Competition Slows For Apartments In Dallas-Fort Worth As Region Reaches Peak Supply
The Dallas-Fort Worth area's multifamily market shows signs of cooling as competition from renters slows and the Metroplex prepares for the delivery of almost as many new units this year as it saw in 2024.
Texas metros like DFW and Houston were well off the pace of the country’s most competitive rental markets — Miami and suburban Chicago — according to a report from RentCafe, a nationwide apartment search website and subsidiary of Yardi Matrix.
The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth each scored 71.6 out of 100 on the site's Early 2025 Rental Competitiveness Index, with six renters jockeying for each vacant apartment. Dallas leads its sister city with a 92% apartment occupancy rate, slightly higher than Fort Worth's 91.3%.
“The big thing that's affecting the scores is the new supply that's coming in,” Yardi Matrix Manager of Business Intelligence Doug Ressler said.
The Metroplex led the nation in new construction in 2024, with nearly 42,000 units delivered, according to Colliers' fourth-quarter Multifamily Market Report. That is expected to continue in 2025 as more than 39,000 units are slated to be constructed this year, including nearly 6,000 units alone in the booming suburbs of Frisco and Prosper.
Each of the metro’s three areas measured by RentCafe are set to see an expansion of existing stock by more than 3% in 2025, which Ressler said means the region will have to “accommodate pretty aggressive growth” to fill the unit counts.
While more than 60% of existing renters in Dallas chose to stay put last year, the city’s share of new apartments rose by around 1.3%. That was nearly double the national benchmark for that category.
New renters in Fort Worth have fewer options to choose from, as 62% of existing tenants opted to renew and the city had a 0.7% increase in new apartments.
That competitiveness could increase in the years ahead as millennial renters aren’t leaving apartments to move into single-family homes at the pace that was expected, Ressler said.
“The stock is just not there, and the cost of owning is elevated based off interest rates and what the Fed is doing to try and maintain, or reduce, inflation,” Ressler said.
Plus Gen Z renters are starting to move out of their parents’ homes and into apartments, which could increase demand across the country, Ressler said.
Houston outpaced Dallas and Fort Worth with a 74.3 competitiveness score, but even that trailed the state's leaders of Amarillo at 79.1 and Lubbock at 78.4.
Miami led the country with a competitiveness score of 93.1, followed by suburban Chicago's 88.4 score.
