Wood Partners<\/a>, which has built 13 apartment complexes across the region. \u201cMore households are renting longer due to affordability pressures, though easing home prices and (mortgage) rates may shift some back to buying.\u201d<\/p>\nThe \u2018bull\u2019s-eye\u2019 effect<\/p>\n
As developers have expanded the county\u2019s multifamily footprint over the past decade, they\u2019ve largely targeted the outer and inner core of Harris County.<\/p>\n
In the suburbs beyond Beltway 8, developers added 35,900 units between the second half of the 2010s and first half of the 2020s, an increase of 13.3%, according to ACS estimates. The largest concentration of growth came in the Katy and Klein areas, with notable additions of multifamily units in Atascocita, Baytown, Clear Creek and Cypress.<\/p>\n
As more residents and companies have gravitated toward the suburbs, developers have responded by constructing newer apartment buildings with higher-end finishes and amenities, typically commanding higher rents than older apartments.<\/p>\n
“Suburbs offer cheaper land and strong demand, but they\u2019re also where supply is heaviest, so competition is highest,\u201d Eddy said.<\/p>\n
Closer to downtown, builders added about 25,100 units inside Loop 610 during the same time frame, a 22.1% increase. The Downtown, East Downtown, Heights and Midtown neighborhoods accounted for much of that growth, largely through construction of higher-end apartments.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the area between Loop 610 and Beltway 8 \u2014 home to a large share of the county\u2019s older apartment stock \u2014 grew just 5.1% over the same period, adding about 12,800 units. Many of those neighborhoods lack immediate downtown proximity, while larger tracts of land are more expensive and scarce than in the suburbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you looked at a heat map of where new multifamily properties have come online, it would almost look like a bull’s-eye \u2014 really in the center and really around the periphery,\u201d Sherman said.<\/p>\n
Still seeking relief<\/p>\n
For many Harris County renters, the additional multifamily inventory hasn\u2019t made housing more affordable.<\/p>\n
For the first time on record, more than half of Harris County renters were cost-burdened in 2024, meaning they spent more than 30% of their household income on housing costs. An additional 30,000 renter households crossed the threshold in 2024, bringing the share to 51.2%. By comparison, about one-quarter of households in owner-occupied units were cost-burdened.<\/p>\n
Eddy said new development has tapered off in recent months, resulting in rent concessions and slower rental price growth that are improving affordability. Still, he said demand for rentals remains strong among residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sherman noted that the changes in multifamily and single-family construction trajectories aren\u2019t large enough to alter a central housing dynamic of the region: Most Harris County residents are still homeowners, while most city of Houston denizens rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile a lot of development of new multifamily is happening in Harris County, the amount of catch-up they have to do to catch Houston is pretty huge,\u201d Sherman said. \u201cI don\u2019t foresee that happening anytime soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harris County developers are increasingly building upward and outward. American Community Survey estimates show the county added 30,700…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-354719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}