Texas

By Taylor Williams The growth story of Central Texas is compelling enough that commercial developers and investors are still aggressively targeting the region, even as costs of doing business hit the roof. In fact, both cities recently cracked the Top 10 on Urban Land Institute’s list of markets to watch in the organization’s Emerging Trends report for 2024. To dispense with the bad and obvious, the region — loosely defined as the swath of land bookended by the Austin and San Antonio metro areas — is not exempt from wide-ranging industry headwinds. Newer trends like working from home, as well as entrenched issues like a shortage of affordable housing and crushing interest rates, impact deals and projects in high-growth markets perhaps even more harshly than their smaller counterparts. This is simply due to the principles of supply and demand.  Further, the region faces homegrown challenges stemming from a decade-plus of hyper-accelerated expansion, namely a skyrocketing cost of living and insufficient infrastructure to support demand from tenants and residents.  But the fundamentals of job and population growth remain so robust in Central Texas that buyers and builders, particularly within the industrial and multifamily spaces, can still invest and develop in this …