The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) represents the most serious attempt in 55 years to challenge the NYSE-Nasdaq duopoly and signals something that has not happened in generations: New York City’s monopoly on exchange infrastructure now has a credible challenger.
As the TXSE prepares to launch in phases through 2026, EMBREY, a San Antonio-based investment and development firm, shares insights on how the exchange could further reinforce Dallas-Fort Worth’s (DFW) emergence as one of the country’s most important financial and economic centers. We also consider the direct implications for long-term economic growth and multifamily demand correlated to the launch of TXSE.
Announced in 2024 and approved by the SEC in 2025, the TXSE has already raised more than $270 million from institutions including BlackRock, Citadel Securities, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Charles Schwab. The exchange’s pitch to public companies centers around lower listing costs, fewer prescriptive requirements and a governance framework designed for operators. Combined with the state’s broader efforts to position itself as an increasingly attractive destination for business and corporate investment, the TXSE reinforces a larger shift already underway across North Texas.
The exchange arrives at a time in which DFW has already evolved into one of the nation’s fastest-growing financial service hubs. Goldman Sachs is developing a $500 million campus in Uptown that is projected to house 5,000 employees, while J.P. Morgan’s Plano campus employs roughly 12,500 people, the bank’s largest presence outside New York City. Charles Schwab relocated its headquarters to Westlake with plans for continued expansion; Wells Fargo recently opened its Las Colinas campus, and other financial institutions are rumored to be exploring major expansions into the market.
Recent market activity reinforces this momentum. In the Uptown/Turtle Creek submarket, office vacancy declined by more than 400 basis points in 2025 while maintaining some of the highest asking rents in the metro, signaling sustained demand from institutional tenants.
The real estate moves made by these financial institutions are not short-term shifts driven by cost. Rather, they reflect a broader reorientation of where capital, talent and financial infrastructure are concentrating. The TXSE is the next step in that progression, building on an ecosystem that is already in place.
For multifamily real estate, the implications extend far beyond the exchange itself. On paper, the TXSE is expected to create roughly 100 direct jobs, but the real impact comes from everything that forms around the exchange. Public companies require a deep ecosystem including legal, accounting, compliance, advisory and technology infrastructure, and those firms tend to cluster near the markets they serve.
According to BLS research, finance and insurance subsectors carry employment multipliers ranging from 2.0 to 4.0, meaning each direct financial sector job directly supports additional roles across the broader economy. Capital formation drives corporate expansion, and expansion drives hiring. In the near term, that means growth across legal, accounting and advisory functions. Over time, that growth extends to headquarters functions, sustained job creation and more companies increasingly choosing Dallas as a base of operations.
The connection to multifamily housing is straightforward: More financial activity leads to more jobs; more jobs lead to more in-migration. And in a market in which elevated mortgage rates and rising homeownership costs continue pushing more households toward renting, demand increasingly flows into apartments.
In 2025, DFW absorbed nearly 30,000 multifamily units, according to data from Northmarq, representing roughly 8 percent of total U.S. absorption. In addition, stabilized occupancy held at 93 percent across the market in 2025 despite elevated supply levels. Forward supply is beginning to moderate as demand drivers remain intact, supported by continued population growth, job creation and relative affordability.
According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates, DFW added nearly 124,000 residents in the 12 months ending July 2025 alone, ranking among the largest population gains in the country. Since April 2020, the metroplex has grown by more than 838,000 residents, reinforcing its position as one of the nation’s strongest long-term growth markets.
The TXSE will take time to build scale and attract listings, but it reinforces a trajectory already underway — that the metroplex is continuing to establish itself as a robust financial center. As that happens, the talent that follows will need places to live. In a market where homeownership remains increasingly out of reach, a growing share of that demand will rent.
Garrett Karam is chief investment officer at EMBREY, a nationally vertically integrated real estate investment and development firm headquartered in San Antonio.