Knightvest Acquires Metro Phoenix Apartments
The deal is the eighth investment in Knightvest's Fund II, which remains open through 2025.
Multifamily investment specialist Knightvest Capital has acquired Avana Desert View, a 412-unit apartment community located in Scottsdale, Ariz. The deal represents the eighth investment in Knightvest’s Fund II, which remains open through 2025.
The property offers one-, two- and three-bedroom units with an average overall size of 933 square feet. Rents at have gyrated up and down in recent years, and currently average $1,661 a month, down from $1,767 a month in 2021, Yardi Matrix reports. The community is currently 97.3 percent occupied.
Common-area amenities at Avana Desert View include a fitness center, two swimming pools, a volleyball court and playground. All units include a washers, dryers and microwaves.
Knightvest declined to disclose the purchase price, but the property has in recent years been subject to a $64.7 million CMBS loan with Citibank as the lender, according to Yardi Matrix data. The variable interest loan, with a maturity date in 2030, was put on the servicer’s watch list in October 2024.
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The property last traded in 2019 for $96 million when Greystar bought it from IMT Capital. In 2016, IMT bought the asset for $68 million from Angelo Gordon & Co.
Knightvest plans to undertake renovations at Avana Desert View, which was originally developed nearly 30 years ago. Planned improvements include modernizing unit interiors, refreshing common areas and upgrading amenities.
Phoenix multifamily stays resilient
In the metro Phoenix multifamily market, 27,700 multifamily units came online year-over-year as of March 2025, according to Institutional Property Advisors. Over the last three years, about 60,000 new apartments have opened in the market, or nearly one-sixth of the pre-2021 stock.
Absorption totaled roughly 30,000 units over the last 12 months, pushing the metro vacancy rate down by 120 basis points to 6.1 percent, IPA notes. That is the lowest rate in three years.
Even so, for metro Phoenix multifamily investors, “price discovery remains ongoing across asset classes, reflecting divergent investor approaches based on vintage,” IPA reports. New properties (built since 2020) saw median pricing decline 12 percent year-over-year to $285,000 per unit. Older assets have lost even more ground, generally trading around 30 percent below peak valuations.
