Texas

Houston continues its trajectory as an exemplary market with strong multifamily fundamentals that continue to attract large-scale investment nationwide. The positive trends of strong job growth and sustained apartment demand are forecast to hold thanks to a confluence of factors. To better understand the dynamics shaping Houston’s multifamily market, it is important to look closely at several major drivers, including residual demand from Hurricane Harvey and record employment growth, as well as the impact of rising interest rates and incentives introduced by the Opportunity Zone legislation. More than a year since Hurricane Harvey made landfall, Houston’s multifamily market continues to rebound. Overall occupancy has risen 180 basis points year over year to its current rate of 90 percent. Residents displaced by Harvey’s flooding, particularly in hard-hit areas like the Energy Corridor, contributed to the increased demand for apartments. In the third quarter of 2018 alone, absorption greatly outpaced deliveries, with almost 9,200 units newly occupied and less than 6,000 units delivered. As developers taper new apartment deliveries, we expect demand to continue to outpace deliveries for the foreseeable future. Rents advanced 3 percent between October of 2017 and 2018 — almost twice the rate of growth of the previous 12 months. …