Dallas, Texas is a hot market for multifamily investors – fueled by job opportunities, climate and a relative affordability that is attracting new residents in droves. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Dallas-Ft. Worth-Arlington metropolitan area was the eighth fastest growing in the country between 2015 and 2020. Today, Dallas is the fourth largest metro area in the country, having gained 1.2 million new residents since 2010. Dallas itself is home to 1.3 million people while the metropolitan area is home to over 7.6 million people.
A notable portion of this growth happened during the pandemic, when employees who were freed up to work remotely were able to pick where they wanted to live. Dallas has the charisma to beckon residents from urban markets in the Northeast, West Coast and East Coast, with an overall cost of living that is about 50 percent less than coastal markets like New York and San Francisco.
A robust job market was an equally strong draw. Greater Dallas-Ft. Worth is home to the highest concentration of corporate headquarters in the U.S., including over 10,000 corporate HQs for major employers such as American Airlines, Exxon Mobil Corp. and AT&T. Among these companies, 22 made the Fortune 500 list in 2021. These factors, along with a strong 5.6 percent year-over-year employment growth, helped to earn Dallas the rank of second-best city in the country for business and careers by Forbes magazine.
Love sports? Dallas is a great city for sports lovers, with local pro teams the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Cowboys. Love food?. Dallas has also emerged as a world-class food capital, with Bon Appetit magazine naming it the Restaurant City of the year in 2019. Love art? Music? Playtime? Just some of the area’s other popular attractions include the Downtown Arts District, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Texas State Fair.
With so many new residents coming to the area, home prices in Dallas show no sign of leveling off. The current median sale price of a single-family home in Dallas is $360,000. That represents a 20 percent year-over-year price increase. Over the past five years, the average home price in Dallas has increased by 78 percent. And inventory remains extremely limited, with only approximately 8,200 single-family homes available in a metro area of about 1.9 million single-family homes.
According to Google trends, the number of people looking for houses in Dallas has never been higher. Year to date, the number of people Googling “Dallas homes for sale” sits at a record 4,960 searches per week, about 150 more per week than the 2021 average.
The high demand/short supply of single-family homes means an influx of renters into the multifamily market. As of November 2021, apartment occupancy for greater Dallas stood at 96.5 percent. According to Rent Café, the average rent for an apartment in Dallas is now $1,474. Between February 2021 and February 2022, rents in Dallas increased by 13.4 percent. Within the metropolitan area, there were even greater increases in the cities of Plano and Irving, where rents increased approximately 17 percent during the same period.
With these fundamentals, Dallas could not be more enticing for multifamily investors, both today and reflecting exceptional opportunities for investment for the foreseeable future.