Real Estate News: Dallas Still a Player in the Corporate HQ Game

How does Dallas stack up with the rest of the country when it comes to gains in corporate headquarters? What did the Dallas Fed say about the state of the state’s economy? Are Texans underwater, or equity rich?
We have all of that in this week’s roundup of real estate news.

DON’T FRET – DALLAS STILL GETS PLENTY OF HQ LOVE

Although Dallas may have lost out on Amazon HQ2, it should take considerable pleasure in the fact that it’s still a sought-after place for lots of corporate relocations, an analysis by CityLab revealed.

CityLab co-founder Richard Florida pointed out that a new database of corporate headquarters maintained by research partners at the University of Toronto School of Cities actually reveals that corporate headquarters are spread pretty far and wide across the country.

“Our ongoing research projects tracks the location and changing economic geography of Fortune 500 headquarters for the past four decades from 1975 to the present,” Florida said. “Our research has one caveat: it excludes service firms, because back in 1975, they were not included in Fortune’s list.”

Florida points out that while San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C. have gained headquarters, Sunbelt destinations like Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and Miami have too.

New York and Los Angeles may still have the largest number of corporate headquarters, but they have also seen a 17 percent decline each since 1975 to 2017. Chicago saw a 28 percent decline, and Boston, 21.

When ranking growth in headquarters locales, Dallas and Houston rank third and fourth, with 22 and 20 respectively.

The CityLab look also takes a gander at what it calls major mega-regions, giving those regions appellations like “Bosh-Wash,” and “Chi-Pitts.”

The Texas Triangle region, which is Dallas, Houston, and Austin, takes third place when it comes to corporate headquarters, with 53 between the three of them.

IS TEXAS EQUITY RICH, OR UNDERWATER?

Equity-rich mortgaged properties in the U.S. have increased to 14.5 million, ATTOM Data Solutions said this month.

Nearly 26 percent of the 155 million mortgaged properties the report looks at are equity-rich, meaning they have a loan-to-value ratio of 50 percent or lower, giving the property owner at least 50 percent equity.

States with the biggest share of equity-rich properties are California, Hawaii, Washington, New York, and Oregon. States with the most property owners underwater included Louisiana, Mississippi, Iowa, Arkansas, and Illinois.

In Texas, about 28 percent of all mortgage are in that equity-rich sweet spot. About 5 percent are seriously underwater.

TEXAS ECONOMIC EXPANSION COULD BE HEADED FOR A SLOWDOWN