What the Phoenix Transaction Data is Telling Us

Focusing on 100+ unit buildings built between 1980-1990

There were 31 sales over the 24-month period. Activity is very uneven, which is not surprising for this relatively narrow vintage/size category. The more important observation is that after essentially freezing in April and May 2026, transaction activity returned with 2 sales in June, 3 in July and 1 in August.

The year-over-year comparison is somewhat less convincing:

Period	Sales	Dollar Volume	Units Sold	Weighted Price/Unit
Sep. 2024–Aug. 2025	17	$636.1M	3,707	$171,603
Sep. 2025–Aug. 2026	14	$464.6M	2,856	$162,661
Change	-18%	-27%	-23%	-5.2%

Median pricing, however, was much more stable: approximately $166,700/unit in the first 12 months versus $165,800/unit in the second 12 months. That is significant because it suggests that the decline in the weighted average is being affected substantially by deal mix rather than by another broad-based collapse in values.

The most recent transactions also show a very wide pricing range. July 2026 averaged roughly $210,000/unit, while the August sale of Cove on 44th at approximately $88,000/unit materially pulls down recent averages. In other words, buyers are heavily differentiating between quality/location and distressed or capital-needy assets.

Has Phoenix bottomed?

I believe Phoenix is probably in the bottoming process, and there is a reasonable chance that values for good-quality 1980s/1990s assets have already established their cyclical low. I would not yet say that the market has definitively bottomed across all Class B/C properties.

There are several encouraging signals. CoStar reports that Phoenix multifamily deal flow has been rising for more than two years and is now more than 20% above its post-pandemic low. More importantly for your acquisition strategy, CoStar specifically says investment in older-vintage properties is picking up and that 1980s/1990s properties are typically trading around $150,000–$225,000/unit, with pricing up modestly over the past year, although still 30%–35% below the 2022 peak.

That is almost exactly what I would expect to see around a market bottom: transaction volume begins recovering before fundamentals are fully repaired, bid/ask spreads narrow, and buyers begin re-entering value-add properties before rent growth turns strongly positive. CoStar explicitly notes that the shift toward older-vintage transactions may indicate that value-add and opportunistic buyers are coming off the sidelines.

The operating fundamentals are also moving in the right direction. Phoenix absorbed roughly 24,000 units during the trailing 12 months versus approximately 18,000 deliveries, the first time demand has exceeded supply since 2021, and vacancy has declined from a peak of roughly 12.6% to 10.7%.  The construction pipeline has also fallen by more than 50% from its peak, which should provide substantial supply relief.

There are still reasons to be cautious. Vacancy remains unusually high, asking rents are still down 1.1% year over year, concessions remain aggressive, and the recovery will not be uniform across submarkets.  CoStar therefore describes the outlook as a gradual recovery, rather than a sharp rebound.

My acquisition takeaway

For Value-Add buyers, I would be becoming more aggressive now rather than waiting for Phoenix fundamentals to look obviously good. By the time vacancy is back to 7%–8%, rents are growing 3%–4%, and financing conditions have normalized, the best value-add buying opportunity will probably have passed.

I would characterize Phoenix today as approximately:

“Late-stage price discovery / early recovery.”

The greatest opportunity appears to be in 1980s assets where sellers are still pricing off today's weak NOI, elevated concessions or capital requirements, particularly where you can buy materially below the roughly $150,000–$225,000/unit range CoStar identifies for normal 1980s/1990s product. The Cove on 44th transaction at about $88,000/unit illustrates that distressed or challenged assets can still trade at extraordinarily large discounts, while better assets are already exceeding $200,000/unit.

So my conclusion would be: the broad market has probably stopped falling rapidly, transaction liquidity is beginning to return, and good Class B assets may already be past their pricing bottom—but distressed Class B-/C assets can still make new lows on an individual-property basis.