How does your rent in Phoenix compare to surrounding cities?

Here’s a reality check on Phoenix-area rent, from Fountain Hills to Glendale. The findings might surprise you. 

This story first appeared in Rent Check PHX, a biweekly newsletter made for Phoenix renters, written by someone who’s lived it. Sign up for it here.

When I graduated from ASU in 2017, I decided to find an apartment to rent in Phoenix. In my head, if things went south in my job, I could always relocate to an East Valley suburb outside of the city to save some cash. 

But what I, a brand-new adult at the time, didn’t realize was that, with the exception of Mesa, those places were on average actually more expensive. As you’ll see below, that still checks out in 2025. 

Now that I’m more seasoned, if you will, I try to keep tabs on what rent is like in surrounding cities. I figure that if I find myself needing to move somewhere cheaper, stat, it’d be good to know where to start looking. 

It’s been a while since I’ve checked up on average rents in the Valley, so this week, I’m diving into the numbers for you. 

According to Zumper, an online rental marketplace, the median rent for a one-bedroom in Phoenix was $1,210 in July. That’s just a tad under the state median of $1,260. 

If you’d like to compare to surrounding cities (or at least these ones that Zumper chose to analyze), here’s where they fell in line:

• Fountain Hills: $2,200
• Flagstaff: $1,710
• Scottsdale $1,690
• Gilbert: $1,540
• Goodyear $1,500
• Prescott Valley: $1,470
• Chandler: $1,460
• Surprise: $1,450
• Peoria: $1,360
• Tempe: $1,300
• Mesa: $1,250
• Lake Havasu City: $1,220
• Glendale: $1,050
• Bullhead City: $1,000

I’m not going to lie—this list surprised me a bit. I knew bougie areas like Fountain Hills and Scottsdale, along with Flagstaff’s limited rental supply, would be well above Phoenix, but it’s interesting to me that East Valley suburbs are as high as they are. I also forget how big Phoenix is, and that this average rent includes much more than just the pricey downtown and Arcadia areas, making it lower overall. 

Of course, a lot has changed in recent years, including increases in population, fluctuations in housing supply, large employers moving into suburbs, investment in downtowns, and luxury mixed-use developments driving up averages. I just visited a complex in Gilbert built in 2023 that was comparable to prices in downtown Phoenix.

It doesn’t surprise me, though, that if you want to go cheaper than Phoenix, you’ve got to head west to Glendale, or pretty far away to Bullhead City. 

What makes this list more interesting is that rent has not trended in the same direction for every city. Most cities on the list above saw their median rent fall over the last year, except for three: Lake Havasu City (10.9% increase), Flagstaff (1.8% decrease), and Scottsdale (0.6% increase). Fountain Hills and Bullhead City saw no change. 

At 6.9%, Phoenix saw one of the largest decreases in median one-bedroom rent from last July to this July. Here are the other cities that saw year-over-year decreases:

• Glendale 13.9%
• Mesa 5.3%
• Peoria 4.9%
• Gilbert 4.3%
• Prescott Valley 3.3%
• Chandler 3.3%
• Goodyear 3.2%
• Surprise 2.7%
• Tempe 1.5%

Things do change a bit when you look at two-bedroom rentals, but not much. There, Phoenix’s median is $1,560, making it No. 11 on the list of 15 cities. Mesa is below it at $1,520, but the other East Valley cities are still higher. 

This information can change quickly, so things could be very different in a year, but for now it hopefully gives you a better sense of where your rent stands among surrounding cities. And if you find yourself needing to cut back on rent, you know better than 2017 me where to point your U-Haul. 

MORE: Renting a new place in Phoenix? Here’s how to throw a successful moving party