A 214-home rental community built entirely of single-story cottages has opened for pre-leasing at 19765 Thomas Rd in Buckeye, Arizona, betting that the West Valley's population boom will keep filling homes even as the region grapples with softening rents and tightening water rules. NexMetro Communities calls the project Avilla Marigold, and it marks the Phoenix-based developer's 26th build-to-rent community in the metro area.
The company built its first Avilla Homes community in Goodyear back in 2014 and has since developed more than 4,000 leased homes across metro Phoenix, according to Real Estate Daily News. As reported by CoStar News, the new Buckeye site sits on 19 acres and offers three floor plans, including a 690-square-foot one-bedroom and a 1,265-square-foot three-bedroom, two-bathroom home. Every unit comes with a private entry and backyard, and leases run 18 months, with base rents ranging from $1,399 to $1,949 a month, per the community's own website.
Jared Geisler, NexMetro's vice president of development for Phoenix, pointed to Buckeye's population growth and the wave of development around it as evidence the demand is real. “Buckeye is a prime example of genuine, durable demand,” Geisler said, per the same account, adding that traditional apartments alone will not be enough to house Phoenix's growing population. NexMetro has tracked a 34.3% population increase in Buckeye over five years, and the city counted more than 125,000 residents in 2025 across a planning area that spans more than 600 square miles.
A City Built for Sprawl, Now Filling In
Buckeye's growth has already reshaped the map around Avilla Marigold. The city is home to Teravalis, a 37,000-acre master-planned community led by Howard Hughes Communities, and Verrado, an more-than-8,000-acre development that in July saw DMB Associates sell 308 finished home lots to expand the residential pipeline further. Commercial development has kept pace, with a 137,347-square-foot Home Depot opening this spring next to Costco at the 410,000-square-foot Buckeye Commons center along the Thomas Road and Verrado Way corridor.
Industrial job growth is following the rooftops. Burlington Stores broke ground in April on a nearly 2-million-square-foot automated distribution center in Westpark 360, set to open in 2028, while Walmart recently acquired 38 acres nearby along State Route 85 for warehouse development. City planning materials from this year show roughly 23,000 single-family units holding active water certificates and 5,900 multifamily units already in the pipeline, supporting a projected Buckeye population of 186,500 by 2030, according to the City of Buckeye.
Water Supply Rules Loom Over the Boom
That buildout capacity exists within real constraints. Arizona's 100-year water supply rule requires residential developers to prove long-term water availability before subdividing land, and in June 2023 the Arizona Department of Water Resources paused issuing new Certificates of Assured Water Supply for groundwater-reliant subdivisions in the Phoenix Active Management Area after modeling revealed a 15% shortfall in the Hassayampa Sub-basin, as detailed by High Country News. Projects with existing water rights or non-subdivision status have continued to proceed under those rules.
Avilla Marigold itself cleared local hurdles years before breaking ground. The Buckeye City Council approved rezoning the 19.4-acre site from single-family to multifamily in May 2023 to permit the project, despite opposition from nearby residents over traffic and water usage, according to the Daily Independent. Developers pitched the single-story cottage concept as a hybrid between single-family ownership and apartment living, a pitch that has now carried through to the leasing stage.
Renters Enter a Softening, Incentive-Heavy Market
Avilla Marigold is opening into a rental market with less pricing power than it once had. West Maricopa County asking rents run about $200 higher than apartments across greater Phoenix, but the broader submarket's average asking rent sits at $1,758 across all apartment types. Statewide, 75% of surveyed Arizona cities reported flat or declining year-over-year rents as of August, including a 2.2% decline in Phoenix's median rent to $2,200 a month, per AZ Big Media.
Roughly 54% of rental properties across metro Phoenix were offering tenant concessions such as a free month's rent in mid-2026, the highest concession rate among major U.S. metro markets, according to The Real Deal. Phoenix still leads the nation with about 33,000 units across build-to-rent and for-rent townhouse stock as of July, per CoStar. Nationally, single-family build-to-rent asking rents hit a record average of $2,240 a month in July, outperforming traditional apartment rent growth even as Sun Belt markets absorb heavy new supply, according to Multi-Housing News.
Institutional capital continues to back the build-to-rent format despite the soft patch. Global research published in June estimated the build-to-rent market at $117.6 billion in 2025, projecting growth to $181.2 billion by 2034, with single-family detached homes capturing a 42.3% market share, per Market Intelo. For NexMetro, the wager is that Buckeye's underlying population and job growth will keep Avilla Marigold's cottages filled even as the wider rental market cools around it.
