RENTCafe.com‘s year-end report is out, with a thorough insight on the rental market during 2020 — likely to become a reference year for a long time.
Overall renter activity was hampered as the pandemic affected the start of the rental season, delaying it by two months and making it shorter. Each US city saw different renter movement, which in turn affected rental costs.
Here are the highlights for Phoenix:
• This year, 9% more renters moved out of the city compared to 2019. At the same time, 1% less renters decided to move in.
• Who moved out? 51% of those that left are millennials, one of the most active renter cohorts at this time. As for their destination, 46% of those that left the city headed for suburban areas. This is a rising trend as in 2019 just 42% chose to leave for the burbs.
• Why move out? Rents in Phoenix went up fast in the past years — 7.7% by the end of 2018, and 9.8% at the end of 2019. Millennials, mostly a renter-by-choice generation, are the first to respond to these fluctuations by ditching the urban core for the suburbs or other cities.
• In 2020, apartment rents in Phoenix still went up, although slower than in previous years. There was a 5.5% increase compared to 2019, reaching an average of $1,182. For comparison, the national average rent declined by 0.5%, reaching $1,465 this year.