Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ
The Sun Belt build-it engine that California funds. Phoenix permits 38,878 units TTM — 7.99 per 1,000 residents, the highest of any 5M-pop metro — pulls +15,300 net IRS migrants annually (largely from LA and San Diego), and still posts +1.23% YoY HPI after a 53.8% five-year run.
The numbers that matter most
What an investor checks first when sizing up a new metro — affordability ratio, rent vs income, cap rate proxy, and where the market is moving. Each metric shown vs. state and national medians for instant context.
moderate
Price to income
4.74×
The single most-cited 'is this market still cheap' check. Below 3× and you're in an affordability tailwind.
- vs Arizona
- 4.54×
- vs U.S.
- 3.43×
Benchmark
ACS median home value ÷ median HHI
moderate
Rent to income
26.1%
What share of a typical household's income goes to rent. Below 30% means tenants can absorb modest rent increases.
- vs Arizona
- 27.4%-1.4
- vs U.S.
- 23.3%
Benchmark
(HUD FMR 2BR × 12) ÷ median HHI
tight
Cap rate proxy
3.6%
Rough first-pass yield assuming a 35% expense ratio. Not an underwriting number — a 'is this even worth modeling' filter.
- vs Arizona
- 3.8%
- vs U.S.
- 4.4%
Benchmark
(FMR 2BR × 12 × 0.65) ÷ ACS median home value
steady
Net migration
+0.31%
Forward-looking demand signal. Positive net migration drives rent growth and absorbs new supply.
- vs Arizona
- 0.31%=
- vs U.S.
- 0.04%+0.28
Benchmark
IRS net migration ÷ population
pipeline accelerating
Permit pipeline
7.99
permits per 1,000 residents
Forward-supply indicator. Above ~5 means the metro is building meaningfully relative to its size; below 2 means supply is tight.
- vs Arizona
- 5.73+2.26
- vs U.S.
- 3.49+4.51
Benchmark
Census BPS permits TTM ÷ population × 1,000
healthy
Unemployment
3.5%
Tighter unemployment means higher wages, more rental demand, lower vacancy.
- vs Arizona
- 3.8%-0.3
- vs U.S.
- 4.0%-0.5
Benchmark
BLS LAUS, latest month
Section index — click any row to jump
What the data says about Phoenix
Phoenix is the build-it engine of the Sun Belt. Just two counties — Maricopa and Pinal — and 4.86 million residents, with a household income of $84,703 (Census ACS) and a median home value of $401,400. The metro permits 38,878 building permits over the trailing twelve months (Census BPS) — 7.99 per 1,000 residents, the highest of any 5M-pop metro in the country — and the House Price Index ran +53.8% over five years (FHFA HPI). YoY is still positive at +1.23%, unlike Atlanta or Dallas which have already flipped negative.
The interesting fact is who's funding the boom. Net IRS migration is +15,300 (IRS SOI), and after the intra-metro shuffle (Maricopa and Pinal swap residents), the largest out-of-metro origin counties are:
- Los Angeles County, CA — California's biggest county is sending households to Phoenix
- San Diego County, CA — same story, second-most California-county outflow
- Pima County, AZ (Tucson) — the only AZ origin in the top five
This is the California-to-Phoenix pipeline, just slower than the 2021-22 peak. The two-county geometry makes the supply-side simple to track:
- Maricopa County (4.43M pop, $414,700 median home value) leads with 30,475 permits TTM — 78% of the metro's pipeline. Phoenix proper, Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale, Tempe, Glendale, and Surprise are all inside Maricopa.
- Pinal County (433K pop, $312,100 median home value) accounts for 8,403 permits — 22% of the metro pipeline but 19.4 permits per 1,000 residents, more than 2.5× Maricopa's 6.9 per 1,000. The exurbs are building harder than the urban core on a per-capita basis.
Permit mix: 23,513 single-family + 14,260 5+ unit multifamily — Phoenix is still 60% SFR, but the multifamily ramp around the light rail is reshaping the rental stock.
What's changing: the cap rate proxy sits at 3.6% — tight, well below the 4.4% national figure and the 3.8% Arizona state median. The price has caught up to the rents. Unemployment is 3.5%, tighter than the national 4.0%. Inside its own state, Phoenix ranks #6 of 7 for 5-year HPI — the smaller AZ metros all grew faster from a lower base.
What does an investor do?
- If you're hunting cash flow: Pinal, not Maricopa. The $312,100 median home value in Pinal pencils at the FMR rates while Maricopa's $414,700 doesn't. Casa Grande and the city of Maricopa are the underwriting targets.
- If you're playing appreciation: The 5-year run is mostly priced in. Phoenix beat the country by 20pp from 2020, but the YoY has slowed from +20% in 2022 to +1.23% now. The next leg depends on whether California out-migration accelerates or stalls.
- If you already own here: Stay. The labor market is tight, the build pipeline is forward-supply (not over-supply), and migration is still net-positive. The structural California-to-Sun-Belt thesis has another decade of legs.
Where prices are and where they've been
FHFA House Price Index — repeat-sales index across the metro, sized against this metro's median household income and benchmarked against the Indiana metros average and U.S. metros average.
5-year price appreciation
+53.8%
FHFA HPI · Q1 2020 → Q4 2025
+1.2% YoY
$401,400 median home value
Phoenix home prices climbed 53.8% over the last 5 years according to the FHFA repeat-sales index — a steady appreciation pace for a Midwest metro of this size. The 1-year change has cooled to 1.2%, signaling the post-2022 surge has unwound into steady-state appreciation.
See the chart below for how the metro's appreciation curve stacks up against the Indiana metros average and the U.S. metros average. The gap between the metro and the national line is the "catch-up" or "lag" signal — and the slope tells you whether the gap is widening or closing.
How to read it
- 01Phoenix's index ran from ~178 in early 2020 to ~287 in Q4 2025. The **+53.8% 5-year change** in the card above is the canonical figure (Q4 2020 → Q4 2025) — one of the steepest 5-year runs in the country.
- 02The Arizona state line tracks Phoenix nearly point-for-point — Phoenix is ~67% of AZ's metro population, so the state-weighted average **is** dominated by Phoenix.
- 03U.S. metros climbed **+34.3%** over the same window. Phoenix beat the country by ~20 percentage points — only Tampa, Boise, and a handful of Sun Belt growth metros ran harder.
- 04The most recent quarter is still positive at **+1.23% YoY** — the run has slowed but not flipped, unlike Atlanta or Dallas which have already gone negative.
- 05Inside Arizona, Phoenix ranks **#6 of 7** for 5-year HPI — the smaller AZ metros (Lake Havasu, Sierra Vista, Yuma) all grew faster from a lower base. Phoenix is the engine, not the appreciation play.
Where the value tier sits — top 2 counties by home value
| County | Median home value | Median HHI | Price-to-income | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maricopa County | $414,700 | $85,518 | 4.85× | moderate |
| Pinal County | $312,100 | $77,588 | 4.02× | moderate |
How to read the FHFA House Price Index
FHFA HPI is a repeat-sales index — it tracks the price change of the same properties over time, smoothing out new construction and luxury transactions. It's built from the mortgage data the GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) already see, which makes it free of MLS survey error and immune to listing-feed gaps.
- 01Repeat-sales method. Tracks the same properties over time, so new construction and luxury transactions don't skew the trend.
- 02Federally sourced. Built from GSE mortgage data — no MLS survey error, no commercial license required to publish.
- 03Slope, not level. Watch the slope of the line, not the absolute index value — a steepening curve is a more reliable buy signal than the level.
The rent ladder
HUD Fair Market Rent by bedroom count, sized against this metro's median household income and benchmarked vs Indiana and the U.S.
Typical 2-bedroom rent
$1,839
/ month · HUD FMR FY 2026
26.1% of median HHI
A typical 2-bedroom in costs the median household 26.1% of their income — 2.8 points above the U.S. average (23.3%) 1.4 points below Arizona (27.4%).
HUD calls anything above 30% "rent-burdened." This metro sits comfortably under that line, which means tenants can absorb modest rent increases — and landlords have headroom on rent hikes before pushing tenants out of the market.
Fair Market Rent — by bedroom count
| Bedroom | Monthly | Annual | % of median HHI | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 BR | $1,583 | $19.0K | 22.4% | comfortable |
| 2 BR | $1,839 | $22.1K | 26.1% | moderate |
| 3 BR | $2,452 | $29.4K | 34.7% | rent-burdened |
Why HUD Fair Market Rent matters
FMR is HUD's 40th-percentile rent estimate by bedroom count — refreshed every fiscal year, sourced from Census surveys (not commercial listing data), and used as the cap for Section 8 voucher payments. Three things investors should know:
- 01Defensible benchmark. Federal source, no commercial license required to publish or compare against.
- 02Section 8 ceiling. A property at or below FMR is voucher-eligible — government-paid rent at the FMR cap.
- 03Conservative estimate. 40th percentile means more than half of actual market rents in the metro come in higher.
Labor market direction
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — LAUS (unemployment) + CES (nonfarm employment), benchmarked against the U.S. average.
Unemployment rate
3.5%
BLS LAUS · latest month
Phoenix's labor market is healthy, with unemployment running at 3.5% — 0.5 points below the U.S. metros average (4.0%).
For an investor, tighter unemployment means higher wages, more rental demand, and lower vacancy. The trend chart below shows how the metro's unemployment has moved over the last 30 months.
Unemployment rate
3.5%
Nonfarm jobs
—
Median household income
$84,703
ACS 5-year
How to read the labor market
Two BLS series tell you almost everything you need about a metro's labor market: LAUS (unemployment, refreshed monthly) and CES (nonfarm payroll counts, refreshed monthly). LAUS is the tightness signal; CES is the size and direction signal.
- 01Unemployment is rental demand. Tighter labor markets mean higher wages and lower vacancy — landlords have pricing power when employers are competing for workers.
- 02YoY change is the trend signal. A negative pp YoY change means the labor market tightened over the last year — usually a leading indicator for rent growth.
- 03Nonfarm growth is supply absorption. Positive nonfarm payroll growth absorbs new housing supply and supports the rent + price trajectory together.
What's being built
U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey — trailing 12 months, broken out by structure type, with the YoY change as the directional signal.
Total permits TTM
38,878
Census BPS · trailing 12 months
+13.0% year-over-year
7.99 permits per 1,000 residents
Phoenix pulled 38,878 building permits over the trailing 12 months, a meaningful jump 13.0% year-over-year. That works out to 7.99 permits per 1,000 residents, vs the U.S. metros average of 3.49.
Single-family vs multifamily mix matters: 5+ unit permits are lumpy (developers file for entire projects at once), while single-family permits are smoother and more reliable as a demand signal. The chart below breaks out the monthly mix.
Single family
23,513
trailing 12 months
2–4 unit
1,105
trailing 12 months
5+ unit
14,260
trailing 12 months
How to read the supply pipeline
Census BPS publishes building permit counts every month at the county level, by structure type. Single-family permits are the smooth signal — they reflect ongoing builder demand. 5+ unit permits are lumpy and project-level — one apartment approval can spike a month.
- 01Permits per 1,000 residents. The size-adjusted comparison number. Above ~5 means the metro is building meaningfully relative to its population; below 2 means supply is tight.
- 02YoY change is the direction. Year-over-year change in TTM permits tells you whether builders are leaning in or pulling back. Watch this number for trend reversals.
- 03Mix matters for cap rates. Heavy 5+ unit permitting tends to compress cap rates; single-family-dominated pipelines preserve them.
All 2 counties, ranked by population
Census Bureau (population, ACS demographics) + Census Building Permits Survey.
How to read it
- 01**Maricopa County leads with 30,475 permits TTM** — 78% of the metro's 38,878-unit total. Phoenix proper, Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale, Tempe, Glendale, and Surprise are all inside Maricopa.
- 02Pinal County (433K pop, just south and east of Maricopa) accounts for **8,403 permits** — 22% of the metro pipeline. The exurbs of Casa Grande, Maricopa, and Florence are absorbing growth at the metro edge.
- 03Phoenix runs **7.99 permits per 1,000 residents** — the highest of any 5M-pop metro in the country. Even after the 2024 mortgage rate spike, builders kept pulling permits.
- 04**Permit mix: 23,513 single-family + 14,260 5+ multifamily.** SF dominates at 60%, but multifamily is ramping fast — the Valley is densifying around the light rail and the Tempe-Mesa corridor.
- 05The 2-county footprint covers **only 2 counties** — the simplest metro layout in the queue. Compare to Atlanta (29) or Boston (7). Maricopa alone is geographically larger than Connecticut.
How to read the map
- 01Maricopa's dark fill anchors the central metro — 30,475 permits TTM concentrated in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler-Scottsdale-Glendale corridor.
- 02**Pinal County (south) is darker per capita than Maricopa.** 8,403 permits over 433K residents = 19.4 per 1,000, more than 2.5x Maricopa's 6.9. The exurbs are building harder.
- 03The 2-county footprint is dominated by Maricopa, which contains the entire urban core. Pinal is the relief valve — Casa Grande, the city of Maricopa, and Florence are the main exurb growth nodes.
- 04No other counties are part of the metro. Phoenix is the **most spatially concentrated** large metro in the country — no multi-state geometry, no fringe rural counties, just two big Sun Belt counties.
- 05**Build intensity tracks development land more than population.** Pinal's lower density means more raw land and more aggressive per-capita permit pulls; Maricopa is built out in its inner ring and pushes growth to its outer ring.
| # | County | Population | Median HHI | Home value | Permits TTM | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maricopa County | 4,430,871 | $85,518 | $414,700 | 30,475 | +15.1% |
| 2 | Pinal County | 433,338 | $77,588 | $312,100 | 8,403 | +5.3% |
Similar metros nationally
5 metros closest to Phoenix by population and median household income — head-to-head on the metrics that matter for an investor.
Peer set
5
metros nearest by population + HHI
Best in 2 of 3 comparable metrics
Phoenix is closest in size to Riverside, Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia. best in class on Net migration, Permit pipeline.
The table below ranks every metric — green cells mark the best value in the column, rust cells mark the worst. Phoenix is highlighted as the focal row.
| Metro | Pop | Med HHI | Home value | P/I | Cap proxy | HPI 5y | Permits/1k | Migration | Unemp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
★Phoenix | 4.86M | $85K | $401K | 4.74× | 3.6% | +53.8% | 7.99 | +0.31% | 3.5% |
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA | 4.61M | $86K | $494K | 5.74× | 3.5% | +50.2% | 3.26 | +0.08% | 5.1% |
Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 4.38M | $75K | $237K | 3.16× | 4.6% | +34.7% | 2.05 | -0.23% | 4.7% |
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, GA | 6.09M | $86K | $335K | 3.88× | 4.2% | +38.4% | 5.23 | +0.11% | 3.3% |
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 6.23M | $89K | $327K | 3.66× | 4.3% | +42.3% | 2.19 | -0.09% | 4.0% |
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL | 6.12M | $73K | $406K | 5.52× | 4.7% | +55.3% | 3.63 | -0.16% | 3.5% |
How to read this comparison
Peer metros are picked by population + median household income — the closest five matches nationally — so the comparison is apples-to-apples on size and economic class. Sun Belt entrants like Las Vegas and Nashville are included when they fall in range, which is why this peer set spans both the Midwest and the Sun Belt.
- 01Green = best in column. The cell with the most-favorable value for that metric, accounting for whether higher or lower is better.
- 02Rust = worst in column. The cell with the least-favorable value. Combined with the green markers, this is your at-a-glance "where does my metro win and where does it lose."
- 03Cap proxy is the yield lens. Cap rate proxy = (FMR 2BR × 12 × 0.65) ÷ median home value. A first-pass yield filter, not an underwriting number — but it puts the peer set on a single comparable scale.
Where people are moving in from
IRS Statistics of Income — Tax Year 2022. Excludes intra-metro suburban churn.
Net migration
+15,300
tax returns · IRS SOI · TY 2022
+0.31% of metro population
10,920 from top origin
Phoenix absorbed +15,300 net IRS returns in the latest vintage — steady at +0.31% of population. The top out-of-metro origins are Los Angeles and San Diego counties: California refugees funding the Sun Belt boom, just slower than they did in 2021-22.
The IRS data lags by ~2 years (households file taxes the year after they move), but it's the only nationwide county-to-county migration data sourced from administrative records, not survey estimates. The table below shows the top origin counties — the gravitational sources of new residents.
Top origin counties — where new residents are coming from
| Origin county | Tax returns |
|---|---|
| Maricopa County, AZ | 10,920 |
| Pinal County, AZ | 6,868 |
| Los Angeles County, CA | 4,581 |
| Pima County, AZ | 4,195 |
| San Diego County, CA | 2,798 |
| Orange County, CA | 2,303 |
Who lives in Phoenix
U.S. Census Bureau · American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates · 2019–2023 vintage.
Who lives here
- Median age
- 37.7
- Owner-occupancy
- 66.3%
- Bachelor's+
- 34.6%
Phoenix relatively young Midwest metro: Median age 37.7, 66.3% owner-occupancy 34.6% holding a bachelor's degree or higher. Stable, educated, and mostly homeowner-driven.
The catch: 48.1% of renter households are rent-burdened (paying 30%+ of income on rent) — high enough to flag as a constraint on rent growth even though the headline rent-to-income ratio looks comfortable.
- Median household income
- $84,703
- Median age
- 37.7
- Bachelor's+ degree
- 34.6%
- Owner-occupancy rate
- 66.3%
- Vacancy rate
- 8.7%
- Rent burdened (30%+)
- 48.1%
Data sources
| Metric | Source | Type | Vintage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home prices | FHFA — House Price Index | Index | Q4 2025 |
| Fair market rents | HUD — Fair Market Rents | Administrative | FY 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | BLS — Local Area Unemployment Statistics | Survey | Dec 2025 |
| Nonfarm employment | BLS — Current Employment Statistics | Survey | Dec 2025 |
| Building permits | Census — Building Permits Survey | Survey | Mar 2026 TTM |
| Migration flows | IRS — Statistics of Income, Migration Data | Administrative | Tax Year 2022 |
| Demographics | Census — American Community Survey 5-Year | Survey | 2019–2023 |
| Household income | Census — American Community Survey 5-Year | Survey | 2019–2023 |
Page last refreshed: April 9, 2026