How Metro Phoenix apartments have changed over a decade

Across the Phoenix metro, new apartments are shrinking — but the decline varies widely by city. Scottsdale holds strong with some of the nation’s largest apartment markets, while new apartments in Phoenix and Mesa are now smaller than they were a decade ago. New rentals have taken the biggest hit in Glendale and Tempe, losing roughly the equivalent of a master bedroom.

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Here are the details from the latest RentCafe report on apartment size in 100 metros:

• Scottsdale ranks 17th nationwide for the largest new apartments, averaging 962 square feet It also recorded the smallest decline in the metro, shedding just 11 square feet compared with the previous decade.

• Glendale and Tempe saw some of the steepest declines in the country. New apartments in Glendale shed 141 square feet, the 10thlargest drop nationwide, while Tempe’s new units shed 151 square feet, the 6th largest decline in the country. Both cities went from averaging more than 1,000 square feet a decade ago to less than 890 square feet today.

• Phoenix proper also fell below the 900 square feet mark, with new apartments shrinking from 916 square feet to 852 square feet, a drop of 64 square feet Mesa follows with a 60 square feet drop, but apartments here are the second-largest in the metro area, averaging 926 square feet.

Zooming in by apartment type, available options for renters across the Phoenix metro look very different from a decade ago.

Most cities slashed the share of three-bedrooms roughly in half and in favor of one-bedroom units — which themselves are smaller than those built a decade ago. Glendale introduced studios in its new-apartment mix for the first time, and Phoenix is the only city where three-bedrooms didn’t get larger, leaving it with the smallest units of this type in the Valley.

• Glendale started building studios for the first time this decade, now representing 5% of all new construction. The share of three-bedroom units fell from 17% to just 8%, while one-bedrooms gained 12-percentage points — the biggest share increase of any city in the metro.

• Similarly, Tempe’s three-bedrooms share dropped from 11% to 5%, and one-bedrooms now make up half of all new construction — albeit the smallest of this type in the Valley.

• Mesa added 99 square feet to its three-bedroom apartments, even as it built fewer of them compared to a decade ago (down from 11%). The gap was filled by one-bedrooms and studios, which together now make up 50% of all construction.

• Scottdale leads in apartment size across every unit type. Three-bedrooms stand out most, gaining 150 square feet to now average 1,664 square feet — roughly 300 square feet more than anywhere else in the Valley. It’s also the only city where studios average more than 500 square feet

• Phoenix cut its share of two-bedrooms by 10 percentage points — the biggest decrease for that apartment type in the metro — while one-bedrooms make up half of all new construction this decade.