (79% of its homes from the 2000s), San Tan Valley (61%) and Surprise (53%) were largely built within a single decade, so their roofs reach the end of their life within a few years of each other. Expect a wave rather than a trickle, and when the wave arrives, good roofers are booked.
02
Share and count are different questions.
Phoenix ranks 18th of twenty-two by share, yet it has more homes from the window than anywhere else: roughly 193,000. Mesa (about 75,000), Gilbert (62,000) and Chandler (60,000) follow. By count, Phoenix and the East Valley hold most of the valley’s coming-due roofs.
03
The young ones.
Queen Creek (58% built since 2010), Buckeye (52%) and Goodyear (40%) are the exceptions: most of their roofs are under fifteen years old. The questions there are workmanship and warranty paperwork, and the roughly one home in three from the 2000s that is coming due first.
04
The old core.
Sun City is its own case: 89% of its homes predate 1980 and the median home was built in 1973. Tempe, Phoenix and Paradise Valley each have about 41% from before 1980. A roof from the 1970s has almost certainly been replaced at least once; the question in these places is what it was replaced with, and when.
05
Small towns, wide margins.
Carefree, Cave Creek, Litchfield Park and Paradise Valley each have fewer than 6,000 homes, and the survey’s margins there run from six to eleven points. Their rows are a range, not a ranking.
04 / WHAT TO DO WITH IT
Find your
decade, then
ask one question.
The table is about places. These are about your house.
01
Built 1990 to 2009.
On tile: when was the underlayment last replaced, and who says so? If nobody can, assume it is original until someone has lifted a tile at the eaves and valleys to look. On shingle: it is at or past its typical life, so plan rather than wait for a leak.
02
Built 2010 or later.
The roof should have years left. The useful work is checking the details that fail early, flashing and penetrations, and knowing what the builder’s or manufacturer’s paperwork covers before any of it expires.
03
Built before 1980.
What is up there now matters more than when the house was built. Find out what the last roof was, whether old layers were left under it, and whether a flat section was foamed or coated. Older neighborhoods also have more shingle and more flat roofs than the tract suburbs.
06 / QUESTIONS
About the
numbers.
Is this a measure of roof age?
No. It is the age of the homes. A roof replaced last year on a 1998 house shows up here as a 1998 home. The table tells you where the question is biggest, not which roofs have failed.
Where do the figures come from?
The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2020–2024 five-year estimates: table B25034 (year structure built), B25035 (median year built) and B25001 (housing units), for each incorporated city or census-designated place within its official boundary. Sun City, San Tan Valley and Anthem are census-designated places rather than cities.
Why not use roof permits?
Re-roof records are kept city by city and are not published in any comparable form, and not every job generates one. Building dates are the best public proxy, and the only one that covers all twenty-two communities the same way.
How reliable are the percentages?
The survey samples households over five years, so every figure carries a margin of error. For the big cities it is a point or two; for towns with a few thousand homes it is six to eleven points. The table shows the margin for the ranking column.
Does Atlas use this to judge my roof?
No. It tells us what to expect on a street before we arrive; the inspection tells us what is there. A free inspection looks at the actual roof and puts the findings in writing.
When will it be updated?
When the Bureau releases the next five-year estimates. The row for your community will change little from year to year, and the page says which release it uses.
Which decade is yours?
A free inspection tells you what is on the roof and how much life it has left, whatever the census says about your street.