Take a drive throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and you’ll see construction activity on apartment complexes going on nearly everywhere.
It pretty much confirms the latest report by RealPage analysts: D/FW leads the country in apartment demand during the recent quarter.
Net apartment leasing reached a record 15,400 units in the three months ending in June, more than any other major U.S. metro area. Los Angeles was second with 12,000 units occupied and Houston third with 11,399 units of net leasing.
D/FW’s lead could grow in the coming months. Roughly 38,700 apartments are under construction in D/FW while 36,700 are on the way in Los Angeles/Orange County.
Nationally, renter demand for apartments soared to an unprecedented level in the second quarter. The number of occupied apartments in the nation’s 150 largest metros climbed by 219,909 units, the biggest quarterly increase seen in the RealPage database that goes back to the early 1990s.
“North Texas has been the country’s top apartment absorption center throughout the past several years,” Greg Willett, RealPage economist, said in the report.
Willett said demand also is bouncing back among young adults who generally make less money. A block of those young adults went back to live with their parents during the early days of the pandemic, but now they are forming their own households once again, he said.
According to Richardson-based RealPage, apartment rents in North Texas rose by 7 percent year-over-year in the second quarter and overall vacancy is less than 5 percent.
Other Notable Reports
- Commercial Cafe: Of the nation’s top 50 metro areas, the Dallas area ranks fourth-best for Gen Zers, according to a CommercialCafe study. Dallas has 1.03 million Gen Zers, making up 12.18 percent of the city’s population, the study found. Austin was ranked fifth and San Antonio eighth in the list of top-50 metro areas. Learn more.
- WalletHub: Plano was the only Dallas/Fort Worth city ranked on WalletHub’s list of best places to rent. Plano was ranked 27th. Grand Prairie was ranked 56th, Fort Worth 69th, Irving 92nd, Arlington 101st, Garland 116th, and Dallas 127th. To determine the rankings, WalletHub compared more than 180 rental markets based on 22 key measures of rental attractiveness and quality of life. Learn more.
- RE/MAX National Housing Report: D/FW home sales are down 5.8 percent compared to last year, the third-largest decrease year-over-year in the U.S., according to the RE/MAX National Housing Report. Billings, Mont., and Boise, Idaho ranked ahead of D/FW. The June median home-sale price was $355,000, an increase of 21.4 percent from a year ago and the highest price recorded by RE/MAX for D/FW. Learn more.
