Affordable apartment construction in the Phoenix metro area increased 206% in the years following the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data from RentCafe.

Phoenix-area builders and developers constructed 4,625 affordable housing units in the time frame from 2020 to 2024, up from 1,510 during the pre-pandemic period from 2015 to 2019. That was the second-fastest increase of any metro area in the country.

During that same time frame, affordable housing also grew to make up a larger proportion of new deliveries: Affordable apartments made up just 3.9% of new units in the years before the pandemic but grew to 6.27% in the years following.

However, that share of affordable units is notably smaller than that of many comparable metros. The only metro with a smaller proportion of affordable units was Dallas-Fort Worth at 4.9%. On the flip side, nearly one-third of all new units in New York and San Francisco are affordable.