According to The Dallas Morning News, North Texas apartment builders opened almost 26,000 rental units in 2018 which may be helping to hold rents in the area relatively low. "Dallas-Fort Worth continued to lead the nation for both completions and demand by a huge margin in 2018," said Greg Willett, top economist for Richardson-based apartment firm RealPage. "Likewise, North Texas has by far the most product under construction." In addition to the completed units there's another 35,000 apartments still in the pipeline, 5,000 more than last year.
With so much construction in the fourth quarter, apartment rents in D-FW were up only 2.4 percent from the end of 2017, according to RealPage. "D-FW is trailing the national norm on rent growth," Willett said. "Pricing up 2.4 percent in 2018 compares to 3.4 percent for the U.S. as a whole.
"However, local rent growth did pick up during the last half of 2018 after cooling to a low point of 1.5 percent as of midyear. There continues to be an unusually big difference in rent growth between Dallas and Fort Worth, with the new supply moving through initial lease-up limiting the ability to push rents in metro Dallas."
Fort Worth-area apartment rents were 3.6 percent higher year-over-year in the fourth quarter. While average area rents are growing at less than half the rate of a couple of years ago, monthly costs in the fourth quarter rose to a record $1,124 in North Texas and $1,155 in the Dallas area, according to RealPage.
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