New apartments in Phoenix are getting smaller

Phoenix apartments are getting smaller, following a national trend toward tinier living spaces, Axios' Sami Sparber and Kavya Beheraj report.

Why it matters: Apartment sizes are shrinking locally and nationwide, a reversal in the rental market that saw units grow during the early part of the work-from-home era.

By the numbers: The average size of a newer Phoenix apartment is 863 square feet, slightly smaller than the 2022 national average of 887 square feet, per a new report from listing service RentCafe.

The big picture: Nationwide, newly built apartments in 2022 shed 30 square feet on average compared with 2021, per the report.

• That decrease was fueled in part by more studios and one-bedroom apartments entering the market, researchers found, analyzing the 100 metros with the most high-density buildings.

Flashback: In 2020 and 2021, demand for more space resulted in larger unit configurations, RentCafe analyst Adina Dragos tells Axios.

• "Fast-forward to 2022, the demand for more apartments prompted developers to accommodate more units in their projects," Dragos says.

Jessica's thought bubble: I remember when 400-square-foot downtown Phoenix "micro-apartment" proposals were laughed at in 2016. I guess they were on to something.