LAS VEGAS — For the third consecutive year, Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) has secured the top spot as the U.S. market with the best overall real estate prospects. That’s according to the Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2027 report, which is jointly produced every year by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and accounting firm PwC.
After finishing third and fifth in the 2025 and 2026 rankings, respectively, Houston has more or less maintained the status quo, claiming the No. 6 ranking in the 2027 report. Austin, meanwhile, continued to slip in the rankings, ostensibly due to the market’s ongoing struggles to catch up to recent building booms in the industrial and multifamily sectors. The state capital’s real estate prospects ranked 21st on this year’s list, marking the third consecutive year in which the market has failed to crack the Top 10.
In explaining the top ranking, ULI and PwC immediately pointed to the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), which launched in downtown Dallas earlier this year and has been credited with fueling the growth of a major new vertical within the local economy: financial services. The report identified two nameless financial institutions — known within the real estate community to be Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — that are developing new office campuses in Uptown Dallas in conjunction with the debut of TXSE. According to the report, combined, these projects could bring as many as 8,800 new jobs to Dallas over the next decade.
In addition, the report noted that DFW is a top market for new development of data centers, though a statewide moratorium on permitting of those facilities and questions about the state’s ability to meet power requirements represent concerns to actualizing some of those projects. Oversupply in the metroplex’s industrial market is also burning off thanks to strong absorption of large-format facilities, while absorption of office space is also on the rise in conjunction with residential conversion projects that are putting dents in the existing inventory of vacant office space. Lastly, the report cited the decisions of both the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and NHL’s Dallas Stars to pursue new arenas and surrounding mixed-use districts as fresh sources of growth on the retail, restaurant and entertainment sectors.