The rental market in the Valley is a mixed bag.
Analysis by two different rental tracking websites found many cities in the Valley are a great deal for renters.
While hard data technically backs this up, it does not mean rental prices have not increased dramatically. Especially when compared to other major metros.
The site wallethub.com crunched the numbers and ranked 182 U.S. metro areas by using a rental and affordability score combined with a quality-of-life score. According to their analysis, two Valley cities are in the top five nationwide for renters: Scottsdale and Chandler. Scottsdale placed second on the list behind Overland Park, Kansas while Chandler ranked fourth.
WalletHub’s rankings behind the rankings show out of 182 metros, Scottsdale ranked #721 on rental market and affordability, but number one in the nation for quality of life.
Chandler was not the most affordable city either, coming at 54. A high quality of life score in the top ten of all cities analyzed increased Chandler’s overall rankings.
Most cities in the Phoenix metro had better quality of life scores when compared with the rental market and affordability.
Rentcafe.com, another rental tracking site found competition in the Phoenix metro market fell compared to last year. Their report found about 94% of apartments are occupied with an average vacancy rate of 43 days.
One major reason for the fall in competition, Rentcafe says, was a boom in new apartment construction, which make up a little over 1% of all rented properties.
On average there are ten prospective renters applying for every one available apartment. While high, the number is significantly lower than in Miami, the most competitive rental market on the RentCafe list, where there are 24 prospective renters for one apartment.
An ABC15 analysis of the real estate site Zillow’s publicly available rental index numbers shows average Valley rents have more than doubled in the past ten years.
Higher than any of the nation’s 25 largest metros. Tampa was the only other metro to see an increase in rental prices of over 100% in ten years.
Los Angeles, a poster child for higher rents across the country, tracked closely with U.S. rents overall. Washington DC rents had one of the smallest increases in the same time frame.
A primary reason Phoenix rents increased sharply compared to other major metros is they are lower, to begin with. Zillow data shows average rents were around $1,900 in May.
The U.S. average was higher at just over $2,000. San Francisco had the highest monthly rental rates at $3,151.
