Maricopa County

Tempe

Small lots, light rail, and a renter pool that never dries up

I live here, so I see this market up close. Tempe is small lots and older stock within biking distance of ASU and the light rail, and the renter pool basically never empties — students, young workers, people who want to be near Tempe Marketplace and the lakes. The tradeoff is you pay for location by the square foot: what looks expensive for a 1970s ranch in Mesa is just normal here. Where I'd look is the older neighborhoods west of the 101 and around Escalante, where the lots are bigger than the listings admit and half the houses haven't been touched since the nineties.

What will bite you

Check the flood zone before anything else. Big chunks of Tempe sit in a FEMA flood zone, and flood insurance on a rental quietly eats the cash flow you underwrote.