Dallas

North Texas Rent Dropping, But Not Everywhere

In Collin County, strong job growth has already sent developers scrambling to build units

What to Know

  • Supply is catching up with demand for the first time since 2008
  • East Dallas has significant drops; Uptown, downtown Fort Worth seeing rent rates increase
  • Good luck finding deals in Tarrant County, where demand is outpacing supply

North Texans have gotten used to construction cranes and saying hello to more and more high-rise apartments, but that may soon slow down.

“I think for the first time in a long time, I think we are finally seeing supply of apartment units catch up to the demand really since the financial crisis in 2008,” said Alex Doubet, CEO and founder of Door Real Estate. “There just haven’t been enough apartments for the amount of people moving into DFW, but finally that is starting to change.”

Doubet said in the last quarter, around 7,000 apartment units came online, but only around 4,500 were rented and there are still nearly 40,000 being built in North Texas.

In Dallas County, East Dallas is seeing some of the most significant drops in price at around three percent.

On the other side of the trend are rental prices in the Uptown area.

“Uptown continues to be very expensive. It is 55 percent more expensive for apartments than the average apartment rental price in DFW,” Doubet explained. “It’s really because of two things: a lot high paying jobs in Uptown, and secondly, demand.”

While most of North Texas is seeing rental prices drop, Fort Worth is actually seeing prices go up a bit.

“Fort Worth proper is super hot. You see a lot of people wanting to live downtown in Fort Worth and you just haven’t seen as many developers go into bringing online a lot of multifamily units,” Doubet said.

Real Estate experts expect the next big boom in apartment growth will likely be in Fort Worth, with developers capitalizing on the lack of units and predicted growth.

“If you are renting in Tarrant County right now, you are not going to have some great luck finding a good deal. They’ve actually seen rental rates rise almost three percent,” Doubet said.

In Collin County, strong job growth has already sent developers scrambling to build units.

“It continues to have really strong job growth, so what is probably going to happen is developers are going to start slowing down on the new building,” Doubet said. “That takes a couple of years because apartments take a long time to build.”

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