Luxury Apartment Living

Fancy new apartment buildings dominate Dallas housing market

Luxury apartments are the new must-have in Dallas.

As Dallas is considered one of the 10 hottest rental markets in the nation, it's not much of a surprise to learn that we like our apartments fancy. How fancy? Of all the apartment projects completed in 2015, 93 percent of them were high-end.

Catering to renters with deeper pockets seems to be a trend here. Dallasites pay the highest rents in the state, and now RentCafe has confirmed that many Texas cities seem destined for more luxury living.

Using data from Yardi Matrix, RentCafe sifted through all the large-scale, multi-family properties built last year to find the high-end or luxury ones.

In San Antonio, 100 percent of all new apartments that went up last year were high-end. That's right, 100 percent. In Austin, the number is 92 percent, just 1 percent behind Dallas. Eighty-nine percent of Houston's new apartments were high-end, and Fort Worth slides in with 86 percent.

Nationally, the trend is at 75 percent, with the Southwest (hello) and Mid-Atlantic regions leading in luxury construction at 88 percent.

A handful of cities experienced "spectacular" growth in the luxury apartment area, including Midland-Odessa and its 800 percent increase. In 2012, there was just one high-end rental complex. As of 2015, there were nine.

RentCafe points out the Texas domination, noting that "urban Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Midland, Fort Worth, and Spring saw a combined total of 103 new luxury rental properties in 2015 and only six non-luxury rental properties."

These well-off renters-by-choice are proving their demand, as RentCafe found that the average occupancy rate in high-end rental properties was 95.8 percent as of the end of 2015.

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GP News

Grand Prairie expands to the south with new master-planned community

Rendering courtesy of Provident

Goodland Grand Prairie

The City of Grand Prairie is growing fast and expanding to make way for a new master-planned development south of US Highway 287 and along Tollway 360, in Ellis and Johnson counties.

The community development, called Goodland, is the result of Grand Prairie’s recent 1,500-acre annexation extending its southern border toward Mansfield. Overall, with the added land, Goodland will be a 5,000-acre site featuring 15,000 residences including townhomes, custom homes, and gated communities for 50,000 residents.

According to a release, it will be a “city within a city” and a 45-minute drive from Dallas-Fort Worth. Beyond housing, there will be shops, restaurants, schools, public and private event venues, regional sports fields and complexes, dance halls, churches, trail systems, city parks, ponds, and preserved green spaces.

“This is a significant step in our city’s development,” says Grand Prairie Mayor Ron Jensen in a statement. “Unlike many of our neighboring cities, we have the unique advantage of new development opportunities to our south that will drive the growth and prosperity of our city. We recognized the opportunity and took decisive action.”

Leading the development is Provident, a Dallas-based real estate firm that has created other master-planned communities across Dallas-Fort Worth, such as Preston Hollow Village and Hillstead in Collin County. Provident has plans to work nature into the space design with more than 1,600 acres of creek corridors and floodplain land.

Plans are ongoing for a centralized mixed-use walkable Town Center, complete with civic buildings and other commercial development. Further south on the property near Highway 67, light industrial uses and other private employment campuses are already underway, projects that will contribute vital tax dollars for city growth and future expansions.

“This level of placemaking is quite rare, and certainly not easy to execute, especially in a brand-new community," says Provident Managing Director Rylan Yowell in a statement. "We are committed to a long-term vision with a desire to be good stewards of the land."

A new four-lane road called Goodland Parkway will link Goodland to Grand Prairie at Tollway 360 and US Highway 287. It's set to open by December 2025.

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