Houston booms with new apartment construction in 2020, report says

STANDING APART

Houston comes in at No. 7 on a new list of most apartments completed during the first six months of 2020. Photo courtesy of Caydon

The coronavirus pandemic has brought many activities to a unsettling halt. But it has failed to blunt Houston's apartment construction boom.

New data from Yardi Matrix, a supplier of commercial real estate data and research, shows that Houston comes in at No. 7 for most apartments completed during the first six months of 2020, with 2,085 apartments built.

Houston also comes in third place for projected apartment completions in 2020 is the Houston metro area. Yardi Matrix foresees the Bayou City region welcoming 10,404 new apartments this year, up 2 percent from 2019.

Little surprise to those paying attention to Texas real estate: More apartments were completed in Austin during the first six months of 2020 than in any other U.S. city. In the first half of the year, construction of 3,827 apartments was finished within the city of Austin, according to Yardi Matrix.

Right behind Austin on that list is San Antonio, where 2,871 new apartments hit the market in the first half of this year. Dallas follows Houston at No. 8 with 1,869 units; behind Big D is Farmers Branch, No. 18 with 1,161 units.

"Around the U.S., we have seen a variety of states, counties, and cities choose to close nonessential businesses for 'stay at home' or 'shelter in place' orders. For the most part, construction activity has been included as an essential activity that can continue with business as usual during these orders," Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, says in a release.

"The popular Texas metropolitan area saw an increase of 62,000 residents from 2018 to 2019," Yardi Matrix says. "In response to the high demand, Austin metro has been an active scene for new construction in the past five years, having completed over 50,000 new apartments since 2016."

In the Yardi Matrix forecast, Dallas-Fort Worth eclipses all other U.S. metro areas for the number of new apartments predicted to be finished this year — 19,318. This would be DFW's third year in a row to lead all metro areas for annual apartment construction, with New York City claiming second place.

While that's an impressive amount of apartments, this year's anticipated final total for DFW would be down 29 percent versus last year, Yardi Matrix says.

Coming in at No. 19 for predicted apartment completions this year is the San Antonio area, with 4,595 new units on taps. However, that total would represent a 20 percent jump over last year, putting San Antonio in fourth place for the percentage increase from 2019 to 2020.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Dolce Midtown Apartments is one of the many new apartment options in the Houston area. Photo courtesy of Dolce Midtown Apartments

Houston booms among nation's top 10 markets for new apartments

They come, we build

It's not all in your head. Those new apartments you spotted on your way to work probably did just pop up — and it's happening in big numbers in Houston and around the state, according to a new study.

RentCafe estimates 7,143 new apartments will be built in the Houston metro by the end of 2019 — the 10th highest projection nationally. Nearly half of those new units will rise within the city of Houston proper.

And these aren't vanity projects. With more than 90,000 new residents calling the Houston area home, we need all the apartments we can get.

Houston leads the region in terms of projected new apartment units at 3,163, followed by Conroe's 724 expected units and The Woodlands' 678.

Most of Texas is booming, too. No. 1 on RentCafe's list is Dallas-Fort Worth, with 22,196 new units expected by the end of the year. No. 5 Austin is expected to bring 10,783 new units to the region. Meanwhile, 3,510 new units will be built in San Antonio, a steep decline of 41 percent from the 5,993 units built there in 2018.

Nationally, Seattle makes for a distant second behind DFW with 13,682 new units expected, followed by New York City, which was No. 1 in 2018, with 13,418 units planned for this year.

Unlike the Lone Star State, the nation as a whole is seeing a slump in apartment construction. The 299,442 new apartments expected in 2019 represent an 8.2 percent drop from 2018's 326,240 new units, which also were weaker numbers than in 2017, when 331,765 new apartments were built.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

The Houston apartment market is rising. Photo courtesy of Vantage Med Center

Why investors are targeting Houston's multifamily housing market

Show me the money

As local developers, renters, and anyone trying to navigate all the new construction knows, Houston is in the midst of an apartment boom. A recent national report suggests that boom may not slow anytime soon, as it lists Houston as a top buy for apartment investors — and an area that will see rising rents in the foreseeable future.

Ten-X Commercial, an online platform for commercial real estate transactions, identified two Texas cities (Houston and Fort Worth) that commercial investors should target in its annual U.S. Apartment Market Outlook. Only three other American cities are considered strong buys for apartment investors: Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Salt Lake City. The data in the report is generated from the more than $20 billion worth of transactions handled by Ten-X Commercial.

In analyzing Houston and Fort Worth, Ten-X Commercial finds that both offer strong net operating income benefits — a key driver in commercial real estate — to investors for years to come. Houston's apartment rents are buoyed by a "resurgent energy sector" that is "turbocharging the local economy" and jumped 6.1 percent year over year. The report also forecasts that Houston is "likely to prove considerably more resilient during a modeled downturn than other markets."

According to the report, here's a quick breakdown of the numbers for the Houston multifamily market:

Q1 2018 rent: $987
2021 projected rent: $1,184
Q1 2018 vacancy: 6.2 percent
2021 projected vacancy: 4.4 percent

With every top buy report comes a warning to sell. Cities where investors should consider unloading are New York; Miami; San Francisco; Oakland, California; and San Jose, California. These markets are witnessing rising vacancies and flattening rents.

But how much is too much growth? Nationally, according to the research, multifamily completions should reach an all-time peak in 2018 as more than 300,000 new units flood the market, outpacing even the highest absorption levels in recent history. As a result, vacancies are expected to drift above 5 percent by the end of the year for the first time since 2011.

Ten-X Chief Economist Peter Muoio noted in the report that "while millennials and other demographic groups continue to forego homeownership in favor of renting in walkable neighborhoods, developers appear to have gotten ahead of themselves in creating rental supply."

Muoio added that the pipeline "can reasonably be described as a flood and though demand for these units is likely to come in the years ahead, we can expect to see some significant digestion issues in the near term."

Until that happens, Houston renters would be wise to lock in their lease rates, as it's clear that our apartment market is anything but flat.

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.

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Cancer diagnostics startup wins top prize at annual Rice competition

winner, winners

Rice University student-founded companies took home a total of $115,000 in equity-free funding at the annual Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship's H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge last week.

2025 Rice Innovation Fellow Alexandria Carter won the top prize and $50,000 for her startup Bionostic. The startup offers personalized diagnostics for cancer patients by using 3D culturing through its Advanced Tumor Landscape Analysis System (ATLAS) platform.

Carter is working toward her PhD in bioengineering in Professor Michael King's laboratory. She recently completed the Rice Innovation Fellows program and plans to commercialize ATLAS, according to a news release from Rice.

Actile Technologies, founded by another former Rice Innovation Fellow, Barclay Jumet, won second place and $25,000. The company is developing and commercializing textile-integrated technologies. InnovationMap first covered Jumet's wearable technology back in 2023.

Kairos took home the third-place prize and $15,000, plus the $2,000 audience choice award and the $5,000 undergraduate business award. Founded last year by Sanjana Kavula and Adhira Tippur, Kairos is an AI-powered patient intake platform built specifically for independent dental practices.

The NRLC features top startups founded by undergraduate, graduate and MBA students at Rice each year. The top three finishers were named among a group of five finalists earlier this year, which also included HAAST Autonomous and Project Kestrel.

HAAST is developing an unmanned aircraft for organ transport, while Kestrel uses machine learning to organize bird photographers’ photo collections.

Teams presented multiple five-minute pitches throughout the application process over Zoom and in-person before the five finalists presented at the NRLC Championships April 21 at the Rice Memorial Center. Each finalist walked away with an equity-free investment.

Other awards went to:

UnitCode

$5,000 MBA Venture Award

HAAST Autonomous

$2,500 Chan-Kang Family Prize for Bold Ambition
$1,000 Healthcare Innovations Prize

Telstar Networks

$2,500 Outstanding Undergraduate Startup Award

Multiplay

$1,500 Frank Liu Jr. Prize for Creative Innovation in Music, Fashion, & the Arts

Butterfly Books

$1,500 Social Impact Award

SOOZ

$1,000 Interdisciplinary Innovation Prize sponsored by OURI

Dooly

$1,000 Consumer Goods Prize

Project Kestrel

$1,000 AI Prize

Veloci Running won the NRLC last year for its naturally shaped running shoe. Founder and CEO Tyler Strothman recently told InnovationMap that the company has gone on to sell roughly 10,000 pairs of its flagship Ascent shoe, designed to relieve lower leg tightness and absorb impact. Read more here.

Houston-based, NASA-founded cleantech startup closes $12M seed round

Fresh Funds

Houston-based Helix Earth Technologies has closed a $12 million Seed 2 funding round to scale manufacturing of its energy-efficient commercial HVAC add-on technology.

Veriten, a Houston-based energy investment firm, led the round. Rua Ventures, Carnrite Ventures, Skywriter LLC and Textbook Ventures also participated.

Helix Earth—which was founded based on NASA technology, spun out of Rice University and has been incubated at Greentown Labs—is developing high-efficiency retrofit dehumidification systems that aim to reduce the energy consumption of commercial HVAC units. The company reports that its technology can lead to "healthier indoor air, lower energy bills, reduced building maintenance, and more comfortable spaces for building owners and occupants."

"Building owners are dealing with rising energy costs, uncontrolled humidity, and aging infrastructure with no viable, cost-effective path forward. We are in the field today solving these problems for commercial customers, and this capital puts us on an aggressive path to scale,” Rawand Rasheed, Helix Earth co-founder and CEO, said in a news release.

“The strength of this round reinforces our team's conviction that we can transform innovation-starved sectors with transformational solutions that deliver order-of-magnitude improvements to owners and operators, for both their bottom line and the environment,” Rasheed added.

Maynard Holt, Veriten’s founder and CEO, said that the investment firm is tripling its investment in Helix Earth.

"The team has built breakthrough technology with real applicability across multiple industries,” Holt said in the release. “Their first product will have an immediate and measurable impact on our energy system, and they are already pursuing adjacent innovations to help heavy industries operate more efficiently and with less waste. This is a well-rounded team with a proven track record of strong execution and disciplined capital management.”

Helix Earth also closed a $5.6 million seed funding round in 2024, led by Veriten.

Last year, the company secured a $1.2 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant and won in the Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability contest at the 2025 SXSW Pitch Showcase. Rasheed was also named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Energy and Green Tech list for 2025.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapital HTX.com.

Texas earns 22nd 'best state for business' title as GDP hits $2.9T

booming economy

The Texas business sector recently received a double dose of good news.

For the 22nd consecutive year, Chief Executive magazine named Texas the best state for business. In tandem with that achievement, preliminary new estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show the size of Texas’ economy jumped to $2.9 trillion in 2025, up by a nation-leading growth rate of 2.5 percent compared with the previous year.

Speaking about the Chief Executive honor, Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas benefits from pro-growth policies, a strong workforce, strategic investments in education, training for high-demand skills and the presence of critical infrastructure.

“Texas is where businesses innovate and where opportunity abounds. … We will continue to move at the speed of business as we build a more prosperous Texas for generations to come,” the governor says.

An annual Chief Executive survey of CEOs, presidents and business owners determines which state is the best for business. Texas has landed at No. 1 every year since Chief Executive launched the ranking.

“Truly, this is an incredible run that Texas has going,” says Christopher Chalk, publisher of Chief Executive. “CEOs are a tough group to please, and yet year after year Texas continues to earn the top spot—no small feat.”

It’s also no small feat for a state to notch annual gains in its gross domestic product (GDP), a measurement of economic power based on the value of goods and services produced each year.

With an estimated GDP of $2.9 trillion last year, Texas maintains its position as the eighth-largest global economy compared with the nations of the world, based on preliminary estimates from the International Monetary Fund.

In reference to Texas’ GDP growth, Abbott says the Lone Star State is “the premier destination for job creators from across the country and world. We will keep attracting world-class investment, create jobs, and expand opportunity for Texans for generations to come.”

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