Depending on who’s speaking, or what you’re reading, the forecasts for the 2016 Houston industrial real estate market run the full spectrum from bull to bear. Whether you are a landlord trying to fill a vacancy; a developer weighing the decision on whether to build or not; or an investor or a potential tenant looking for the best lease terms, your decision making is driven by a few key factors. These include the price of oil and where you think it is headed, the type of industrial facility you build/own/require, and in what submarket of Houston it is located. With current oil prices hovering in the low $30s per barrel, and threatening to go lower, you don’t have to look hard to find plenty of economists forecasting a rough 2016 for Houston industrial real estate. But that’s not the whole picture. No doubt the ongoing drilling downturn has hit the city hard. A recent survey was conducted of single-tenant manufacturing facilities ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 square feet in the West, Northwest and North Houston submarkets. The survey reported over 2.4 million square feet available in 120 buildings, with an additional 240,000 square feet under construction in 15 more buildings. …
Greater Waco’s economy is on a roll. Positioned halfway between Dallas and Austin, Waco is a prime destination for companies and individuals wanting access to large metro areas without the hassles of traffic, expensive real estate and labor shortages. With newly completed facilities such as Baylor University’s McLane Stadium and major downtown redevelopment projects, Waco is hitting the radar for new development opportunities. October 2015 marked 43 months of positive economic growth for the area, with 4.8 percent growth in the third quarter of 2015 alone. Major organizations, including Baylor, continue to aid in elevating the status of Waco as a dominant player in the Central Texas region. Just as Texas has seen significant growth since 2008, so too has Waco. One major contributor to Waco’s economic success has been employment growth. Employers are creating new jobs in the area, with 1,600 more positions now in place, 113,700 compared to 112,100 in October 2014. Construction, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality and logistics remain strong drivers for the economy. The result is a community with a 4.8 percent unemployment rate and residents with more disposable income. In fact, real median household income for the Waco MSA grew 5.8 percent, to $43,184, between the …
Right now, the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan statistical area is one of the hottest multifamily markets in the country with an eye-opening 34,000-plus units currently under construction. Long-term trends suggest that even if construction slows somewhat, demand for north Texas apartments will outstrip supply for the foreseeable future. The reason is straightforward. Dallas has much going for it that employers find extremely appealing, including a central location equidistant from both coasts, an educated workforce, a diverse economy and a favorable business climate. These underlying advantages are simply not going to change. In the last three years, a number of companies, including Toyota North America and Nationstar Mortgage, have relocated their headquarters to Dallas-Fort Worth, while others, like Southwest Airlines and AT&T, have added thousands of positions to their headquarters. Most recently, American Airlines announced plans to create a corporate campus west of its current location near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Dallas-Fort Worth has also become a popular site for regional corporate centers. State Farm is constructing a 2 million-square-foot campus on Dallas’s main north-south light rail line in suburban Richardson. When it is completed in 2016, the company will have more than 5,000 employees in north Texas. Liberty Mutual announced this …
Convenience, quality and experience are the key deliverables for today’s retail customer. Make it easy, of high value and enjoyable. Today’s shopper has less time, less money and less patience for retailers and developers to “get it right.” They want shopping to be an event and a social experience. They want a reason to get off the couch and go shopping instead of simply buying online. Although e-commerce still accounts for less than 15 percent of retail sales in the United States, it dramatically impacts consumers’ expectations and will increasingly influence retail trends. Shoppers are better informed, often having thoroughly researched the options and narrowed their choices before ever setting foot in the store. Salespersons must be better informed and prepared to successfully engage sophisticated consumers. Sales of consumer goods perceived to be commodities, some of which include books, electronics and office supplies, are continuing to migrate online. Retailers who are able to seamlessly integrate their brick and mortar stores with their online presence have been able to take advantage of shifting trends successfully, while those who haven’t struggle to compete. Omni-channel retailing is becoming more mainstream. Retailers that haven’t adopted omni-channel retailing are racing to catch up to businesses …
It has been a tremendous year for the Twin Cities of Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Ark. with the education sector topping $70 million and a $180 million major medical campus projected to commence in early 2016. Educational Opportunity Texas A&M University-Texarkana has been awarded $35.5 million in state funding for the construction of a new building to house and expand its nursing program, including the expansion of a Master’s Degree program, and to promote student success initiatives. The Texas A&M University system expanded its four year-university program to Texarkana in 2010, with the first freshman class admitted that year including Phase I dorms on the 300-plus acre Bringle Lake Campus. University of Arkansas Community College at Hope (UACCH) expanded a satellite campus on Texarkana’s Arkansas side in 2012, with over $5.4 million going toward the construction of two buildings that service over 300 local students. Working hand in hand with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, UACCH has expanded their four-year university program, and will continue to grow as the new health professions building completes construction. Further education initiatives include a $29.2 million commitment from Texarkana Independent School District for the construction of a new sixth grade center and …
The story of the tortoise and the hare can be used to describe the major metros throughout Texas. In recent years, Austin has sprung to life while San Antonio has developed slow and steady. Most recently, however, it appears San Antonio’s office market has received a jolt — the second quarter of 2015 saw three to four times more activity than historic averages indicate — and San Antonio now boasts its lowest vacancy rate since 2008. With a 3.4 percent unemployment rate, San Antonio ranks third on the list of major metropolitan cities across the country with the lowest unemployment rates, trailing only Austin at 3 percent and Salt Lake City at 3.1 percent. These numbers are indicative of a much larger picture of San Antonio. Uniquely positioned to capture the spillover of tech companies and supporting businesses from Austin, its neighbor, San Antonio’s low rental rates for both Class A and B office space along with stable infrastructure make it a viable, attractive alternative for many major businesses looking to expand. But where in San Antonio is all this activity erupting? San Antonio’s newest residents are interested in one area, and you need look no further than the central …
Operating as our state’s political core and as the “live music capital of the world”, Austin’s real estate market is as distinctive as the people that make this city great. Austin is a one-of-a-kind place that’s unique to Texas and the entire country. It defies stereotypes with its progressive and fiercely entrepreneurial spirit, and continually gets top marks for its quality of life, pro-business culture and pro-environment views. WalletHub recently ranked Austin as the 2015 best large city to live in and the data matches up — the city ranks second among 2015’s fastest-growing cities in the U.S., according to Forbes, behind Houston and ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth. In the era of ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ Emmitt Smith and ‘the Dream Team,’ and the release of ‘Dazed and Confused,’ the tech boom of the 1990s drove the Austin office market. During that same time, Austin’s total population increased 35 percent and close to 1,750 companies employed over 110,000 people in technology-related jobs in Austin. By the end of the 90s, Texas’ capital city was widely known as Silicon Hills, home to a critical mass of institutional technology knowledge and major tenants like Dell, IBM, Motorola and other software and gaming companies. …
When people come to Corpus Christi, many of them expect to find a community that has been devastated by the downturn caused by the oversupply of cheap oil and gas. They expect a community with rising unemployment and vacant buildings. Based on the past, they would be correct. However, Corpus Christi and the Coastal Bend have been experiencing a major transformation of their economy, which is now much more diverse. This is partly because of the leadership, hard work and vision of its people, and partly because of good luck caused by the infrastructure that had been put in place by the Port of Corpus Christi. This infrastructure was at the right place at the right time. The Port of Corpus Christi has always been a driving force and major contributor to the economy of Corpus Christi. The port’s leaders knew that if they didn’t make some major changes, they would not remain competitive. The Port of Corpus Christi is the fifth largest port in the U.S. in total tonnage. However, because of the depth of the port channel and the height of the harbor bridge which crosses over the port, the newer, larger ships could not enter the port. …
El Paso is a thriving community with active investments across the area ranging from redevelopment of its downtown to new infrastructure across the city. Notable for being the safest city in the Unites States, El Paso is the sixth largest city in Texas and a vital part of one of the largest borderplex metropolitan economies in the world. The city is the focal point of more than $88 billion of the $530 billion annual trade between the United States and its third largest trading partner, Mexico. But trade isn’t the only industry thriving in El Paso, other sectors such as education and healthcare continue on a strong path forward given stable population growth and a significant military base. The City of El Paso has a population just over 679,000. Its metropolitan statistical area, composed of El Paso County and the more recently added Hudspeth County, is home to over 837,000 individuals. The area is projected to grow to nearly 863,000 residents by 2016. Historically, El Paso is among the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the nation with an average growth per decade of 21 percent from 1960 to 2010. According to a recent report by the UTEP Border Region Modeling Project, …
Since 2011, Austin’s multifamily market has become one of the strongest in the state and nation. With stable job growth, demand is projected to remain strong. Marketwide occupancy hovered around 94 percent at the end of the second quarter of 2015, with rents increasing at a 6 percent year-over-year clip. Austin and Travis County continue to rack up the rankings, with Thumbtack naming the area a top environment for small businesses and WalletHub naming it the best large U.S. city to live in. Headlight Data ranked Travis County the second fastest-growing financial services sector in 2014 and Austin came in as the number one city for startup activity on the 2015 Kaufmann Index. Generally, the first question on everyone’s minds is how long this bullish cycle will last. With the development pipeline running at historically high levels, what is the impact on today’s market and how does the future look? Apartment construction dropped off dramatically in 2010 and remained compressed until 2014. However, population grew incredibly fast during the construction trough, resulting in heightened demand. Today, there are 16,000 units in some stage of development with just over 10,000 expected to deliver in 2015. The difference between today and the …