Roland Murphy

The Phoenix multifamily market had a phenomenal start to the year with nearly $2 billion in apartment investment activity and strong rent growth, all of which is driven by the continued growth in the job markets and population, according to a report from ABI Multifamily. For the second half of the year, expect similar performance from the Phoenix multifamily market.

:I expect investment activity to be kind of like first half, but more so. Phoenix isn’t looking at anything noteworthy in terms of new deliveries,” Roland Murphy, director of research at ABI Multifamily, tells GlobeSt.com.” Fed rate policies should keep capital freely available. Fear of that inevitable but still far off downturn will cause some owners to sell while the market is still hot, but consistently rising prices will motivate others to hold on as long as they can.”

In the second half of the year, Murphy expects value-add deals to be the most popular investment asset, which is similar to what the market has experienced so far this year. “Buyers will continue to target any kind of value proposition, whether it’s snapping up a well-performing property now before the price nudges up or securing properties that aren’t living up to their full potential and investing in value-add programs before the market starts to peak,” he says.