It’s time to about how this summer turned rental trends on its head. More Phoenix renters decided to stay put compared to last year’s peak moving season, and it’s not due to a lack of options. 

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Here are details from RentCafe.com’s Rental Competitiveness Report: 

  • Phoenix saw the 5th highest increase in supply in recent months — 1.64%. Yet 57.1% of Phoenix renters said “thanks, but no thanks” to new apartments and decided to stay put. That’s 1.8% more compared to last moving season. 
     
  • However, these brand-new units did help temper competition. There were eight applications instead of 10 per vacant apartment in Phoenix this summer, and rentals were vacant for 40 days before being leased, three days longer than last year. 
     
  • At the same time, the high share of new rentals did little for the occupancy rate, which saw a mere 0.7% drop year-over-year. Consequently, 92.6% of apartments remained occupied.

You might be wondering if there were other places where renters said “pass” to new apartments and chose to renew instead. Here are some examples: 

  • In Southwest Florida, the share of newly built apartments was a whopping 2.21% (three times higher than the national average) and the lease renewal rate went up 1% compared to last summer to an above-average 63.2%.  
     
  • In Suburban Atlanta, despite a 1.35% share of new units, the lease renewal rate grew by 1.8% to 65.9%. In Silicon Valley, CA, 4.5% more renters decided to stay put compared to last summer, despite a 1.16% influx of new apartments.