Rent Growth Surges in Dallas/Fort Worth-Area Suburbs Reflect Surprising Trend

Suburbs in Dallas/Fort Worth have experienced some of the nation’s largest rises in rent since the beginning of the pandemic, with some rising more than 15 percent.

If you own or manage an apartment complex, that’s a statistic you don’t want to put in your brochure or on your website.

But the flip side: The D/FW area ranked as the 34th-most expensive city to rent, according to the Zumper National Rent Report for June.

According to Zumper, rent nationally is rising sharply now that the vaccine is allowing cities to reopen. Median one-bedroom rents rose 4.9 percent year-over-year, while two-bedrooms rose 6.5 percent. The D/FW is way ahead of that pace.

“For a metro area that embodies the outward lurch of single-family sprawl, much of the growth has come in the suburbs, and not just the ones you would think,” said Jeff Andrews, Data Journalist with Zumper. “The cities in the most inward ring of DFW’s suburbs have seen a surprising amount of growth.”

He has the data to back that up. These year-over-year increases are not from the shining new suburbs of Plano (10.6 percent), McKinney (10 percent), and Frisco (7.8 percent). They’re coming from the old guard — Euless (15.2 percent), Richardson (14.4), Garland (12.8).

Month-over-month, Zumper found that Irving’s one-bedroom median rent rose 5.4 percent compared to the previous month. Plano’s rent rose by 5 percent in June and tied at 33rd nationally with Dallas for one-bedroom rent ($1,250). Nationally, Chandler, Ariz., was up 18.4 year-over-year.

Zumper CEO and co-founder Anthemos Georgiades said it’s a sign that the pandemic is letting up.

“After a year of stagnant growth in rental prices, something we historically have not seen as national rental prices have steadily increased over time, we are now seeing rents rise sharply, which indicates that life is returning to pre-pandemic trends,” Georgiades said.