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With rents rising, more apartments are being built in DFW. But, many of them are of the luxury variety

Lower rent units have been disappearing.

DALLAS — Year after year, we keep hearing about this huge number of apartments being constructed in North Texas. This year, with 32,143 units underway, Dallas-Fort Worth has the fourth-most units under construction. 

But, if you are hoping more apartments on the market might take pressure off your rising rent, it hasn’t really been working out that way. People have been moving here in droves and there haven’t been enough homes for sale, so there has been a huge demand for rentals. 

Since 2020, rents here have spiked. They are up in some submarkets by more than 30 percent.

It’s not just about demand though. This is also about what kind of supply is being added. A recent analysis ranked Dallas, Plano and Irving in the top 10 markets in the country by the percentage of new apartments that are in the luxury category. 

The report found that almost all the new units coming online in those cities had premier amenities. And those often come with higher rents.

If you want something more in the "low rent" category, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies says look somewhere else. Between 2011 and 2017, the program found the number of properties that could be considered low rent in DFW went from 606,822 to 363,156 units.

A lot of people just can't keep up. As of July 3, evictions in Dallas and Fort Worth since the pandemic began totaled a combined 108,536. That’s not far behind the 128,404 tenants who’ve been forced out in New York City in that time period.

If you are struggling to that degree, you may still be able to find financial help. Even though many of these pandemic-era funding programs have been depleted and have closed, some may still be of assistance if you qualify. 

More resources are listed here if you click on Texas.

If you want to lease a home instead of an apartment, rents for those have climbed, as well. 

Recently, a single father messaged, “Our house of 15 years is caving in from years of neglected repairs. Now (the) owner wants to renovate”. He added that the owner was giving his family 30 days to vacate, and, “Everywhere I’ve looked near me is double what I pay now”.

In the latest figures, the median monthly payment on a single family rental in D-FW is $2,075. That’s 14.3% higher than a year ago. One real estate consulting firm says because it costs so much to buy a home, right now there’s just more demand to rent homes instead. 

That company also found that 74% of home rental operators expect that trend to strongly or very strongly continue in the months ahead. And, they say a flood of capital is waiting to acquire rental homes when prices start to drop on homes for sale.

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