North Texas led the nation as the top real estate market for apartment sales in the first half of the year.
The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex tallied more than 30,000 apartment transactions during the first six months of 2023, accounting for roughly 10% of all apartment sales in the United States during that period, The Dallas Morning News reported, citing a joint analysis from RealPage and MSCI Inc.
Although DFW saw a significant decline in sales in its commercial property sector during the first two quarters, the region’s multifamily apartment sector illustrated resounding resilience to market fluctuations, according to Jay Parsons, chief economist at RealPage.
“Remarkably, DFW’s 30,028 units sold in the first half of 2023 were two times the second-place market Houston and three times all other markets,” he said, per DMN.
While DFW wasn’t entirely immune to the broader sales decline sweeping the nation, Parsons suggested that the North Texas metro fared much better than the national average, which saw declines of nearly 40% compared to the 5-year average and more than 60% from the peak set in 2022.
“As expected, apartment sales plunged in the first half of 2023 — falling to the lowest levels since 2011 — due primarily to the combination of high rates and mismatched buyer/seller pricing expectations,” said Parsons, per DMN.
Of the $8 billion worth of property investments that flowed into the DFW metroplex during the first half of 2023, more than 50% went directly to apartment purchases. Even after measuring by single asset sales, data in the analysis suggests that DFW would still hold the top ranking in the U.S. with over $3 billion worth of individual apartment trades.
However, despite the robust economic growth seen across DFW over the years, a RealPage forecast for Q3 2023 suggests that the southern region of the U.S. could face potentially limiting supply challenges, causing apartment performance to remain “a middle-of-the-road performer in the near term.”
“The South yields a mixed bag of expected apartment performance in the remainder of 2023 and into 2024,” the forecast states.
The Dallas Express reached out to RealPage for more information about the local apartment market but did not receive a response prior to publishing.
