R.O.I Asset Management Solutions

07/12/2026

Phoenix apartment rents post consecutive monthly declines
Article originally posted on CoStar on July 6, 2026

Following modestly positive performance through the first few months of the year, Phoenix multifamily rents retreated in the second quarter.

The average asking rent fell 0.1% in June, matching May’s decrease and marking the third-straight month without positive movement. As a result, the Valley notched a 0.2% decline in asking rents during the second quarter of 2026. While underwhelming for a market that averaged 1.5% growth in the second quarter from 2017 to 2019, this year is outperforming the same time in 2025, when rents fell 0.7%.

Performance was uneven across quality segments, with properties on the lower end notching the largest rent cuts.

Among one- and two-star properties, average asking rents fell 0.6% in the second quarter of 2026. Operators of those properties are competing with middle-priced complexes, where generous concession packages and ongoing rent declines may be enough to pull renters up the quality spectrum.

Renters of one- and two-star properties are also the portion of the renter base that faces the most affordability pressure. Higher costs for food, energy and other nondiscretionary spending categories are likely squeezing the budgets of lower-income households, making it difficult for them to absorb higher rents.

At luxury four- and five-star apartments, asking rents fell just 0.1% in the second quarter, with three-star properties recording a 0.2% decline.

In addition to falling asking rents, the use of concessions to attract renters remains widespread in Phoenix. While the pace of new apartment completions is slowing, vacancy remains near the highest level since the recovery of the Great Recession, keeping competition for renters broadly elevated.

The share of apartments offering some form of discount rose to about 70% in the second quarter, the highest level since at least 2020. Four to eight weeks of free rent is common at stabilized properties, with discounts often extending to 10 weeks or more at newly built apartments in high supply pockets of the Valley.

Moving forward, rents are expected to remain under pressure throughout the year. Though underlying demand figures have been healthy, the glut of excess inventory accumulated over the past few years remains a considerable headwind.

As a result, a fourth-consecutive year of negative rent growth is likely in store, and a reduction in the frequency or magnitude of concessions may not materialize until 2027.

07/12/2026

Investors A Lesson In Reading Early‑Stage Rent Momentum
Article originally posted on Globe St. on July 7, 2026

The worst may not be over for Phoenix apartment owners, but in one part of the metro, the bleeding has clearly slowed. On a recent episode of his Rent Roll podcast, rental housing economist Jay Parsons pointed to the East Valley as an example of early‑stage momentum in an oversupplied market. Rents are still down there, yet the rate of decline has eased enough to suggest the market is moving out of free‑fall and into something closer to controlled descent.

Defining Momentum in Data
Phoenix has been one of the biggest stories in the current supply wave, with rents falling between 4% and 6% annually since 2023, even as absorption ranked among the strongest in the country. Parsons’ focus is not on the metro headline but on the split between the eastern suburbs—Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and the West Valley communities such as Glendale, Avondale, Goodyear, Peoria and Surprise.

On the supply side, the West Valley saw peak inventory growth of roughly 9% a year, double the East Valley’s 4.5%. That gap is now showing up in rent trends. Through May, East Valley rents were down 3.3% year-over-year, compared with a 6.4% decline on the west side. In basis points, that represents a roughly 230‑point improvement in the East Valley from a year earlier, while the West Valley has “kind of stuck in the same range it’s been now for these last year or so,” Parsons said on the show.

For owners trying to decide whether they are seeing momentum or just noise, the distinction matters. Parsons is careful to note this is not a rebound; rents remain negative across the metro. The key signal is that the direction of change has turned in the East Valley—less negative than before, and improving on a trend basis—while the West Valley curve is flat to slightly worse.

Dead‑Cat Bounce or Real Inflection?
Investors have seen plenty of short‑lived rent spikes over the past cycle, often driven by one‑off events, aggressive revenue management or the timing of new deliveries. Parsons’ Phoenix example suggests a few ways to separate those episodes from an actual inflection.

First, the momentum in the East Valley is showing up across the board, not in a single submarket or asset class. When the entire side of a metro moves from steeper rent cuts toward milder declines, that points to a structural shift in supply pressure rather than a short‑term pricing experiment. Second, the improvement is occurring alongside still‑healthy absorption, undercutting the argument that demand has rolled over. Phoenix “ranks top two or three for apartment absorption,” Parsons said, even as rents softened.

Third, the underlying driver is visible and quantifiable: fewer new units are hitting the immediate area compared with the West Valley, where the remaining pipeline is “disproportionately heavy.”

Owners can track that same pattern in their own markets by pairing rent trend data with localized supply growth curves. If rent declines are slowing where new deliveries have tapered and staying steep where projects are still coming out of the ground, that points to a real inflection tied to fundamentals.

Parsons framed it as the economist’s cliché that investors often dislike: it depends. It depends on how much supply hits that immediate area, how much remains to be delivered, the timing of lease‑up, the rent level and management strategy and local demand drivers. For Phoenix, those variables are now breaking differently east and west of the metro’s midpoint.

Operational Moves in a Gradual Stabilization
Momentum in the data does not resolve the operating challenges. East Valley owners are still cutting rents, but it’s happening less than it was last year. That creates room for a measured shift in strategy rather than an abrupt pivot.

In a market that has moved out of free‑fall but not yet into true rent growth, owners may focus first on tightening concessions rather than lifting face rents. That allows them to test the depth of demand at slightly higher effective levels without signaling an aggressive pricing stance in a still‑soft environment. Renewal strategy can also change: instead of blanket offers designed to protect occupancy at all costs, operators can segment by asset and vintage and micro‑location, holding firmer where competitive new supply has slowed.

Marketing spend is another lever. In the same podcast, Parsons noted that “a couple of ILS accounts and crossed fingers will not get you to stabilization” in 2026; properties that are winning are coordinating paid search, social, re-targeting, email and SMS through a single accountable team. In a gradually stabilizing submarket, that kind of disciplined demand generation becomes more productive, as each incremental lease is less likely to be offset by a new competing product down the street.

By contrast, West Valley owners facing 6.4% rent declines and a heavier remaining pipeline are still operating in what amounts to a triage phase. There, the priority remains protecting occupancy and cash flow through deeper concessions and sharper pricing as deliveries work through the system.

Parsons’ message to investors is not that Phoenix is out of the woods, but that recovery will not arrive on a single date circled on the calendar. Some supply‑drenched submarkets that finished their wave early may “rebound this year, or at least substantially move in the right direction,” he said. Others will be a spring or summer 2027 story, and some will take longer.

For owners trying to spot green shoots, the East Valley case suggests that the first sign is not rent growth but rent declines that become meaningfully and durably less severe.

07/08/2026

Phoenix apartment market improvement cracks top 10 nationally as vacancy drops, construction slows
Article originally posted on Phoenix Business Journal on July 7, 2026

The Phoenix metro’s apartment market has been recovering from oversaturation and it has become one of the nation’s most improved markets in that regard.

CoStar found last month that Phoenix is among the top 10 most improved multifamily markets in the country, based on annual improvement from June 2025.

While rents remain slightly lower, the Valley’s apartment occupancy has improved year-over-year, and CoStar reported that the city saw a decline in vacancy rates from 12.3% to 11.7% year-over-year. The majority of submarkets analyzed by CoStar are still at higher vacancy rates than their established stabilized vacancy rates. Vacancy rates are projected to continue to decline, to 10% in 2027 and 9.5% in 2028.

CoStar also found that supply and demand conditions improved in Phoenix from negative 1.6% in June 2025 — meaning the balance was tipped toward the supply side — to positive 0.1% in June 2026. Additionally, the share of inventory under construction decreased 2.6% from 6.6% to 4% year-over-year, and rent growth momentum improved from -1.5% last year to -0.2% in June. CoStar forecasts rent growth to go into the green from the second quarter of 2026 onwards. Concessions are also projected to moderate.

According to Apartments.com, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Phoenix is $1,300, some 22% below the national average, and 3.6% lower than last year.

Northmarq noted a couple months ago that a slowing pace of new multifamily unit deliveries was was “giving some short-term relief to the supply-side pressures that have dragged on market performance in recent years.” It noted that about 1,800 units came online in the first quarter, which was a drop of nearly 25% from the same period in 2025.

Valley apartment market still has stiff competition
More than 26,000 new apartment units were under construction at the time of Northmarq’s report, with almost half of those slated to come online before the end of 2026. Northmarq said that despite the decline in deliveries, the competitive impact of that new supply will continue to play a significant role in the Valley’s multifamily market this year.

Across the U.S., the remaining markets in CoStar’s top 10 for improvement included three in Northern California (San Francisco, San Jose and East Bay), Milwaukee, Jackson, Denver and Austin, Texas. Similar to Jacksonville, Austin also has declining vacancy and a slowdown in new construction that has allowed demand to begin closing the gap with supply for both cities.

Other top markets in the region included Atlanta and Raleigh, North Carolina. Atlanta experienced similar annual changes to its apartment market, yet its market saw under construction inventory improve from 3.4% to 2.7%.

07/02/2026

One Bedroom Rents Break Into Positive Territory for the First Time Since 2025
Article originally posted on Globe St. on July 1, 2026

After months of “stickily low” rents in markets weighed down by new supply, the latest Zumper National Rent Report shows the median national one‑bedroom rent rising 0.5% month-over-month in June to $1,526, which is up 0.4% year-over-year.

That marks the first positive annual reading for one‑bedroom units since May 2025 and suggests that a long stretch of flat or declining rents may be giving way to a new phase of gradual growth. Two‑bedroom units followed their smaller unit counterpart, with rents ticking up 0.1% month-over-month to $1,905, though they remain slightly below their year‑ago levels.

These modest national increases are occurring as occupancy slowly improves. New deliveries are starting to drop and recently completed properties are making headway on lease‑up, which is helping to firm pricing in many markets. Even so, the national averages tell only part of the story. The real action and the real divergence are at the metro level.

Coastal Markets Regain Pricing Power
In high‑barrier coastal markets, limited new supply is allowing landlords to reclaim pricing power more quickly. San Francisco and New York City sit at the top of the one‑bedroom rent ranking, underscoring how scarcity and strong demand are driving the national trend.

One‑bedroom rents in New York City lead the country at $4,660, with San Francisco close behind at $4,060. Boston places a distant third at $2,950, followed by Jersey City, San Jose, Miami, Arlington, urban Honolulu, Washington, D.C. and San Diego at $2,220. Chicago, which has historically ranked among the most expensive markets, has dropped out of the top ten, highlighting how even major cities can slip when supply and demand fall out of balance.

In the Bay Area, rent growth has been particularly striking. Annual one‑bedroom rent increases in San Francisco are running at 21.9%, the highest in the nation, while Oakland and San Jose are also seeing solid gains in the mid‑single‑digit range. The report links this strength to the region’s AI‑driven boom and a surge in office leasing, which is pulling high‑income earners back into the city amid a notably thin construction pipeline. With occupancy above 96% and very little new product coming online, San Francisco is experiencing the “textbook squeeze” that pushes rents sharply higher.

Oversupplied Metros Still Digest New Units
Not all markets are sharing in this upswing. In metros that saw aggressive construction over the past few years, especially across the Sun Belt, rents remain under pressure even as the national one‑bedroom index turns positive.

Three Texas markets — Houston, Austin and San Antonio — rank among those with the steepest median one‑bedroom rent declines. Henderson, Nevada, and Memphis also appear on the list of metros where rents are still declining rather than rising.

In Arizona, the pattern is similar: annual one‑bedroom rents are still declining in Mesa, Phoenix, Glendale and Tucson. While the rate of decline has moderated to the low single digits, it is still sufficient to signal that landlords in these cities have not yet regained pricing traction. Only Gilbert and Scottsdale have posted annual gains, with Scottsdale showing the strongest uptick.

Phoenix illustrates how a heavy supply pipeline can weigh on performance. The market is working to absorb more than 26,000 new rental units delivered in 2025, and vacancy has climbed into the double digits. With renters holding the leverage, concessions such as a month or more of free rent have become common across the metro. Conditions like these stand in sharp contrast to the scarcity‑driven pricing environment in places like San Francisco and New York City.

For investors, the return to positive national one‑bedroom rent growth is an encouraging data point, but the real story lies in how sharply outcomes diverge by market. In inventory‑constrained coastal gateways, modest national averages mask aggressive rent increases at the top end. In oversupplied metros still digesting last cycle’s construction, it may take more time and further absorption — before rent growth looks anything like the national headline.

06/08/2026

Phoenix Pipeline Remains Heavy
Article originally posted on HERE on June 5, 2026

After years of wild vacillation, the cumulative U.S. Multifamily market is showing signs of moving toward stabilization. Individual markets, however, all have their own stories to tell.

Colliers’ Q1 2026 United States Multifamily report calls the current circumstances, “A rebalancing phase,” after a “recalibration period” to end 2025. At year’s end, the sector was still dealing with higher-than-normal deliveries and the resulting slowing of rent growth.

The report finds conditions started to become more balanced over Q1 of this year.

Due to ongoing affordability constraints in the for-sale housing market, demand in Multifamily remains high, while new deliveries are showing signs of peaking. New starts are down significantly as the construction segment slows to let absorption start to catch up.

Investors and lenders are focusing on markets with easing supply pressures and strong ongoing long-term fundamentals. High-delivery markets are seeing supply moderating and demand remaining steady, providing an optimistic operating environment for owners.

Colliers expects the trend to continue into 2027, although the regional geography and the quality of assets will remain significant influences.

The National Snapshot

Colliers examines data from 60 top markets to compile its U.S. report.

The Q1 2026 national inventory stood at 18,430,704, an increase of 314,353 units over Q1 2025. Q4 2025 ended with 18,366,456.

New supply for Q1 totaled 64,456 units, compared to 78,641 at the end of Q4 and 99,591 at the end of Q1 2025.

Q1 absorption was strong nationally, coming in at 85,086 units. Q4, by contrast, had experienced negative absorption of 24,801 units. Despite Q1’s comparatively strong showing, it paled in comparison to Q1 2025, which reported 133,390 units absorbed.

The national occupancy rate was high, with only nominal changes across the year. Q1 2026 reported 95.1%, while Q4 2025 was at 95.0%, and Q1 2025 was 95.2%.

Rent growth showed positive change for owners, rising from an average effective monthly rent of $1,894 in Q1 2025 to $1,919 in Q4 and then to $1,934 in Q1 2026.

The construction pipeline was, perhaps, the most telling. In Q1 2025, units under construction stood at 573,272. That count had dropped to 529,509 in Q4, falling still farther to 501,117 in Q1 2026.

While distress is gaining a higher profile across Multifamily, it is more likely to be seen in local markets, rather than the overall national picture.

Speaking regionally, the report says, “In portions of the Sun Belt, stress is emerging where supply pressure has delayed rent recovery, compressing cash flow ahead of loan maturities.”

Phoenix Still a Leader in Construction; Tucson Occupancy is Unchanged

Units under construction show the wild swings in pace between markets across the country. With 27,505 units under construction, Metro Phoenix ranks third at 27,505, outpaced only by Newark’s 33,987 and New York City’s 29,198.

At the other end of the construction spectrum, there are no reported units in Honolulu, and only 60 in New Orleans and 83 in Memphis. Metro Tucson was on the lower end of the scale with 1,263.

Despite its still heavy rate of construction, Phoenix is not as hard hit as would otherwise be expected. More than a decade of underbuilding across the entire housing sector provided a degree of cushion for the post-pandemic building boom.

Phoenix’s demand in Q1 provided a total units absorbed count of 7,156, compared to 5,375 units delivered.

Tucson delivered 131 units and absorbed 168.

At the end of Q1 2026, Phoenix showed a total Multifamily inventory of 461,783 units and an occupancy rate of 94.4%, which was an increase of 0.4% year-over-year.

Still, the average effective monthly rate dipped by 4.8% to settle at $1,479 for the quarter.

Tucson’s inventory came in at 88,251. Occupancy was unchanged YoY, holding at 94.0%. The average rent was $1,147, a decrease of 4.5%.

05/05/2026

Tuesday, May 05, 2026

The Big Picture

Welcome to Trepp's latest offering – The CRE Rundown.

Phoenix, which has had 93,000 multifamily units added to its inventory since 2021, bringing its total inventory to just more than 396,000 units, saw only 3,854 units delivered during the first quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

That's down 20% from the fourth quarter and is the lowest quarterly total in more than four years. It's a welcome reprieve for property owners, who've been challenged to increase rents.

The Phoenix market was among the beneficiaries of the post-lockdown migration to the Sunbelt—roughly 85,000 people moved to the area in 2021 alone. The sudden increase in demand for units that year pushed rents higher by a whopping 25.3%.

What followed was a glut of construction. The area's vacancy rate, which hit a low of roughly 3.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021, has steadily climbed as supply has increased and demand hasn't kept pace. It hit an all-time high of 12.8% in the fourth quarter but recovered somewhat in the first quarter to 12.1%, marking the first time in five years that it has declined.

While deliveries declined, absorption—the leasing of previously vacant units—has improved to 6,261 units during the latest quarter, marking the strongest showing in at least 26 years. That's up from the 3,112 units of absorption during the same period a year ago.

Folks are still moving to the Phoenix area. Its population totaled just more than 5.2 million last year, up about 59,000 from 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

While Phoenix's multifamily sector might be nearing its inflection point, it still has a supply issue with which to contend. The region's construction pipeline totaled 16,399 units in the first quarter, just less than half of the 33,956 units during the 2023 peak, according to Kidder Mathews.

That lingering supply pressure has kept rents subdued. In the first quarter, monthly rents averaged $1,535/unit, down from $1,578/unit a year earlier. In March, 25.5% of apartment units in the area were receiving rent concessions, typically in the form of free rent periods, according to RealPage Market Analytics. Those concessions amount to 14.5% of a unit's annualized rental income generation.

05/03/2026

This is a great all encompassing article about what’s happening with the ARMLS shift to Rental Beast. While the transition (still in the trenches) is harrowing, frustrating, and painful, I hope it eventually smooths out and gets better.

A blunt look at the Rental Beast rollout, the business logic behind it, and how agents can still turn this into a competitive advantage.

04/27/2026

Young Adults Stay Out of Workforce; Bad Omen for Multifamily

Welcome to Trepp's latest offering – The CRE Rundown. Enjoy and send any questions or comments to [email protected]. Know anyone who might benefit from receiving The CRE Rundown? Send them the link here.

A record 25.2 million young adults were living with family last year, up almost 1 million from 2024.

That topped the 25 million young people—those between 18 and 34 years old—who lived with family in 2020 during the Covid lockdowns, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by Cushman & Wakefield, and could put additional pressure on the multifamily market.

Young people are staying at home longer than they might have anticipated because they can't find jobs. While the overall unemployment rate remained at 4.3% over the past year, the labor-force participation rate declined by 60 basis points during that period, to 61.9%, as of last month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The participation rate peaked at 67.3% in 2000.


The biggest participation rate drops were seen among those ages 55 and older and those between the ages of 20 and 24.


When recent graduates struggle to find jobs or early-career workers face limited advancement options, they'll often delay moving. Last year, an average of 10,000 jobs were created monthly, down from the 122,000 monthly average in 2024. That was driven in part by the federal government shutdown between October and early November and a reduction in the government's head count.

The inability of young adults to find work weighs on demand for multifamily units. Last year, for instance, 402,175 units were delivered across the country, but only 355,628 units were absorbed, according to Cushman & Wakefield. That marked the fourth year in a row in which deliveries outpaced absorption. So, the national apartment vacancy rate hit 9.4% in the first quarter, up from just less than 7% in 2021.

Last month, 178,000 jobs were added, marking the strongest month for job creation since December 2024. That might make you smile with optimism. But as you know, the past is not necessarily indicative of what may happen. We're now reading about a few tech giants laying folks off or offering them early retirement.

Meanwhile, deliveries continued to outpace absorption during the first quarter, as 65,190 units were absorbed and 74,734 units delivered, according to Cushman.

04/20/2026

https://youtu.be/HPxIi4xCRks?si=X8h-cD_CGQ60vD4b

For more information: https://www.phoenix.gov/policeConnect to the Phoenix Police Department on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube:Facebook users click here: http...

03/31/2026

Office Vacancy Rate Sees First Significant Decline in Years
Article originally posted on Globe St. on March 30, 2026

Even in a market still defined by uncertainty, February 2026 has a glimmer of encouragement for the U.S. office sector. According to Yardi’s CommercialCafe, national office vacancy averaged 17.6% that month—a two-percentage-point improvement from a year earlier. The decline suggests some long-awaited stabilization, though an elevated vacancy rate underscores how far recovery still has to go.

The imbalance remains stark across regions. Tech-heavy metros such as Seattle, Austin and San Francisco continued to post the highest vacancy in the nation—each above 24%—reflecting the sector’s downsizing and sluggish return-to-office trends. Other markets suffering from double-digit empty space included Detroit, the broader Bay Area and San Diego, followed closely by Dallas, Portland, Denver, and Washington, D.C., all with rates hovering near or above 20%.

On the other end of the spectrum, several Sun Belt and coastal markets stood out for their relative strength. Miami led major metros with just 12.8% vacancy, trailed closely by Manhattan and Tampa. Boston and Los Angeles remained in the mid-14% range, while the Twin Cities, New Jersey, Phoenix and Charlotte posted moderate vacancies between 16.8% and 17.8%.

CommercialCafe attributed the overall national improvement to two key factors. The first was a sharp slowdown in new office construction starts, as developers grew cautious amid ongoing sector distress. Just over 28 million square feet of space remained under construction nationwide in February—an unusually slim pipeline.

The second driver was a wave of office demolitions and conversions to residential or mixed-use projects that has been shrinking the total supply. While such decommissioning reduces available inventory, it also raises a fair question of quality, as much of the eliminated stock consists of buildings no longer competitive with newer, amenity-rich spaces.

That dynamic may also help explain national pricing trends. Average office listing rates slipped nearly 2% year-over-year to $32.79 per square foot in February, according to CommercialCafe—an indication that even reduced supply could not fully offset weaker demand. Manhattan remained the priciest market by far at $73.45 per square foot, followed by San Francisco, Miami and the Bay Area. Cities such as Austin, Boston and Los Angeles rounded out the higher end, with listing rates above $40. By contrast, lower-cost metros, including Detroit, Orlando and the Twin Cities, continued to attract tenants with asking rents below $27.

Investment activity added another dimension to the uneven market picture. Manhattan dominated office sales volume year-to-date, with $1.6 billion in transactions, trailed by the Bay Area and Miami. Markets such as San Diego, Charlotte, and Chicago also recorded solid deal flow, while Houston, Washington, D.C. and Dallas rounded out the top tier.

Finally, despite today’s thinner construction pipeline, a handful of metros still have major projects underway. Boston led the list with nearly 3.9 million square feet of office development in progress, followed by Manhattan, Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Houston, New Jersey, Austin, Miami and D.C. also maintained modest but notable development pipelines.

The data collectively reveals a sector that’s stabilizing not because of surging demand, but because of contraction—developers pulling back, and landlords taking obsolete buildings off the market. For now, that’s just enough to keep the national vacancy rate moving in the right direction.