Rent or Own? Three D-FW Suburbs Have Flipped to Renter-Majority

Hmmm. Has homeowning lost its appeal? Maybe. Kinda.

In its latest analysis, RENTCafé determined that three Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs — White Settlement, Lewisville, and Euless — are now renter majority. Those cities have more people handing over monthly checks to landlords and management companies than pay on mortgage loans to financial institutions.

White Settlement, west of Fort Worth, saw its overall renter share jump from 38 percent to 52 percent. Lewisville in Denton County hit 52 percent. Euless, in the Mid-Cities area of Tarrant County, is up to 51 percent. On the cusp is Denton, which had a 48 percent renter share but is expected to reach the renter-majority threshold within five years. Also, Burleson saw its renter share grow from 19 percent to 30 percent and Cedar Hill grew from 20 percent to 29 percent.

RENTCafé compiled newly released Census data to find that, between 2010 and the end of 2019, nearly 80 percent of incoming residents were renters. In that span, suburbs in the nation’s 50 largest metro areas gained 4.7 million people since 2010. Today, nearly 21 million people rent a suburban home in the 50 largest metros, which is 3.7 million more than 10 years ago. In this timeframe, 103 new suburbs flipped to renter-majority and 57 more are expected to make the switch within five years.

In case you’re wondering, Merrifeld, Va., had the largest shift (64.2 percent from 44 percent.

But why the growing preference toward renting and not owning?

You can’t blame mortgage rates. They’ve been at historic lows. You can blame a lack of inventory, sky-high home values, and supply-chain issues. But this is data that ended in 2019.

Most of the renters are Millennials and Gen Zs with 55 percent of suburban renters younger than 45 with median household earnings around $50,000, according to RENTCafé.

Younger and more mobile means today’s renters are taking advantage of the flexibility that technology affords.

“With the increase in remote work, short-term projects, and ‘side hustles,’ there’s every reason to believe that the future will be a more transitory, migratory existence, Dr. Kenneth Laundra, associate professor of sociology at Millikin University, said in RENTCafé’s report.

“Most of this migration will be toward cities and urban landscapes, where even the suburbs will cluster most closely to urban areas.”