Texas Market Reports

Last summer, NAI Rio Grande Valley and Michael Uhrbrock, senior vice president of research at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, examined eight Rio Grande Valley cities to examine the history of retail sales between 2002 and 2014 and to forecast the future. The cities examined were McAllen, Brownsville, Harlingen, Edinburg, Pharr, Weslaco, Mission and Mercedes. We were working on a piece for the Rio Grande Valley Partnership’s Economic Development magazine. What we learned is quite interesting and presents an unusual view into the future potential for retail expansion in the Rio Grande Valley. Total retail sales in the eight cities increased $4.47 billion between 2002 and 2014. Forecasting the future required a view of low, median and high ranges of potential sales. Based on the high projections, it is anticipated that valley sales in these cities will increase by $13.68 billion between 2015 and 2030. A number of factors go into the results, but several factors are expected contribute to the expected increases. Growth in Many Sectors With 1,450,000 residents, the population of the Rio Grande Valley today is larger than that of nine states. Forecasts show the population will grow to 2.5 million by 2040, which does …

As market momentum from 2015 spilled over into the first quarter of 2016 for the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, commercial retail metrics are still firing on all cylinders. The three key market indicators of occupancy, absorption and development are robust and expect to remain that way for the foreseeable future. With fundamentals in check and a thriving economy led by strong employment and population growth, metro Dallas will continue to be a thriving marketplace and a safe haven for investor capital. Record High Occupancy The Dallas-Fort Worth retail market ended 2015 with an impressive 93 percent occupancy — a little over a 1 percent increase from year-end 2014 — achieving its highest occupancy rate in the last three decades. The continued occupancy increase is directly related to net absorption and largely attributable to positive population and employment growth in the Metroplex. Continued Absorption Since 2012, absorption has continuously outpaced the delivery of new construction, and nothing in the foreseeable future looks to disturb this new norm. First quarter 2016 absorption totaled over 1.6 million square feet, with half of that figure attributed to new deliveries. This is the seventh consecutive quarter where absorption eclipsed 1 million square feet. This is …

Houston will be among the nation’s leaders in retail property deliveries in 2016 as nearly 3 million square feet of space is scheduled for completion this year. The new construction will increase retail property supply by 1 percent, the fifth-largest rate of growth for retail space for major markets in the nation. Historically, Houston has had several growth spurts — and some economic recessions — related to the energy industry. The Houston metro area, known as a world capital in the oil and gas industry, has some obstacles to overcome as the upstream oil sector is losing a significant number of jobs. Yet other area employers have gained momentum, keeping job growth positive. Since the Great Recession, Houston’s annual job growth of 2.9 percent has outpaced the national rate of expansion by approximately 130 basis points. However, energy-related layoffs have caused the market to trail national employment growth by the same spread in the last year. Similar to 2015, between 15,000 to 20,000 jobs are forecast to be created this year, maintaining the metro’s positive job outlook. Growth in other sectors of the Houston area’s economy, like health care and downstream oil-and-gas operations, is positively influencing the market and keeping …