Phoenix’s small landlords.
Five hundred and sixteen companies bought two to four properties here last year. Most of them keep what they buy, four in five are Arizona-registered, and they need a contractor every time a tenant moves out. They also do not advertise — so this briefing is mostly about the businesses that reach them for you.
If you read one part of this, read the sixteen ways people lose money here. Unlicensed work you cannot sue to collect on, a lien that does not attach to a family’s own house, a tax most people leave out of the bid, and a trustee sale that wants the full price by five o’clock tomorrow.
How this was built
From Maricopa County deed records for the twelve months to August 2026, counted by transaction rather than by parcel, with private individuals and family trusts removed in code. Every lender, property manager, programme and dollar figure was then checked against a primary source — the firm’s own page, the federal agency, or the statute — and a second researcher was set to breaking the first. Anything we could not confirm is marked where it appears and listed at the end.
What the market is doing, September 2026
Everything below assumes you know which way the wind is blowing, so here it is. Metro Phoenix rents are falling. Two-bedroom rents are down about 3.2% in Phoenix year over year, 4.6% in Scottsdale, 6.4% in Chandler, 7.6% in Tempe and 8.3% in Glendale, and the metro is on track to end 2026 down more than six percent. One to two months of free rent is a routine concession. Vacancy is disputed: one brokerage puts the second quarter of 2026 at 11.3%, other sources at about 8.4%, and we have not been able to reconcile them — treat the gap as real uncertainty rather than picking the friendlier number.
That matters most to anyone borrowing at twelve percent and planning to refinance out: you would be underwriting to a rent roll that is shrinking while you renovate. These figures move. Re-run every calculation on this page with today’s numbers before you commit money.
The finding
For this tier, the lender is the door.
Arizona records how every purchase was financed. These buyers paid 43% cash, 34% on private or other money, 17% on a conventional loan and 5% on seller carry-back. That middle number is the useful one. A third of these buyers sat across a desk from a hard-money loan officer who needed a contractor’s bid and scope of work before the loan could fund.
That is not a favour you are asking for. The contractor who turns up holding a completed rehab budget is unblocking the loan officer’s pipeline. It is the single most reliable introduction in this market, and it costs nothing.
It matters more here than anywhere else because most of these companies have no office, no website and no listing agent. We are not publishing their names, and neither should anyone else: at this size the company and the household are usually the same thing, and the businesses that serve them are the professional way in.
Where they buy: by declared-rental purchases, 85254 and 85251 in Scottsdale lead, then 85257, 85032, and 85009 in West Phoenix, followed by 85258, 85383, 85015, 85282 in Tempe, 85351, 85208 in Mesa, 85248, 85014, 85051, 85018 and 85301 in Glendale. That is the mid-priced rental belt around Scottsdale, north-central Phoenix and Tempe, plus West Phoenix. Fourteen percent of their purchases fall in the working-class areas our earlier briefings flagged, and 85009 is the standout.
There are also 453 contractors at this scale, with $250,000 to $3M of permitted work a year and a median of about $900,000 across four permits. They are your peers, your competition, and your likeliest subcontracting partners. The bigger market sits in the companion briefing on the mid market.
The lenders
Six local lenders, and what they publish.
All six are licensed in Arizona and were live in September 2026. Rates, leverage and eligibility are as published by each lender on 8 and 9 September 2026 and move in weeks. Nothing here is a quote, an offer, or a commitment to lend — confirm terms directly before you apply or pay any fee.
| Lender | Where | Published terms | First-timers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boomerang Capital Partners | Mesa · 480-779-9779 | 12–13% plus one to two points; 85% of purchase and cost; $100,000 minimum; no credit check — all from a third-party lender directory, not Boomerang's own site, which publishes no rates and says funding in as few as two business days | Not published |
| Capital Fund 1 | Scottsdale · 866-999-0398, draws 480-889-6100 | 8.99–12.99% plus one to two and a half points; 75% of purchase; $50,000 minimum. A soft pull, but not no minimum: its programme pages publish score floors of 620, 680 and 660 by product. Also rental, construction and remodel-addition loans | Not stated |
| Hilton Financial | Phoenix · 602-375-8951 | Roughly 10–13% plus two to three points; 69% of value or 90% of project cost; says no minimum credit score; lends on accessory dwellings and ground-up | Conditionally — it says experienced and new investors |
| Prime Plus Mortgages | Scottsdale · 480-923-7602 | From 10.99%; up to 90% of value; no income verification; funding in one to two days. Its site publishes no rehab percentage and does not say no credit check | No restriction stated |
| Merchants Funding AZ | Scottsdale · 602-684-1658 | Rates it describes as from the eights; up to 95% of purchase plus 95% of rehab | Not published |
| Hard Money Lenders Arizona | Chandler · 480-999-6183 | From 7.99%; asset-based; also rental and construction loans | Not stated |
And the national platforms that will take a first-timer
| Lender | Minimum credit score | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| RCN Capital | 650 | Says experience is not required, and raises your leverage with each completed flip |
| Easy Street Capital | 600 | From 8.90%, draws in forty-eight hours, and a rental loan with no minimum debt-coverage ratio |
| Kiavi | Not published (reported around 640–660) | Runs an emerging-investor programme; rental loans from 5.875% |
| Temple View Capital | 660 | Loans from $55,000 — the lowest floor we found — and draws in two days |
| Lima One Capital | 660 | Requires a prior investment-property exit. It will not take a pure first-timer |
What every one of them wants from the contractor is the same: a line-item scope tied to milestone draws, an inspection before each release, lien waivers from everyone who worked that phase, photographs, a fixed-price contract, and a licence for any work over $1,000. Only one lender in the set publishes the standard it holds contractors to — an active licence, a million dollars of general liability, workers’ compensation, bonding above $50,000, and three comparable Arizona jobs in twenty-four months. Meet that list and you are bankable to all of them.
Where their deals come from
Wholesalers, auctions, and the agents who work with investors.
Two licensed investor-only brokerages sell distressed inventory to this tier: NetWorth Realty of Phoenix (480-454-1054) and New Western (866-323-5576), which is free to join after an onboarding call but runs no contractor programme. Smaller local buyers’ lists email deals as they are locked up: Hoffer Group in Tempe (602-833-7071), Boulder Home Investments (701-430-1938) and ChaseFlipsAZ (480-717-8555).
Arizona’s main foreclosure route is the trustee sale, and it is the least forgiving thing in this briefing. Notice is recorded and posted at least ninety-one days ahead, and every bidder except the lender posts a $10,000 deposit — but that buys one day of standing, not entry. The winning bidder must pay the full price by five o’clock the next business day or forfeit it. Unless you obtain a court order before the sale you waive your defences and objections, and there is no right of redemption afterwards, unlike a judicial foreclosure. You take title subject to any senior liens, a trustee’s deed carries no warranty, and there is no title insurance until you buy it. Before you raise your hand: pull the chain of title and the lien position at the Recorder, price a title policy, confirm the payment deadline with the trustee, and never bid on a house you have not at least seen from the street. The county’s tax-lien sale is a different instrument, run online each February, with interest bid down from sixteen percent and a deposit of $500 or a tenth of what you intend to bid; there you cannot foreclose the right to redeem for three years.
There is no formal investor division at any large Phoenix brokerage — investor expertise sits in individual teams, several of which advertise contractor and property-manager referrals. Get known to one of those teams and you are in front of every client they have.
The property managers
Three publish a real vendor intake. Most do not, and one takes no subcontractors at all.
Turns are the revenue floor that carries a crew between bigger jobs, and the manager — not the owner — decides who does them.
| Manager | What owners pay | How a contractor gets on the list |
|---|---|---|
| Mynd | $129, $119 or $109 per home per month for one, two, or three to ten homes | A formal vendor onboarding process. Phoenix office 602-887-5836 |
| HomeRiver Group Phoenix | Not published | An online preferred-vendor form: W-9, insurance and workers' compensation naming them as certificate holder, and a signed agreement |
| Simply Property Management | Not published | An online vendor form: proof of liability cover, workers' compensation and trade licensing; twenty-four-hour response |
| Stratton Vantage | $125 a month flat, $599 placement, no maintenance mark-up; 1,600+ properties | No vendor page — call 480-907-3597 |
| Service Star Realty | $125 a month, no mark-ups | No vendor page — call 480-426-9696 |
| Renters Warehouse | $99 a month per unit | A vetted vendor network, but no published intake |
| Real Property Management Phoenix Valley | 2,000+ properties | All work in-house. It uses no subcontractors — not a target |
The packet they all expect: a licence in a residential class, general liability at the million-and-two-million market norm, workers’ compensation or a waiver, a W-9, the manager named as certificate holder, a signed vendor agreement, and a twenty-four-hour response commitment. Work orders arrive through maintenance platforms, so be set up on those before the first call.
Two other businesses see these buyers before you do. Title and escrow: Great American Title (602-445-5525) is the investor association’s title partner and gives members a thirty percent discount; Fidelity National Title runs an investor desk for simultaneous closings and assignments (480-214-4500). An escrow officer at either closes several of these deals a week and is asked for a contractor constantly. Suppliers: the investor association’s Home Depot programme pays a two percent half-yearly rebate above $12,500 of spend plus twenty percent off paint; Lowe’s commercial account runs net-60 and reports to the business credit bureaus, which is the cheapest way for a new contractor to build the credit file a bonding company will later want to see.
The rooms
Where these buyers actually are this autumn.
The Arizona Real Estate Investors Association is the room. Lite membership is free with a $25 guest fee an event; premium is $249 a year. A business associate listing is $1,000 a year in Phoenix — and when we checked, the general contracting category listed exactly one company.
| Date | What | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Monday 14 September | All-chapters monthly meeting | Venue 8600, Scottsdale. First visit free, then $25 |
| Thursday 17 September | Beginning Investors subgroup | For people with fewer than three deals |
| Tuesday 22 September | Phoenix Real Estate Club — Haves and Wants | Investors announce, out loud, properties that need scopes of work |
| Thursday 1 October | Income Property Owners subgroup | The small-landlord room |
| Thursday 22 October | Expanding single-family properties for maximum return | An accessory-dwelling and addition session — the natural slot to ask to present |
| Monday 26 October | Fix and Flip subgroup | West USA Realty, Scottsdale |
Two meetups are genuinely meeting: a Scottsdale investment group of about 484 members on second Thursdays, and a weekly Friday morning coffee of about 451 members. Both welcome lenders and service providers.
And a gap worth naming: there is no dedicated Spanish-language real-estate investor meetup in Phoenix. The nearest rooms are the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals’ Phoenix chapter, Chicanos Por La Causa’s free bilingual housing counselling, the Arizona Hispanic Chamber, the Black Chamber of Arizona and the Greater Phoenix Urban League. That absence is an opening, and it is one we intend to fill.
A first deal
What a first-time investor can actually borrow in 2026.
Occupancy decides the money. Living in one unit of a two-to-four-unit building is by far the cheapest way into this market, and the limits below are the current ones for Maricopa County.
| Building | FHA limit, 2026 | Conforming limit, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| One unit | $557,750 | $832,750 |
| Two units | $714,000 | $1,066,250 |
| Three units | $863,100 | $1,288,800 |
| Four units | $1,072,600 | $1,601,750 |
If you will live there: FHA at 3.5% down on two to four units, counting three-quarters of the other units’ rent as income. Fannie Mae’s five-percent-down option on an owner-occupied two-to-four-unit is still in force in 2026. For renovation, an FHA 203(k) covers up to $75,000 of non-structural work in its limited form, or any amount above $5,000 in its standard form, which also allows additions and unit conversions.
If you are building an accessory dwelling: this was the gap in our earlier field guide, and on the owner-occupied side it is now largely answered — with a limit worth knowing before you draw plans. The standard FHA 203(k) can build an attached accessory dwelling, not a detached casita, and since October 2023 half the projected rent from a new one counts as income to qualify — three-quarters for an existing one, capped at thirty percent of your total effective income, with about two months of housing payments in reserve and no cash taken out. Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s renovation products both allow constructing one. Arizona’s 2024 accessory-dwelling law requires cities above seventy-five thousand people to permit at least one attached and one detached unit per single-family lot, with no owner-occupancy requirement and no extra parking; Phoenix allows two per lot and has free pre-approved plans in review. What is still genuinely unsolved is money for an investor who does not live there and wants to add a casita to a rental — for that, it is the private lenders above.
If you will not live there: expect twenty to twenty-five percent down on a rental loan, or private money at eleven to thirteen percent. Debt-coverage lenders start as low as $55,000, and one of them applies no minimum coverage ratio at all.
Help with the deposit: the programmes that explicitly allow an owner-occupied two-to-four-unit are WISH, which matches savings four-to-one up to $32,837 for buyers at or below eighty percent of area median income; NACA, which requires no down payment, no closing costs and no mortgage insurance; and Section 184 for enrolled tribal members. Free counselling — which most of these require, and which takes weeks — comes from Chicanos Por La Causa, the Greater Phoenix Urban League and Newtown CDC.
How you get in
Two paths, and the order that works.
A contractor who wants twenty small investors as clients
- Make the one-page credential. Licence, liability, workers’ compensation, three comparable jobs with photographs, a clean complaint history, a W-9 and a certificate of insurance. It is the market standard, not one lender’s preference.
- Build one sample draw package — a 1,200-square-foot cosmetic rehab, a line-item scope, five milestones, the photographs you would send at each — and email it to every lender above in the same week. Ask each: do you vet or refer contractors, and can I be added?
- Take the association listing and turn up to the Fix and Flip and Income Property Owners subgroups. Being one of two names in a category is a standing referral.
- Become a property manager’s turn vendor, then introduce yourself to an investor escrow desk. Both are asked for a contractor every week.
- Offer what they actually select on: a fixed-scope, fixed-price quote within forty-eight hours of a walk-through, a draw schedule that matches their lender’s, photographs at every milestone, and a start date. They choose on reliability, not price.
Before you sign a fixed-price contract
We recommend fixed-price quoting twice on this page, because it is what wins this work. It is also the most common way a small Phoenix contractor loses a year of profit, so write the contract to survive it. Put in a stated contingency of ten to fifteen percent. Require a written, signed change order with a price before any extra work proceeds. Use allowances for owner-selected finishes, list your exclusions explicitly, and include unforeseen-condition language — which matters disproportionately on pre-1978 Maryvale stock, where you should expect cloth or knob-and-tube wiring, cast-iron drains, undersized panels, no roof sheathing, failed slab plumbing and asbestos in texture and flooring. Arizona sets required contents for a residential contract; build your template to that standard and it does both jobs at once.
Someone making a first investment
This is what this tier actually did last year rather than a recommendation, and the figures are market averages in a worked example that you must re-run with a lender. Occupancy decides everything else. Get the counselling certificate early. Sit in the beginners’ subgroup and one Friday coffee before you buy anything. Source through an investor-only brokerage or a buyers’ list. Close at an investor escrow desk. Renovate on a draw schedule with a licensed contractor. Then hand it to a manager at $99 to $129 a month, or manage it yourself. The arithmetic to run before you offer: interest-only private money at twelve percent on a $250,000 note is about $2,500 a month, plus points and closing costs of roughly $5,000 to $10,000, plus insurance, tax and utilities — which is why the plan has to end in a refinance. Price that exit above the floor: rental loans start from about 5.75 percent, and a starting rate is for high scores at low leverage.
Pitfalls
Sixteen ways people lose money at this end of the market.
Read this section before the rest. Most of what goes wrong for a first-time investor or a small contractor in Phoenix is on this list, and all of it is avoidable.
Hard money that eats the whole margin
Local lenders here run 11 to 13 percent plus one to three points. Interest-only at 12 percent on a $250,000 note is about $2,500 a month, or about $2,125 if the lender advances 85 percent — before you swing a hammer and before the rest of the carry. Add points of roughly $2,500 to $7,500, appraisal, escrow and title, insurance, property tax, utilities, and a draw inspection at $150 to $300 each time. Ask four questions most first-timers do not: is interest charged on the whole note or only on what is drawn; is there a minimum interest period, because three to six months of guaranteed interest kills a fast flip; what does an extension cost and how many can I have; are there exit or back-end points. The national average was about 10.1 percent in August 2026 and the Phoenix directory average 13 percent with 3.4 points. Headline rates near 7.25 percent belong to experienced borrowers with high scores.
Working unlicensed, then finding you cannot sue for your money
Arizona bars an unlicensed contractor from bringing a lawsuit to collect on the contract. Not a fine, not a penalty — no cause of action at all. The under-$1,000 exemption also disappears the moment the job needs a permit, if the work is more than casual or minor, if a bigger job is split into small contracts, and if you advertise without stating you are unlicensed. Confirm your position with a construction attorney before you rely on the exemption.
Assuming a mechanics lien protects you on a family's own house
It usually does not. Arizona does not allow a lien against an owner-occupied dwelling where the owner contracted directly with the licensed general contractor, so a subcontractor on that job has no lien to fall back on and the state Recovery Fund is the homeowner's remedy, not yours. Your protection there is the contract, the deposit and the draw schedule — which is exactly why the fixed-price section above matters. There are also filing deadlines measured in days, not months. Take advice on your own facts.
Bidding without the transaction privilege tax in the number
Arizona taxes contracting, and it taxes two kinds of work differently. Ground-up and substantial-alteration work is taxed as prime contracting on a large share of the contract price; maintenance, repair, replacement and alteration work is treated differently, with the tax falling on materials. Bid the wrong one, or leave it out entirely, and you have bid at a loss on your own paperwork. Have an Arizona accountant set your quoting template up once — it is the cheapest money you will spend. Flip profit is ordinary income and carries self-employment tax too.
Renovating pre-1978 houses without the lead certification
Most of the rental stock in this market predates 1978, and disturbing paint in those houses requires a federally certified renovation firm and certified renovators. Working without it risks a penalty far larger than the job. It is also a selling point: say it on the estimate, because the investor's lender and insurer would rather it were true.
Confusing certificate holder with additional insured
Being named certificate holder means someone gets a copy of your policy. Being named additional insured means they are covered by it. Property managers and lenders ask for the second and are often sent the first. And a vacant house under renovation is not covered by a standard homeowner's policy at all — the owner needs builder's risk or a vacancy endorsement. Collect a current certificate from every subcontractor you use, because if theirs has lapsed, their injured worker becomes your problem.
Building an accessory dwelling without a permit
An unpermitted casita will not appraise, will not insure, and will stop a sale in escrow. The owner also loses the ability to bring a complaint against the contractor who built it. Every route to accessory-dwelling money described above runs through a permit; there is no version of this that works off the books.
Not realising a draw is a reimbursement
You finish the phase, submit the paperwork, wait for an inspection at $150 to $300 a draw, and then get paid — typically three to five days after a complete submittal. A typical rehab has three to six draws, so on a $250,000 job you are carrying labour and materials for two to four weeks per phase against supplier terms of net thirty to net sixty. That float runs to tens of thousands of dollars, and it is why small rehab firms die solvent rather than unprofitable. Negotiate a mobilisation draw before you start, not after you are short.
Working over $1,000 without a licence
In Arizona any job above $1,000 in labour and materials, or any job needing a permit, requires a Registrar of Contractors licence. Below that a handyman may work unlicensed, which is how most people start and exactly the ceiling they hit. Every lender and every property manager in this briefing enforces it, so the unlicensed route caps you at the smallest, worst-paying work.
Losing your lien rights in the first twenty days
A subcontractor who does not serve a preliminary twenty-day notice on the owner, the general contractor and the construction lender has no mechanics lien in Arizona. It is free. Confirm the mechanics with a construction attorney, but never skip it.
Assuming the down-payment programmes work on a small multi
Two of the best-known ones do not. Home in Five lists houses, condominiums and townhouses — not two-to-four-unit buildings. Arizona Is Home is shown as unavailable in Maricopa County. The programmes that do explicitly allow an owner-occupied two-to-four-unit are WISH, which matches savings four-to-one up to $32,837, NACA, and Section 184 for enrolled tribal members. Check the property-type list before you plan around a programme.
Borrowing against your house for a rental and finding the lender says no
Of the three Arizona credit unions we checked, only Desert Financial explicitly lends on an investment property through a home-equity line. OneAZ offers the highest combined loan-to-value at ninety percent, but only on a one-unit or duplex you occupy yourself — and that ninety-percent tier is capped at $100,000, so it cannot fund a casita on its own. Ask both questions first, not last.
Bidding at a trustee sale without doing the title work
Every bidder except the lender posts a $10,000 deposit, and that buys one day of standing, not entry: the winner must pay the full price by five o'clock the next business day or forfeit. Unless you obtain a court order before the sale you waive your defences and objections, and there is no right of redemption afterwards. You are buying without an inspection, senior liens survive, the deed carries no warranty, and there is no title insurance until you buy it. The bidding services exist for a reason. This is not a first deal.
Advertising a property you do not own
Since 2022 an Arizona wholesale buyer must disclose in writing before any binding agreement, and a wholesale seller must disclose that it holds only an equitable interest and may not be able to convey title. Either side may cancel before closing. No licence is needed to assign a contract, but marketing a property you do not own is unlicensed brokerage. Advertise the contract, not the property.
Paying a credentialing platform before a client sponsors you
Vendor credentialing platforms are compliance gates, not lead sources. Nobody browses them looking for new contractors. Wait until a property manager or an operator sponsors you, then pay.
Trusting a rate sheet that has not been touched since 2018
One local lender's site is live and its published rate table is dated 2018. Another wholesaler's auction site has an expired security certificate. Several turnkey operators could not be verified in Phoenix at all, and the investor forums are blunt about the economics not working here. Call before you quote anyone else's numbers back to a client.
What we could not confirm
Published with its gaps showing.
Most lenders do not publish whether they will take a first-timer, and none publishes an approved-contractor list, so those answers are phone calls. Some of the smaller property managers’ monthly fees come from third-party round-ups rather than their own pages. Several federal and programme details — the self-sufficiency test on three- and four-unit FHA loans, one renovation product’s caps, and whether one national renovation lender operates in Arizona at all — rest on secondary sources because the primary pages refused automated reading. Two programmes are described differently by their administrator and by third parties, and we have followed the administrator. Meetup sizes are as listed in September 2026.
Dates and dues change without notice, and one association’s own calendar contradicted itself while we were checking it. Call before you drive.
Compiled from Maricopa County recorded deeds and Phoenix and Mesa building permits for the twelve months to August 2026, with every lender, programme and figure checked against primary sources on 8 and 9 September 2026. Companies and professional roles only: no private individuals, no home addresses, no personal phone numbers. This is information, not investment, legal or tax advice.