Rent Report

This is how much space you can rent for $1,500 in Dallas right now

Are Dallas renters still living large?

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Dallas rents have steadily increased in recent years, but Big D still offers a pretty good bang for your buck, at least according to one recent report.

The team at PropertyClub sought out to see how much $1,500 gets renters in 50 top global destinations now versus five years ago. They chose the cities based on A.T. Kearney's 2019 Global Cities Index and calculated the average one-bedroom rent using data from Numbeo and a standard apartment size of 600 square feet.

In 2014, Dallas renters paid $1.70 per square foot, meaning $1,500 afforded 881 square feet of living space. Today, local renters can get only 626 square feet for $1,500, as the price per square foot has jumped to $2.40.

Despite the shrinking square-footage, Dallas clocks in as the most affordable U.S. city in the report, tied with Houston.

"The least expensive cities to rent in, based on our ranking, are Dallas and Houston, where $1,500 a month will get you 626 square feet of living space," says the report.

Houston renters are actually living larger these days. In 2014, renters paid $2.56 per square foot, but that figure has since dropped to $2.39. Now, you can get 626 square feet in Houston for $1,500, compared to only 585 square feet five years ago.

But not everything's bigger in Texas. The report goes on to say the 626 square feet is "still well below what cities outside the U.S. have to offer, and as it turns out, the two Texas cities are pricier than Paris, Rome, Melbourne, Tokyo, Montreal, and Beijing, among many others."

San Francisco is home to the tightest living quarters among the global cities studied. With a price per square foot of $5.75, renters there get only 261 square feet for $1,500.

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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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