Texas

Some places in America are painfully accustomed to economic setbacks. Dallas isn’t among them. This growth market prototype has elevated expansion to an art form and won’t suffer recession gladly. But happily or not, Dallas must share with the rest of the nation the unanticipated discomfort of our pandemic disaster. How is it likely to respond, and what are the ramifications for multifamily investors? It is said that everything is bigger in Texas, and Dallas job losses in the first months of the COVID-19 lockdown definitely were “on brand.” Payroll employment declined nearly 300,000 jobs in March and April, and the unemployment rate, which never before surpassed 9 percent, soared to 12.8 percent in April. The night is darkest before the dawn, however, and the latest national job numbers suggest the sun is near the eastern horizon. If recent history is any guide Dallas will be one of the first to recover and among the quickest to return to pre-coronavirus strength. Indeed, the metro labor market recovered about six months before the nation following both the 1992 and 2009 recessions, and job growth returned to pre-recession levels about 12 months later, a process that took the nation nearly two years …