By Brent Ruffner | Your Valley
The Phoenix metro is at its highest occupancy percentage in more than 40 years, despite increasing rents around the region, according to a local housing research expert. Thomas Brophy, national research director at Colliers in Phoenix, said the current occupancy rate is 97.1% — the highest since that number topped out at 96.8% in 1978, just before a construction boom in the early 1980s, he said.
“We are literally at the highest occupancy we’ve ever clocked,” Brophy said.
Since 2016, Brophy said multifamily developers have feverishly added 36,000 multifamily units — which includes leased properties and build-to-rent homes — to the Phoenix area. In that time, the occupancy percentage has increased by 230 basis points, he said.
By the end of 2021, Brophy said he estimates Valley developers will add another 11,000 multifamily units — the highest output since 2009, he said.
In 2009, 9,315 units were added to the area.
