A recent surge pushed Tucson rent growth into the double digits, a performance just beyond that of nearby pricing powerhouse Phoenix. Annual effective asking rent growth soared to 11.8% in Tucson as of April, which was easily the market’s top performance in at least two decades. This recent increase is roughly twice the size of the market’s five-year average annual rent growth of 5.6%. Anchoring the apartment market in Tucson is a resilient workforce of government and university jobs, which didn’t take as much of a hit as some employment bases across the nation in the past year. Additionally, Tucson has seen modest new apartment supply that has remained below 900 or so units in the past five years, allowing the market to retain solid occupancy well ahead of historical norms. Nearby Phoenix, also a resilient market in the nationwide landscape, saw rent growth surge to 11.4% in the year-ending April – just a shade behind the Tucson performance. Despite a small hiccup in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Phoenix has ranked among national leaders for pricing performance for several years.
