Dallas-Fort Worth Tops the Nation's Markets to Watch for a Third Straight Year

Dallas-Fort Worth holds its top ranking for a third year as investors keep targeting Texas even while confidence cools.

October 28, 2026

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Dallas-Fort Worth Tops the Nation’s Markets to Watch for a Third Straight Year

Good morning. DFW just led ULI and PwC's markets-to-watch list for a third straight year. Confidence is cooling across the industry, but capital keeps pointing at Texas.

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Market Snapshot

Top Market

By Transaction Volume

Lewisville — $13.4M

Properties Sold

All Asset Types

Transaction Volume

Sales Activity

$62.6M

Top Office Submarket

Avg Starting Rent

Far Northwest (Austin)

$83.36 / SF

Texas Office Rent

Avg Effective

$36.36 / SF

Office Rent Growth

YoY Change

-17.1%

*Office metrics courtesy of CompStak; data from 7/1/26 – 9/30/26. Sales metrics courtesy of Actovia; Texas properties reported sold during the week of 10/3/26 – 10/9/26.

First Place

DFW Still Leads the Pack for Investors

Dallas-Fort Worth is once again the country's most-watched real estate market, leading ULI and PwC's Emerging Trends 2027 report for a third straight year.

By the numbers: According to ULI and PwC, DFW topped the markets-to-watch ranking drawn from more than 500 interviews and nearly 1,000 survey responses across investment, development and lending firms.

Confidence cools: Optimism is fading even as DFW holds the top spot. Just 50.5% of respondents rated their own conditions good to excellent, down from 55% a year ago and 65% two years back, and the report calls the higher-for-longer rate debate over.

Buyers lean in: The survey's buy barometer still hit an all-time high. The report reads that two ways, either conviction that prices have reset or capital partners pushing to deploy regardless of conditions.

The local read: In Dallas, Cushman & Wakefield pegged Class A office vacancy at 24.8%, about 1.9 points below its early-2025 peak, with industrial vacancy at 7.3%. Industrial drew the best investment outlook of the established sectors.

Texas company: Southern and Southeastern metros filled six of the top 10, with Nashville, Miami and Raleigh/Durham trailing DFW. Austin recovered only to 21st.

➥ THE TAKEAWAY

Steady draw, softer mood: DFW keeps leading on jobs, migration and development even as sentiment slips, so capital stays pointed at Texas industrial and build-to-suit. The open question for 2027 is whether rate pressure finally cools the deal pace.

Around Texas

➥ Cities evacuated three North Texas apartment complexes tied to failed multifamily syndicators, a sign the early-2020s value-add boom is still unwinding as higher rates expose thin deals.

➥ Class A office space is getting scarce in Collin County, with only about four buildings ready for a 250,000 SF user as AT&T and Samsung drive corporate relocations.

➥ Austin hotels are working around the convention center’s multi-year closure, with downtown properties pooling group bookings to replace lost citywide convention demand.

➥ EōS Fitness will open a 40,000 SF new gym at Grand Parkway Center in northwest Houston, adding another destination tenant along the fast-growing SH 249 corridor.

➥ Welcome Group broke ground on a 250,500 SF industrial campus in Pearland, with Thorpe Plant Maintenance preleasing the largest building as Houston’s southwest logistics corridor fills in.

➥ Carrier will invest more than $600M in a chiller plant at Fort Worth’s AllianceTexas, adding about 1,500 jobs as data center cooling demand fuels record HVAC backlogs.

Follow the Money

RETAILTERRELL Younger Partners bought the fully leased 260,876 SF Crossroads at Terrell power center near Dallas, its second Texas retail acquisition this year.

NET LEASELAKE JACKSON ExchangeRight acquired Dow’s fully leased 664,100 SF innovation campus through a Section 721 exchange, adding an investment-grade triple-net tenant.

INDUSTRIALDFW Hunt and Prologis are teaming up on an 11.5M SF DFW industrial park, one of the metro’s largest logistics development bets.

INCENTIVESFORT BEND Fort Bend County approved a 30-year tax-break package to court Tesla’s $10B solar panel plant, waiving machinery taxes to win the project.

MULTIFAMILYDALLAS A 3-0 Real Estate team planned a $600M twin-tower project in Knox-Henderson, pairing a 30-story condo-hotel with a 20-story residential tower by the Katy Trail.

RETAILDALLAS Saks sought $126M from Dallas to save its shuttered Neiman Marcus flagship, nearly seven times the incentive the city handed Morgan Stanley’s uptown tower.

MULTIFAMILYAUSTIN Brandywine sold its 341-unit Solaris House in Uptown ATX for $136M, about $398,800 a unit, pushing past its $300M disposition goal for the year.

📈 CHART OF THE WEEK

Houston led U.S. metro areas with 33,600 jobs added through September 2026, followed by Dallas with 29,700, while New York ranked fifth with 24,100 amid slowing employment growth.